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An Introductory Guide To NEAR Protocol

Introduction

NEAR Protocol is a smart contract compatible cryptocurrency, a highly scalable and low-cost platform for developers, allowing them to create dApps or decentralized apps for various purposes. In the cryptocurrency space, the competition can turn out to be vicious. Nevertheless, cooperation is also widespread in the crypto space, particularly because it is a new asset class.

Crypto creators and experts have understood that it is highly beneficial to cooperate rather than to compete for the time being. And you will struggle to find any crypto project better than NEAR Protocol when it comes to cooperation in the cryptocurrency space. If you are interested in understanding what NEAR Protocol actually is, including its elements and features, this post will explain everything you need to know about it. Let’s get started.

What is NEAR Protocol?

NEAR or NEAR Protocol is a cryptocurrency blockchain that features smart contract functionality. NEAR Protocol is designed and developed to facilitate the creation of decentralized applications. It is also developer-friendly and is interoperable with Ethereum as well.

Coming down to its functionality, NEAR Protocol uses a block generation mechanism known as ‘Doomslug’ that processes over 100,000 transactions per second and a Sharding mechanism known as ‘Nightshade’ that splits the entire cryptocurrency network into multiple portions. The transaction fees on NEAR Protocol are so low that it requires a special unit of measurement for quantification called ‘yocto.’

Furthermore, the developers at NEAR Protocol are working to make the platform secure enough to handle valuable assets like identity or money. And with the likes of proof of stake, combined with sharding, the platform can prove useful for everyday customers.

How does it work?

NEAR Protocol is a dedicated proof of stake blockchain, which, to optimize performance, uses sharding. Sharding is quite different in NEAR Protocol as compared to other cryptocurrencies. That is, all shards on NEAR Protocol are considered a part of the same network. Using Nightshade, the cryptocurrency is interoperable with ETH using Rainbow Bridge. The Nightshade works to add a single snapshot of each shard’s existing state on the NEAR Protocol blockchain. Each shard has its own set of validator nodes that broadcast the shard’s existing state each time a block is produced.

Elements and Features of NEAR Protocol

NEAR Protocol comes with numerous functionalities that cater to the validators, end-users, and developers differently.

  • NEAR Protocol allows the developers to prepay and sign the transactions in the end-users’ best interest, significantly reducing the need for the users to know about how the decentralized application works and other technical anomalies.
  • It boasts a ‘Progressive UX,’ which is specifically designed for users so that they can use the platform without requiring to use tokens or wallets.
  • When we talk about the validators, NEAR Protocol allows them to create an assortment of offerings for the users.

Conclusion

It is still too early to say whether people will accept NEAR Protocol or will it dethrone Ethereum. But it is certainly not impossible. Given the features and functionalities of the cryptocurrency, it can be said that NEAR Protocol is the future of the cryptocurrency market, especially because it can help create state-of-the-art decentralized applications.

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Is Tezos The Most Robust Cryptocurrency?

Introduction

Tezos is a decentralized, highly secure, transparent, and smart contract enabled blockchain governed by itself. It is a blockchain network associated with a digital token known as Tez or Tezzie (XTZ). Tezos doesn’t mine Tez. Instead, the token holder is rewarded under the consensus mechanism for participating in the proof-of-stake system.

A digital commonwealth group, sharing common interests and goals, is linked together to govern the Tezos platform. Tezos aims to become the most robust cryptocurrency blockchain by working together with its token holders to build more democratic protocol with the time. 

What is Tezos Attempting to Achieve? 

Tezos team wants to develop the most adaptable cryptocurrency project. It provides a token holder with equal governing power and is trying to avoid a hard fork situation. In which a community splits and starts competing with each other like in Bitcoin cash and Ethereum DAO. Tezos is implementing soft forks in which the community regularly updates the blockchain for constant growth. They are using (DAO) Decentralised Autonomous Organization system where every decision is taken after community discussion. This will make this more self amendable and upgradeable system.  

How Tezos Works? 

Tezos uses a proof of stake algorithm, and it can support 40 transactions/second on the network. It uses the Michelson coding language, which proceeds with formal verification to avoid any bugs in the network. To create error fee smart contracts, they use a mathematically provable code. In this network, the stakers are known as bakers.

To make delegate changes, you need to have 10,000 Tezos tokens and a bond. Most probably to make the system more democratic, Tezos has removed the miners to reduce their control power in the network. It is absorbing good elements from different blockchains to make it self-governing, self-evolving, and adaptable. If you notice anything appealing in any other blockchain, you can propose it to the community that approves the change for the Tezos network. 

Tezos Architecture

The protocol is divided into layers:

Network Protocol  – Here, the peer-to-peer communication is done to broadcast the decisions between the nodes.

Transaction Protocol – Here, the blockchain accounting model is implemented. 

Consensus Protocol – This consensus protocol verifies the agreement to confirm transactions. 

The Tezos Accounts

Implicit Account – It’s the most commonly used account. It has a public key and private key held by the account owner to secure the account balance. 

Originated Account – The formally verified smart contract account with the implicit account is known as an originated account.

Tezos Unique Capabilities

  • Self-amending and on-chain governance
  • Formal verification of smart contracts
  • Liquid proof of stake system 

Is Tezos a Good Investment?

Tezos is the youngest of all existing cryptocurrencies and focused upon the chain governance system. They claim to become a future-proof platform through on-chain governance that attracts a huge number of investors. Thus, Tezos seems to be a good investment. The good news is that most of the popular cryptocurrency investors are getting involved in Tezos. We should also consider that they don’t have a clear road map for the future, but the other dominating cryptocurrencies community is working in a specific direction. To conclude, despite Tezos being one of the most robust cryptos out there, its success or failure depends on active community decisions. 

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Is Investing In Binance Coin a Good Decision In 2020?

Introduction

Binance coin is a widely known cryptocurrency made by the Binance exchange. It is by far the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and offers a wide range of crypto-to-crypto pairs. This cryptocurrency runs on the Ethereum blockchain with ERC 20 standard. Binance coin is also responsible for expanding the scope of the operation of the Binance exchange because the currency supports various utilities on the platform like paying for exchange fees, trading fees, listing fees, and other fees that are payable on the Binance exchange. 

It was made available to the users for the first time during an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) on July 25, 2017. Angel investors were offered 10% of the BNB tokens, the founding team was offered 40% of the tokens, and the various other participants were offered the remaining 50% of the tokens through the ICO process. The funds raised through the ICO process were planned to be allocated for various purposes like: 

  • Branding and marketing of Binance
  • Development of the Binance platform.
  • Upgradation of the Binance ecosystem. 

During April 2018, the market cap of the Binance coin was $1.4 billion.

The Binance coin has also collected support with the help of partnerships that have helped the usage period of the coins. One such partnership was done with Uplive, a premier live-video streaming platform of Asia that sells virtual gifts to the users in exchange for BNB tokens to an extensive user base of 20 million on Uplive. 

Is Binance Coin a Good investment or not?

There are a lot of factors that help to determine whether an asset will be a good investment or not. Market structure, daily trade volume, and USPs (Unique Selling Points) are some of the most relevant factors to make this judgment. Market structure can be defined as the macro price activity of an underlying asset. In the case of BNB, the market structure seems promising.

The currency took off in the year 2019 at an approximate price of $6 and climbed its all-time high price of $38.54 as of June 21, 2019. After that, the price has been significantly retraced along with the rest of the cryptocurrency market and has maintained a good price. Also, at any point in time, the price action of BNB coin remains above the key price levels as well as market structure. 

The daily trading volume of BNB is also impressive. At the time of writing this article, the last 24-hour trading volume $2,193,941,846. Apart from the market structure and daily volume, there is an important factor, i.e. tokenomics, that can help to determine whether an asset will be a good investment or not.

Tokenomics means the design of the cryptocurrency and its characteristics that impact its value. These characteristics include game theory, economic incentives, computer science, and cryptography. The tokenomics of Binance coin are very strong. It has been designed in a way that allows easy adoption and utilization, which increases the price of the coin even more. 

Conclusion

Binance Coin (BNB) is a popular cryptocurrency and can always be found ranked on the top 10 spots of the CoinMarketCap platform. It is a leading token in the crypto exchange ecosystem and is utilized on a large scale on the Binance platform. If Binance will continue to invest efforts in expanding the products, it has to offer and onboards new users. Then there won’t be any reason to classify Binance coin under the ‘not a good investment’ category.

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What Should You Know About Instant Crypto Exchanges?

Introduction

Whether we need to buy, sell, or trade crypto, exchanges are the most convenient way to do so. It provides us with several functions that make the work easy. But when we need the task to be done on an immediate basis, we can opt for instant crypto exchanges. With these options, we don’t have to go through the lengthy procedure of buying, selling, or trading crypto. Here are a few benefits that can be obtained from instant crypto exchanges over the traditional methods.

They Are Not-Custodial

In the traditional exchanges, our money will be held on the servers of the exchange. That means the exchange had our money’s custody for a while. This not only extends the transaction time but also put our money at risk. The year 2019 saw twelve crypto exchange hacks, which accounted for over $290 million of funds.

However, there are no such issues with the instant crypto exchanges. As soon as they receive the funds, these instant exchanges deposit the conversion in your wallet immediately. That means you don’t lose custody over your cryptocurrency, and there is no exchange theft associated with it.

They Are Quick

The custodial crypto exchanges require you weeks to get the account approved. By that time, you can’t buy, sell, or trade crypto. But you can do the work fast with the instant option. The name itself indicates that these are “instant” crypto exchanges. So you won’t have to waste much time in getting your currency exchanged. You will have to put only 5 to 60 minutes for each transaction to complete.

Price Aggregation

When you go for the traditional crypto exchanges, you will have to deal with an extensive interface. That is because the entire order book depth and price are shown to make the trade. However, it only includes orders from that particular exchange, and you will have to work accordingly. On the other hand, instant crypto exchanges aggregate multiple exchanges’ price. So you get access to deeper liquidity, and the risk of slippage lowers down.

Fixed/Floating Prices

While making a trade in the conventional exchange, you encounter a specific limit. The system executes a trade only when the prices are at or better than the specified limit. The feature was definitely beneficial, but the instant crypto exchanges have something better to offer. The two options available are:

Floating

When making a transaction, the floating rates get executed at the most excellent possible price. It can be either a little lower or higher than the quoted price.

Fixed

This fixes a specific rate for making the trade. That means, when that price is reached, the system automatically executes the transaction.

Ease Of Use

Last but not least, instant crypto exchanges are effortless to use. If you have already used traditional exchanges, you must be aware of their verification and registration formalities that you need to go through. When it comes to instant crypto exchanges, there are no such issues. You will get registered quickly with an email, and sometimes you can trade without any account or registration.

Examples of Instant Crypto Exchanges

As of today, there are only a few credible and reliable Instant Crypto Exchanges that we can rely on. One of the pioneers in this space would be a well-known exchange called Changelly. With this instant crypto exchange, we get to buy or exchange more than 150 cryptocurrencies. Some of the other popular instant exchanges include CoinSwitch, ChangeNow, FixedFloat, etc. All of these are instant and reliable, so you can confidently make your crypto trades with them.

Bottom line

Though it is quite clear that there are several benefits of opting for instant crypto exchanges, you still need to think twice before using them. This is because of their less sophisticated wallets and heftier exchange fees. You can look up to them and make your mind about whether you want to try them or not.

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How Beneficial Are ‘Watchtowers’ In Diminishing Malicious Activity on Bitcoin LN?

Introduction

The concept of watchtowers was originated from the Lightning Network (LN) and has improved drastically since its launch as Bitcoin’s Lightning Network seems to be growing at a large scale in the P2P payments system.

What are Watchtowers?

Watchtowers are fundamentally an ecosystem of third parties employed by the users to outsource monitoring the on-chain transactions of their lighting channels.

Watchtowers can be related to “watchdogs” of the Bitcoin blockchain that play the role of identifying and penalizing malicious users for cheating other users within the channel. Precisely, they verify whether a participant in a channel has properly broadcasted a prior channel state. If they find it malicious, they can claim back the funds after closing the LN channel with an invalid state.

Since it is a third-party service, they receive funds from their clients. The clients sometimes outsource the channel monitoring to multiple watchtowers, in case of failure from one. The LN channel users must check the status of correlation between off-chain channels and on-chain activity occasionally. Watchtowers 24/7 keep an eye on the security risk posed by any invalid LN channel, however.

How Exactly do Watchtowers Work? 

In simple terms, watchtowers are third parties that monitor their clients’ Bitcoin blockchain all day long. They check for any ambiguity between on-chain and off-chain channels with invalid states.

Here is a basic flow of how watchtower mechanism functions between two users in a common payment channel.

  • Joe sends a few Bitcoins to Jeff and updates the state channel within their channel.
  • Additionally, Joe sends a hint of the transaction to a watchtower to keep an eye on the transaction without disclosing its contents.
  • Moreover, Joe sends her signature to the watchtower to pre-authorize the channel funds, allowing it to be sent back in case of a channel breach.
  • The watchtower then cross-verifies the hints received from the client (Joe) and the Bitcoin blockchain.
  • If the watchtower identifies a channel breach by Jeff through an invalid state broadcast, a penalty transaction is created using Joe’s signature and finally reverses the channel funds back to him.

Hence, Joe is protected from a channel breach without having to be online as it was taken care of by the watchtowers.

Development and Challenges

The watchtower market is still in the development stage and is yet to be accepted in the mainstream as the lighting network is gradually inching into a more extensive P2P payment system using Bitcoin.

That said, researchers and enthusiasts believe that this field will provide a compelling future for LN watchtowers. We are uncertain how much-biased will users be towards using the watchtower services, but for the security assurances they provide, it is worth to be considered.

The service enabled by watchtowers would undoubtedly take away the abstract of complexity in components from the users, but considerable progress in both time and developments is vital when aiming for high-end features in the lighting network.

In conclusion, the fact that watchtowers present a prospective thinking approach to security risks imposed by the evolving Bitcoin indicates a sustainable ecosystem in the future.

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Universal Protocol – A Potential Platform to Connect Digital Assets

Introduction

The Bitcoin blockchain became a success as people realized the power of the decentralized technology. Then came Ethereum, offering many features and abilities in the existing technology. Given the enormous potential of this decentralized technology, it will take platforms like Universal Protocol for blockchain to be widely accepted in society.

The Universal Protocol offers various products and has partnered with well-known firms like Cred, Bitcoin.com, Blockchain at Berkeley, Uphold, and Brave.

The vision of the Universal Protocol

Universal Protocol was created with a vision to connect every possible financial market participant with Cryptocurrencies, be it publicly traded equities worth millions of dollars or merely buying anything from a local departmental store.

Precisely speaking, the Universal Protocol Platform is visioning to attract 100 million new users to the world of Cryptos and facilitate a company or group to make a seamless platform to create digital assets. The goal might seem far-fetched, but present stats show that it has made impressive progress.

Problem and Solution

The Universal Protocol addresses the non-existence of scaled interoperability. The platform allows users instant and seamless transfer of value across various decentralized networks. It mainly provides a common language via which incompatible protocols can ‘reason’ against one another, and at the same time, reduces the time, risk, and cost of exchanging digital assets.

With an advanced architecture for interoperability, the UP platform will allow users to interact with several cryptocurrencies on a single blockchain. The Universal Protocol combines the revolutionary smart contracts and reserve functionality to enable highly secure and convertible proxy tokens through its platform.

Applications and Benefits

As stated by the vision of Universal Protocol, we can affirm that everyone in the financial industry can make use of the platform. Below are some ecosystems where the platform can be employed to make digital assets a part of the everyday financial system.

Financial Institutions

The Universal Protocol tries to solve the custodial challenges that some major financial institutions have faced since the past. The model created by UPP provides single standard compatibility with the help of Proxy Token, which can be used for tokenizing any financial asset. Thus, it will remove the requirement for multiple types of custodial programs, and the institutions will have to print their business logic only once, on Ethereum.

Centralized Exchanges

The process of listing new coins on a centralized exchange is a complex, expensive, and time-consuming process that could take up to months of work. But with the help of the Universal Protocol Platform, centralized exchanges can dramatically streamline the process of listing new cryptocurrencies. With UPP, exchanges will have to add ERC-20 to list proxies representing any digitally tokenized asset.

Innovators

For developers as well, UPP is an excellent tool for innovation. The best part being, developers will only have to deal with one type of network, even if they’re looking to build their blockchain. The Universal Protocol model would ensure system-wide compatibility and also simplify the use of dApps and smart contracts.

Conclusion

The goal of the Universal Protocol is still intact, and apart from that, it has been working on other projects as well. This has hence led to the emergence of new opportunities in the world of blockchain. And we believe that it worth keeping an eye on the further developments on the Universal Protocol Platform.

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‘Howey Test’ & The Role It Plays In The Token Ecosystem Of Blockchain?

Introduction

Blockchain has led to the emergence of the token economy and, thus, new business models. With the help of the token in the business, both the customers and the owners benefit immensely. We have seen two types of token so far, utility and security tokens.

Utility tokens can be compared to loyalty points up to a certain extent while they are much more in the designated environment. Security tokens allow them to own any material/securities in a digital format in a fungible manner. Security tokens allow people to own things in a never before way.

There is a deciding factor that differentiates between security and utility tokens called the Howey test. Utility tokens don’t need any regulatory requirements since it is intended for use in its designated environment only while security tokens represent a real asset in the real-world digitally. Hence security tokens are subject to regulations.

What is the Howey Test?

Howey test is a monumental case handled by the Supreme court of the USA in 1946, which laid foundations to determine whether a particular arrangement involves an investment contract or not. The case was between the SEC and Howey. Two Florida based corporate put up real estate contracts for tracts of land with citrus groves. The defendants came up with an offer where the buyers who bought the land can lease the land back to the defendants who can grow citrus, market them, and make money.

Most of the buyers did lease the land back to the defendants as they weren’t aware of the agriculture. This was deemed illegal by the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and sued the defendants. The arrangement was considered illegal as the defendants broke the law by not filing a securities registration statement with SEC. The defendant’s leaseback was indeed determined as security, and this led to a landmark judgment. Hence this was determined as a test whether a particular transaction is an investment contract or not.

A particular investment can be deemed as an investment contract if it fulfills the below criteria.

  1. It a monetary investment
  2. The investment is made in a common enterprise.
  3. There is an expectation of profit from the work of the promoters or third parties.

Even though the original Howey test used the term money later, it has been broadly classified into other investments and assets other than money. One more criterion is considered in determining a particular investment as security. If or if not, an investor has any control over the profits that come from the investor? If not, then the investment is generally considered as a security.

How the law applies to tokens generated based on blockchain technology?

SES guides that if a token clears all the criteria mentioned above, it can be deemed a security token. If it doesn’t follow, then it can be deemed as a utility token. Security tokens usually derive their value from the external, tradable asset. Hence security tokens are subjected to federal rules and regulations.

If the ICO doesn’t follow all the rules and regulations as prescribed, they are subjected to penalties. If followed, they offer a multitude of investment opportunities that were not possible before. If SEC determines any cryptocurrency as a security token, the founders are deemed to register the coin with SEC, and also, the investors should register their holdings with SEC.

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What are Sidechains & What is their Purpose?

Introduction

Sidechains are mechanisms that enable the transfer of existing tokens or digital assets from a blockchain platform to another blockchain platform. The tokens or digital assets can be transferred back to the original blockchain if required. The primary platform from which we transfer the assets is called the parent chain or main chain, while the other platform is called sidechain. Ardor blockchain calls the sidechain as childchain.

Sidechains have enormous potential to transform the existing issues of scalability in the blockchain platforms. The transfer need not be only digital assets or tokens, but we may transfer computing or for speeding purposes as well, depending on the processing requirements. We can have many sidechains for a single parent chain.

How do they work?

Sidechain is indeed a separate blockchain platform connected with the leading blockchain platform using a two-way peg. The two-way peg is a method to convert one digital token to another type of token like BTC to ETH. The two-way peg facilitates the transfer of digital assets at a predetermined rate. A user on the parent chain first sends coins to an output address so that they can be blocked.

To ensure that these coins aren’t spent elsewhere, a protocol is followed. Once the transaction is complete, the information is sent to all the chains. Some extra period is used to wait as well to increase security. Once this is done, the same number of coins are released in the sidechain for user access and spending. The same process can be repeated when the tokens are to be sent from sidechain to the main chain. Some other entities come into the picture to run the sidechains seamlessly. They are as below.

Federations

A federation can be called as a group or server which acts between the main chain and a side chain. The sidechain creators can decide federation members. They decide on when to lock the coins and release the coins for spending and vice versa.

Security

The core reason for anyone to move to the blockchain platform is security. So, one may question what about the security aspects in the sidechains. Even though they are connected, they are on their own in terms of security. Both platforms are individual blockchain platforms and are very secure individually.

Further, if there is any disturbance in one platform, the disturbance will not be carried out to the other. The sidechains use separate miners from the main chain. They are incentivized using merged mining. Merged mining refers to the mechanism of mining two or more cryptocurrencies at the same time based on the same algorithm.

Platforms using Sidechains 

Rootstock or RSK

RSK has two-way peg connectivity with the Bitcoin platform. RSK’s vision is to enable smart contracts functionality for bitcoin blockchain, increase scalability, thus faster transactions. Miners are rewarded through merged mining. As of now, the platform supports 100 TPS.

Liquid

Liquid sidechain proposes instant movement of funds between exchanges without waiting for the delay in confirmation from the bitcoin blockchain. This is the first commercial sidechain developed by Blockstream.

Advantages of Sidechains

  • Enhances the scalability of the mainchain, thus increasing the number of transactions per second.
  • Need not create a sidechain again and again; once created, they can be used for any purpose.
  • They enable the communication between two different coins, which helps in the testing of beta coins in the sidechain before the official launch.

Conclusion

The scalability issues of blockchain technology are addressed in different ways, but sidechains are very promising. The communication between two different cryptocurrencies paves ways to multiple features. Transactions costs and time will be reduced as the burden is less for the mainchain. The concept is going to create a massive change in the blockchain technology in the upcoming future.

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Usage Of Cryptocurrency In The Gig Economy

Introduction

The global workspace has considerably been changing and evolving. For example, the replacement of automated machines has helped corporations reduce costs on jobs. Back then, people had the idea of staying and working in a single workplace. But, in the younger generation, the idea of moving from one job to another is normal.

Then comes the gig economy that is growing at a great pace. In fact, it has even become the main source of income for many people across the world. And all of this has been made possible by the internet’s feature to connect remote workers with their employers.

In 2018, over one-third of the Europeans and Americans are involved in the gig economy. Presently, the numbers have almost risen to 50%, which has led to pressure in the existing economy to keep up with this rise.

Payment System in Gig Economy

In freelancing, the payment services are quite different from the traditional system. Most freelancers get paid through online digital payment services like PayPal. Before this, people relied on paychecks. But the launch of PayPal has made a great impact on the payment system, especially in the freelancing space.

However, there is a downside to it. For making payments via PayPal, the fee is around 4%, which certainly unreliable for continual large-scale use. Many digital payment providers like PayPal are available, but their charges are still not reasonable for freelancers.

But well, it doesn’t end there. This is when blockchain and cryptocurrencies make their way into the gig economy. Let’s find out how.

Cryptocurrency in Gig Economy

Cryptocurrencies can significantly affect the transaction system in the freelancing field. There are two features cryptocurrencies have to offer that could help ease the payments.

They are - Extremely less transaction fee & Rapid transaction confirmation

These two features, happening to be the most important factors in a transaction, is unavailable in services in PayPal. Also, there has been a rise in blockchain-based platforms for searching and positing freelancing jobs, which has caused a challenge for the existing farm websites.

Also, the growth of the gig economy across the world in recent years has led to Upwork stop accepting registrations for freelancer writers.

How is the world developing?

The development of the gig economy has been slow, yet steady in the Western countries. But it has become a regular job in other emerging countries around the globe. For instance, in 2015, Africans created over 3.1 million new jobs. And in the same year, 12 million youngsters entered the workspace. Hence, these numbers evidently explain the growing gig economy embedded with crypto services in Africa.

In some countries, cryptocurrencies have seen to be more stable than the standard fiat currencies. Though they have regular volatility of 10-15%, it is still a better option than unstable fiat currency as they are prone to hyperinflation.

Conclusion

Many thought the gig economy is something that could take a while to enter, but it is here before than expected. With its steady rise, blockchain and cryptocurrency have increased its rate of rising. Also, this could also lead to norms like PayPal and Upwork to adapt and reduce their existing cost on transactions.

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Use Cases Of Cryptocurrencies In The Cannabis Industry

Introduction

Since the development of cryptocurrencies, the legal cannabis industry and the cryptos have seen to be building a relationship. And that’s because they share quite a lot of stuff in common. For instance, both operate in legal terms, at least in the United States. They have bound to the same challenges in the regulatory, financial, and political domains. In fact, most people involved in the cannabis industry also overlap with the cryptocurrency industry.

Keeping in mind the analogous nature between the two industries, let’s see how they would work if we were to blend them together.

Cryptocurrency and its Difficulties

Since the launch of cryptocurrencies, there have been several issues in adopting it. Though it has numerous benefits when compared to the traditional currencies, the government and the mainstream public are still timid in using it like any other fiat currency.

Having said that, there are a few government regulatory bodies that efficiently approach the cryptocurrencies. There are even some ventures that trust them and find them safe to be stored. The reason for it could be accounted for its current volatility. However, it ends up being in a vicious cycle. The acceptance of cryptocurrency by the merchants is the most challenging part because they are aware of the number of users who are handling them, which is why cryptos have still not practically come into the real business.

The Challenges in the Cannabis Industry

The pot industry, just like the crypto industry, is in the same boat. Both are not illegal but are still problems to become completely legal. Now, for instance, let’s consider only those areas where the cannabis is completely legal for business. That is those states where marijuana is legal and recognized by the US government.

But, with all the support and permission from the government, but it still faces significant challenges. There are only a few banks that offer credits and loans to marijuana manufacturers due to the legality issues it faces and the newness of the market. Now that we know both the industries lie in the same plane, let’s combine them and see its effects.

Cryptos Collaborating with the Cannabis

In consideration of the exclusive features offered by cryptocurrencies, there is great potential for crypto to collaborate with the marijuana industry. With the blockchain technology, the industry is offered with payment method who find the traditional system unsecured as mentioned by Satoshi Nakamoto on the whitepaper that cryptocurrencies backed with blockchain clear out all third-party intermediaries and provide a one-to-one secure transaction between the sender and the receiver.

The association between the two might look like a bizarre match, but in reality, they go hand in hand. Cannabis can use the blockchain technology as a store of value and also as a main source for medium for transactions. As it eliminates the intermediaries, the handling of cash becomes much easier and efficient.

Real World Use Cases

There are several projects that are being laid based on the idea of utilizing blockchain in the Marijuana industry. The growth of these coins happened in 2014. The most reliable and popular ones include:

PotCoinCannabisCoinDopeCoinHempCoinCannaCoin

Having said that, none of them have achieved widespread adoption yet. The basic use case of all the coins is the same – enabling marijuana distributors, and related industries with a common medium of exchange. Both cannabis and cryptos are not entirely legal in almost every part of the world. However, the blend between the two has definitely made things better, at least in terms of security in payment.

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What Are Pump and Dump Schemes in Cryptocurrency?

Introduction

Cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technology are relatively new to the financial markets. This makes them vulnerable to the traditional scams that used to take place on stock and some new ones. Since cryptocurrencies are not regulated by the exchange board, it makes them more prone to scam and schemes than regulated securities.

Out of the many scams around, the most common scam is the so-called pump-and-dump. It originated from the stock market, but the issue was rectified and made illegal on regulated exchanges. However, the cryptocurrency market is not immune to it.

The pump-and-dump schemes are such that they put every rise or fall in the market a question mark. So, a genuine investor would be unaware of the rise was being pumped or was shooting up for real.

The working of Pump-and-dump schemes

The actors behind the scene of pump-and-dump schemes are well-organized groups working over some private messenger. They are referred to as the inner core investors, who basically shoot up the volume of a coin by targeting a single exchange. To do so, they even take the help of whales as well. The coin under target must be of low volume so that the core can lock up as much liquidity at the price they intend. Moreover, they make sure that liquidity is relatively small.

By this, most part of the inner core investor is done. And that’s when the outer core investors kick in. These are the investors who have no clue of the planned pump-and-dump. Once the pump is implanted, all the actors in the scene, mostly the outer core investors, get buying. There are also unaware flocks who see a drastic rise and began to buy as a cause of FOMO. This drives the prices much higher and more swiftly.

Once the price anticipated by the inner core actors is reached, they step back into the business. In other terms, they initiate their dumping. Since they are the first ones to short sell, they get the best price available. Then there are the outer investors who were left scammed, sitting with huge positions looking to sell at higher prices. But the dumping brings it down. Hence, this leaves the investors harmed as well as the integrity of the coin been pumped and dumped.

The pump-and-dump has been annihilated from the stock market and other regulated exchanges. However, the haunting in cryptocurrencies or non-regulated exchanges is still in existence. With this into account, the U.S Commodity Futures Trading Commission warned people about these schemes in virtual currencies. Click the image to learn more.

Conclusion

Pump-and-dump are schemes that cannot be put to a stop in the cryptocurrency space due to its non-regulated nature. The only way to get away with it is to avoid trading cryptos with very low liquidity and low volume. Or you may research the coin on its rise and fall and predict if the move is real or just an illusion.

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Forex Assets

‘LTC/USD’ – Understanding The Crypto/Fiat Pair & Trading Costs Involved

Introduction

Cryptocurrencies are traded in pairs by pairing them with a fiat currency. Always, the cryptocurrency is written on the left and the fiat currency on the right. LTC/USD is a cryptocurrency, which is an abbreviation for the Litecoin versus the US Dollar. Like the Bitcoin and Ethereum, Litecoin is extensively traded in the exchange market.

Understanding LTC/USD

The market price of LTCUSD depicts the value of the US Dollar, which is equivalent to 1 Litecoin. It is quoted as 1 LTC per X USD. For example, if the value of LTCUSD is 41.69, then one Litecoin is worth 41.69 US Dollars.

LTC/USD specifications

Spread

Spread is the difference between the bid and the ask price in the market, where bid price is given considered when shorting a pair and ask price when going long on a pair. The varies from broker to broker. It also differs based on the type of execution model used. Below are the spreads for the LTC/USD pair for both ECN & STP accounts.

  • Spread on ECN: 50 pips (0.5 USD)
  • Spread on STP: 60 pips (0.6 USD)

Fee

ECN brokers charge some commission on every position a trader opens and closes. The fee for ECN accounts is about $0.18 per standard lot, which corresponds to 18 pips.

Slippage

Slippage is the difference between the price asked by the user and the price given by the broker. There is this difference due to two reasons – High market volatility & broker’s execution speed.

Trading Range in LTC/USD

Below is the trading range table for the LTCUSD, which represents the minimum, average, and maximum volatilities of a pair for different timeframes using the ATR indicator. These values can prove to be helpful for assessing one’s profit/loss on a trade.

Procedure to assess Pip Ranges

  1. Add the ATR indicator to your chart
  2. Set the period to 1
  3. Add a 200-period SMA to this indicator
  4. Shrink the chart so you can assess a large time period
  5. Select your desired timeframe
  6. Measure the floor level and set this value as the min
  7. Measure the level of the 200-period SMA and set this as the average
  8. Measure the peak levels and set this as Max.

LTC/USD Cost as a Percent of the Trading Range

The cost as a percent of the trading range represents the variation of cost on a trade based on the change in the volatility of the market. And these variations are indicated as a percentage. Using the magnitude of the percentages, we shall determine the ideal times of the day to trade this coin.

ECN Model Account

Spread = 50 | Slippage = 5 |Trading fee = 18

Total cost = Slippage + Spread + Trading Fee = 18 + 50 + 5 = 73

STP Model Account

Spread = 60 | Slippage = 5 | Trading fee = 0Total cost = Slippage + Spread + Trading Fee = 5 + 60 + 0 = 65

Trading the LTC/USD

LTCUSD is a crypto-fiat pair that has got enough volatility and liquidity to trade in the market. LTC is the fourth highest traded coin in terms of volume. However, it is not apt to trade anytime during the day. There are ways through which one reduces their costs for the same trade.

In the above table, if the percentages are high, then the costs are very high and vice versa. So, the cost is more for low volatile markets and less for high volatile markets. If you are a scalper or short-term trader, you may trade when the volatility is high as the profit margin is small, and you can avoid high costs.

Positional traders – these traders usually aim for large movements, and high costs become a little insignificant for their big pip movements. So, such traders may trade when the volatility is around the average values. Finally, it is not advisable to trade during low volatilities because the costs are high, and there is barely any movement in the market.

Slippage is a variable in total costs that can be eliminated by placing orders as ‘limit’ or ‘stop.’ We hope you found this analysis on LTCUSD useful. Stay tuned for more informative content. Cheers.

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Crypto Guides

What Problems Do Stable (cryptocurrency) Coins Solve?

Introduction

We have learnt a lot about cryptocurrencies and their properties in our previous guides. Even though this financial instrument has gone through a lot of up & down in the last three years of the past decade, many financial experts believe that this asset class can still be considered a potential investment. Some experienced crypto traders believe that Bitcoin, at its peak (~$18,000 in Dec 2017), is still undervalued. This is because of the strong fundaments Bitcoin possesses. Not just Bitcoin, the entire crypto market has enormous investment potential in this decade.

The Need for Stable Coins

But there is one thing that concerns both short-term and long-term crypto investors – which is undoubtfully the volatility. Most of the cryptos currently present in the market possess huge volatility. This is one crucial reason why most of the investors are not confident enough to invest in this space. This volatility is also the reason why cryptos cannot be used as a standard medium of exchange. Hence the need for a Stable Currency or Stable Coin has risen.

A Stable Coin is a currency that has all the critical properties of typical crypto while achieving price stability. This stability in price is achieved by pegging their value to the major fiat currencies like USD & Euro in a 1:1 ratio. One of the very first and famous stable coins is Tether, and its value is pegged to USD. So the value of one Tether (₮) is always equal to one US Dollar ($). The main goal of any stable coin is to achieve maximum decentralization while maintaining price stability. But in the case of Tether, even though it has most of the properties of crypto, it is highly scrutinized ever since it is pegged with the USD.

Significance of Stable Currency

Stable Currency, as the name suggests, provides both short-term & long-term stability for the traders and investors. Short-term stability allows users to make day to day transactions just like fiat currencies. While the long-term stability provides confidence for the investors to include these stable coins in their portfolio. For instance, in the case of extreme bear markets, crypto traders and investors must need some stable storage where they can protect their portfolio from significant losses. The only other way is to convert all these cryptos to desired fiat currencies and convert back to crypto again once the downtrend is over. This sounds redundant. Isn’t it?

But with the help of stable coins in their portfolio, investors can just trade the cryptos that are bleeding for stable coins and hold them without having to worry about the volatility. Apart from the investment point of view, stable coins can also help short-term crypto traders to confidently keep their profits that they have gained within the exchange wallets (in the form of stable coins). But in the absence of stable coins, they will have to continuously worry about them losing their profit value due to the high volatility.

If you are interested in adding stable coins to your portfolio, we have mentioned some of the most promising ones below.

TetherMakerDAOTrue USDCarbon

Many stable currency projects like these have come to existence after Tether, and some of them showed promising results. However, a completely decentralized stable coin that can be used for day-to-day transactions securely is yet to come.

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Crypto Guides

These Industries Have the Most Acceptance Of Cryptocurrencies

Introduction

It ain’t a surprise anymore that the cryptocurrency market is taking over several industries. Yes, it did have ups and downs but has still managed to grow at an exponential rate. In recent years, more and more people are opting to use cryptos as an alternative for fiat currencies. In the present date, there are just under 5000 cryptocurrencies listed on CoinMarketCap.

This decentralized currency has been disrupting quite a number of businesses. As they are decentralized, there are many uses of it in many fields. In the article, we have listed out some of the real-life examples of industries that are already implementing cryptocurrencies in their businesses.

Where and how are cryptocurrencies being used?

✈️ Travel Industry

The traveling industry has been using Bitcoin for quite a lot of time. There are companies that have been accepting payments in the form of Bitcoins. A great example of this would be Cheapair.com, a travel booking company, which has been accepting payments in the form of Bitcoins for booking flight tickets, hotels, car rentals and cruises since 2013. This is a great feature enabled by Cheapair.com, as it is hassle-free for customers to book tickets from anywhere in the world.

🏠 Real Estate

Ever thought one could buy houses with cryptocurrency as a mode of payment? Well, this is true. ‘Propy.com‘ is the world’s first international blockchain-based payment real estate that accepts Bitcoin as payment for buying properties. ‘Mycoinrealty.com‘ is another real estate firm which has the facility to purchase homes using Bitcoins. A few real-life examples for the same would be the purchase of a villa in Indonesia worth 1000 BTC in 2014, a home in Vegas amounting to 157,000 BTC, and 3 acres of land in Paradise Bay.

🕸️ Social Media

Back then, social media was the place where one could share their thoughts and feelings. But now, things have changed; as in, the social media space has grown to the extent that one can earn from these websites. There is a social media website that has been helping people in the career circle. ‘Vanywhere‘ is one such social media website that implements blockchain in its technology. This is a gig economy platform that uses the blockchain network to connect users with some specialized skills to those users who are in need of those particular skills. The transactions here are performed through cryptocurrencies.

🎮 Gaming Industry

Cryptocurrencies are spread over the gaming space as well. Cryptocurrencies in the gaming industry are not just a concept but is a real-life application. There are online gaming platforms that transact using cryptocurrency. A great example would be the ORB project. This is a game that enables players to cash their in-game assets into other assets, including cryptocurrency. This cryptocurrency can then be exchanged for fiat currencies if needed.

Bottom Line

These are only a few of the many industries where cryptos have maximum acceptance. From the above real-life examples, it is evident that cryptocurrency is a factor for the evolution of several industries in the market. Be it social or economic, it is playing a pretty decent role in revolutionizing the world. The expectation of blockchain & cryptocurrency is quite high. And it is no doubt that this technology is going to disrupt many other industries in the years to come. Cheers.

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Crypto Guides

Do Cryptocurrencies Have The Potential To Be An Alternative Financial System?

Introduction

Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency, bought a notion of decentralization in the market. Initially, it had a slow start, but later as the public began to understand the working of decentralized markets & the interest towards cryptos has increased. Its been ten years since Bitcoin’s inception, and currently, close to five thousand cryptocurrencies are existing in the market. The total market capitalization of all the cryptocurrencies combined is close to $195 Billion as of Dec 2019. The 24-hour transaction volume is around $78 Billion.

This kind of volume is enormous, but it can nowhere be compared to the gazillion amounts transaction volume that takes place in the Forex market. So it is safe to say there is a lot more that cryptos have to do to compete with the current financial system directly. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have the potential to do so. Hence, in this article, let’s discuss the pros of the decentralized financial system of cryptos and the cons of centralized current financial systems.

A bright future ahead?

Cryptocurrencies have features which prove to the extent that they do have room for being replaced with fiat currencies. The most crucial point of consideration is that cryptos cannot be quite easy as the fiat currencies, thanks to their decentralized and unregulated status. The technology that makes this possible is the blockchain network.

Moreover, cryptocurrencies could support the concept of universal basic income much better than the fiat currencies. In fact, some programs have already set an example by using cryptocurrencies as a means of distributing a universal basic income. Furthermore, cryptocurrencies could remove the existence of intermediaries in everyday transactions. This would eventually cut costs for businesses and help out the consumers.

Advantages Of Decentralized Financial Systems

✔️ Fraud prevention

Cryptocurrencies are powered by blockchain, which is an open-source ledger. Every single is recorded and recorded and verified through a consensus algorithm, so it is almost impossible to tamper with any transactions. This indeed is an enormous benefit of the decentralized financial system.

✔️ Shielded from government meddling

Decentralized financial systems, such as the cryptocurrencies, are not controlled by the government, central bank, or any other government body. This is a great advantage because when government meddles with currencies, it creates inflations or hyperinflation by devaluing, debasing, or printing too much currency in a short period of time.

✔️ Faster transactions

Decentralized-based cryptocurrency transactions are often much, much faster than the bank transactions. For bank wire transfers, the transaction time is around two days. But, in the case of cryptocurrencies transfers, it takes not more than a few minutes.

Disadvantages Of Centralized Financial System

❌ Regulations & Transaction Cost

There are limitations placed on how much of funds one can withdraw in a day & in a month. For instance, in the US, $2000 is the maximum withdrawal limit, and in some banks, it is less than $500. But when it comes to cryptos, it doesn’t matter. One can transfer any amount of funds without having to worry about the limits. Also, when it comes to the transaction cost, crypto transactions are way too cheaper than the typical bank fee.

❌ Payment Delays & Human Errors

Bank wire transfers typically take 1-5 days for the transactions to get processed. It also depends on various factors like the place from where you are sending money to. This is because each of the countries will have their own banks and hence different regulations. But cryptocurrencies do not have geographical boundaries like this. Transactions get executed almost immediately irrespective of where you live. Also, there is a possibility of the occurrence of minute errors as there is human involvement. But in the case of cryptos, users just have to copy-paste the corresponding address to perform their transactions. By doing this, there is very little chance of the occurrence of human errors.

Final Conclusion

The answer to the question ‘Do Cryptocurrencies Have The Potential To Be An Alternative Financial System?’ is NO as of today. But they do have the potential to be so. As of today, central banks are extremely powerful, and they can not be replaced with the current technology. One thing that we are sure about is that the cryptos have made an impact, and they have grabbed the attention of most of the central banks. We have also seen some of the central banks adopting blockchain technology to issue their own coins. So the most plausible prediction is that cryptocurrencies may play an active, supportive role in making the traditional banking processes extra cheaper, more transparent, and faster.

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Crypto Guides

Blockchain Technology – The Fundamental Aspect Of Most Of The Cryptocurrencies

Introduction

In this crypto guide, we have seen various articles about cryptocurrencies so far. In this article, let us examine the underlying technology, which essentially enables the working of these cryptocurrencies. It is none other than the revolutionary blockchain technology. Bitcoin and blockchain terminologies have been synonymous for a long time, but not anymore. The true potential of blockchain is realized in the past decade, and its applications are being widespread in many industries currently. The adoption is still in its nascent stage, like any other new technology in its initial days. The industries which have adopted the technology are reaping benefits in millions if not in billions already. So, it is important for us to understand what this technology is all about.

What is blockchain?

Blockchains are open global distributed ledgers, which are necessarily a chain of blocks. These blocks contain transactions or records bundled together with encryption techniques called cryptographic hash functions to form a blockchain. This is the simple definition of blockchain. The concept is as simple as it sounds, but it revolutionized the way the records are maintained in any industry.

Blockchain platforms are peer-to-peer networks. Making the ledger open and distributed; this means everyone involved in the system will have a copy of the ledger. The transactions being committed in the network are validated using a consensus algorithm. Say a block has a capacity of 1 MB of transactions, these transactions are verified and sealed in a block. This new block is linked to its previous block using cryptographic techniques. Once the block is linked in the blockchain to the last block, the contents of this block can never be changed. This property is called ‘immutability,’ a significant feature of blockchain.

What are these cryptographic hash functions?

Cryptographic hash functions are standard algorithms designed by the National Security Agency (NSA) of the USA. Any information can be sent through this algorithm, and the output we get is the hash of the input, and it is a unique value. Every block in the blockchain is linked to its previous block using the hash value of the last block. This hash value of a block is generated by all the transactions of a block plus the hash of the previous block. Thus, if we make any change in a block that is mined already, the hash value of that block is changed. All the blocks before that block would be disturbed. Thus, the property of immutability comes into the picture. This is the basics of how blockchain technology works in general.

Different blockchain platforms:

Since realizing the true potential of blockchain, different blockchain platforms are developed for various industrial use cases.

Hyperledger platforms: These platforms are developed for cross-industry applications. It is an umbrella of open source platforms like Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Sawtooth, Hyperledger Iroha, and so on, designed for each industrial use.

Ethereum: Ethereum is, again, a platform developed to deploy self-executed contracts known as smart contracts. Also, a platform to create decentralized apps (Dapps) to use the blockchain functionalities in everyday apps we use.

R3 Corda: This is a consortium of around 300 different firms working together in the financial background to nurture and develop the technology to revolutionize the financial sector.

These are only some of the various platforms in use today.

Bottom line

Blockchain, as a technology, has a vast potential to revolutionize many industries. Blockchain developers will be required on a massive scale in the coming future to bridge the gap and to fulfill the requirements. The world where privacy is at stake at the moment, blockchain is a savior to ensure our privacy and security of digital information.

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Crypto Guides

Learning The Fundamentals Of ‘Tether’ – The Stable Cryptocurrency!

Introduction

Tether is a cryptocurrency founded in 2015, and it was initially known as ‘Realcoin.’ Tether tokens are issued by Tether Limited, a company based in the British Virgin Islands as per the New York Times. The official website says the company is incorporated in Hong Kong, with offices in the US. This company is associated with the Bitfinex, a Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange, which is also one of the biggest in the world. Many members who are on the board of Tether Limited are associated with Bitfinex exchange, as well.

Objective

The value of any cryptocurrency is volatile. We can see the steep increases and decreases in the value of any crypto within a matter of days or hours, as well. We know that these Cryptocurrencies offer a wide range of features that fiat currencies don’t assure.  Therefore, Tether was designed as a stable coin promising the stability of fiat currency with the features of a cryptocurrency as well. Tether is meant to be backed one for one by some of the major fiat currencies like USD, Euro, JPY, etc. If we take the example of USD, the value of each Tether is always one dollar (USDT). For every one tether created, one US dollar is stored as a reserve.

Importance of Tether in the crypto world

Many crypto exchanges across the globe find it extremely difficult to work with traditional banks. The exchanges find it challenging to store USD or any conventional fiat currency as reserves for the payments. Hence major crypto exchanges like Bitfinex hold clients balance in Tether rather than in USD. This means, if the clients hold any money in the exchange and don’t have any open positions, that money is held as Tether in the exchange. It is converted into USD only when the client wants to redeem the cash. Hence Tether offers to be a stable alternative for USD for the crypto exchanges across the world.

Market Cap

Tether is in the fifth position in terms of market cap in the crypto world with a value of more than $4 billion. The price of each Tether is stable and is one dollar or Euro, etc. as described above. The average 24-hour trading volume is just above $43 billion, while the circulating supply is around $4.1 billion in the market as on 1st Nov 2019.

Controversies

Tether has a fair share of controversies in its kitty. As the central banks hold the appropriate amount of gold reserves equivalent to the new currency issued in the market, Tether Limited holds the equivalent amount of US Dollars in its reserve for the Tether coins circulated in the market. Lately, there are claims that the company doesn’t hold enough reserves in USD, claiming Tether Ltd haven’t been too transparent with the audits as to where and how much of the reserves have been stored in different places.

The December 2017 Bitcoin price surge is also attributed to be the work of the Tether limited. It is alleged that the company has created Tether coins out of thin air and bought Bitcoin at a lower price, eventually attributing the price surge of the currency. Thus, there are growing fears in the crypto market that if there are no adequate reserves of USD backing the Tether, the value of the coin should be determined by the market rather than maintaining it stable. Despite all these controversies, this cryptocurrency is still one of the most traded ones in the crypto space because of its stability factor.

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Crypto Guides

Litecoin – Short guide to The Bitcoin Of Altcoins!

Introduction

Litecoin is an early Bitcoin spinoff as it was started in October 2011. It was created by Charlie Lee, who was a Google employee and a former director at Coinbase. Litecoin is a peer to peer cryptocurrency released via an open-source client through Github under the MIT/X11 license. It is one of the most commonly traded coins in the world of cryptocurrency and has a market value of billions. Forked initially from Bitcoin protocol, Litecoin takes the underlying source code from Bitcoin and making specific changes to increase the transaction speed of the network.

Objective

Litecoin is famously called silver to the bitcoin’s gold, i.e., in the world of cryptocurrency; if bitcoin is gold, then Litecoin is like silver. Mainly Litecoin was developed to overcome the shortcomings of Bitcoin. When it comes to the block time (the time taken to generate a block), Litecoin takes 2.5 mins to create a block while bitcoin takes 10 mins for the same. Hence, the Litecoin network is four times faster than the Bitcoin network.

Consensus Used

Litecoin uses a proof of work algorithm called Scrypt. Unlike Bitcoin’s Proof of work algorithm (SHA 256), Scrypt is more efficient as it prevents customization for hardware solutions and favors high-speed random-access memory. Hence miners find it easy to mine without much complexity as this algorithm allows them to use central processing units or graphics processing units.

Market Capitalization

Litecoin is in sixth place in terms of market cap in the cryptocurrency world with $3.9 Billion value while the price of each coin is at $61.70 as of October 27th, 2019. 63.5 million number of coins are in circulation in the market with 24-hour trading volume as $4.3 Billion.

Price History

Litecoin was traded first with a price of $4.30 in April 2013. By November 2013, it was selling at a double-digit price of $35.78. The form then has seen a continuous downfall and maintained a moderate standard rate until April 2017. It had seen a slow and steady rise from April 2017 with $10.28 to $297.18 in Jan 2018. The coin has yet again seen a downfall in 2018, with a price of $30.99 by December 31st, 2018. This crypto has been performing well in 2019 when compared to the previous year, with its highest rate in the year with $145.45 in June 2019. Industry experts are bullish about the growth of the coin due to its transaction speed and other vital properties.

Total number of Coins

Cryptocurrencies have a cap when it comes to production. While Bitcoin has a cap of 21 million coins, Litecoin has a cap of 84 million coins, which means only 84 million Litecoins can be ever mined from the network.

Rewards

For running and maintaining the network, the miners are rewarded for each block generated. Litecoin network rewards the miners with 25 Litecoins for every block generated. However, the reward gets halved for every 8,40,000 blocks made. In August 2019, the network halved the rewards as the milestone was reached, and hence the reward as of now per block is only 12.5 LTC.

Bottom line

The main aim of any cryptocurrency is to stabilize itself as a medium of exchange. While Litecoin has approximately around 100,000 users, it is nowhere near to be the standard medium of exchange amongst the cryptocurrencies. Still, as the usage of cryptocurrencies increases, Litecoin holds an excellent position to attain the place due to its transaction speed.

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Crypto Guides

What Is Market Capitalization? Top Cryptocurrencies With Highest Market Cap!

Introduction

Market capitalization is estimated for publicly traded companies in general to determine the value of that company. The value is calculated based on the total number of outstanding shares in the market multiplied by the individual share price. In simple words, the market cap is nothing but the market value of a publicly trading company.

Initial Public Offering (IPO)

Initial Public Offering or IPO’s are widely known. Companys which issue IPOs are publicly trading companies willing to raise capital for investing in the business to diversify and expand the company. When a company issues IPO, it agrees to sell a certain stake of the company to the public to raise the company. There are many successful IPO’s since 1602, when the first-ever IPO was recorded. Global companies like Amazon and Apple crossed one trillion-dollar in market cap, making them powerful than some smaller countries.

Initial Coin Offering (ICO)

Similar to IPOs, we have ICOs called Initial Coin offering with regards to cryptocurrencies. ICOs help crypto companies to raise funds that will be invested in creating a new coin, service, or dApps. These companies generally release a white paper detailing the aim of the ICO, minimum capital they intend to raise, and the basic design and properties of the product they are trying to create. Many investors plan to invest in ICOs to make quick bucks and earn tremendous profits. The result of some of the prominent ICOs promises the same.

Hence, the market cap of a cryptocurrency is determined by the number of outstanding coins in the market multiplied by the individual value of a coin.

Now, let’s look at the top 10 cryptocurrencies in terms of market capitalization.

  1. Bitcoin (Market Cap – $146.1 BN)

Bitcoin is the first-ever cryptocurrency, and it is obvious that this crypto tops the list in terms of market cap. The market cap of Bitcoin is $146,141,293,771, with the total number of coins in circulation being almost 18 million. As we all know, only 21 million Bitcoins can ever be mined.

  1. Ethereum (Market Cap – $19.1 BN)

Ethereum rightly earned its second place as it was developed to overcome the limitations of bitcoin, and it has become the second favorite amongst the investors. The market cap of Ethereum is around $19,191,075,792 with 108,182,195 coins in circulation.

  1. Ripple (Market Cap – $12.8 BN)

Ripples XRP takes third place with $12,833,995,058 as a market cap. The total number of coins in circulation is around 43,166,787,298. This crypto earned its credibility by gaining support from some of the most powerful centralized institutions like Federal Reserva.

  1. Tether (Market Cap – $4.1 BN)

Tether has been developed to be a stable coin, i.e., the price will always be maintained as one dollar. This coin has been developed to have the stability of fiat currency while having the key properties of cryptocurrency. The market cap of Tether is $4,121,497,986, with 4,108,044,456 coins being circulated in the market.

  1. Bitcoin Cash (Market Cap – $3.9 BN)

Bitcoin cash is created by forking the main Bitcoin platform. The market cap is around $3,956,035,700 with 18,061,950 number of coins in the market.

  1. Litecoin (Market Cap – $3.4 BN)

Litecoin is a spinoff of Bitcoin, thus earning the name of altcoin, which means alternate coin (to bitcoin). Around 63,484,804 Litecoins are currently circulating in the market.

Some of the other cryptos with high market cap include

Binance Coin (Market Cap – $2.8 BN)

EOS (Market Cap – $2.7 BN)

Bitcoin SV (Market Cap – $1.5 BN)

Stellar (Market Cap – $1.3 BN)

All the above information is as of 16th October 2019. For real-time figures, you can visit this website.

The adoption and usage of cryptocurrencies will only increase in the future as they are here to stay. At the peak of the bitcoin price in December 2017, the market cap of all the cryptocurrencies was around 125 billion dollars, and as of today, it is 221.3 billion dollars. Given the history, the market cap of all the cryptocurrencies can quickly reach a trillion dollars in the near future.

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Crypto Guides

Why Do We Need Cryptocurrencies? What Is Their Purpose?

Introduction

Cryptocurrencies are digital tokens used in the place of conventional fiat currency for the exchange of goods and services. The digital tokens are generated and regulated using encryption techniques called cryptographic hash functions, ensuring security and anonymity.

Why do we need cryptocurrency?

We are living in the digital era, where everything around us is changing swiftly. Not only our phones are smart now, but also our homes. We can speak and see people using video calls at a very cheap rate now. With virtual reality, we can create a different world around us by sitting on a couch. All of these weren’t even possible just a decade ago. But technological innovation has bought us to where we are today. We are amid the fourth industrial revolution today, which fundamentally changes the way we live, work, and relate to each other. Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Blockchain technologies pave the way for the same. Hence came the age of digital currencies, and they are transforming the way we transact with each other throughout the world.

Let us see in a particular way below on how cryptocurrencies can solve the problems that our traditional fiat currencies cannot solve.

Fraudulent currency

Cryptocurrencies solve the issue of fraudulent currencies. As they are generated and regulated using cryptographic hashing techniques, it is highly impossible to create counterfeit currencies. They are not being minted to create a hard copy of the same type with the same feature. These digital tokens are stored in the blockchain platform, where there is no worry of duplicity.

Double spending

The concept of digital currencies was there even before Bitcoin, but they couldn’t be attained in reality. The obstacle was the double-spending. A digital asset shouldn’t be spent twice to different persons at the same time. Today’s cryptocurrencies operate on blockchain technology. Blockchain technology effectively deals with the double-spending problem as there is a validation procedure involved using a consensus mechanism.

Transferring funds

We can transfer vast amounts of funds to any country around the world in less than 10 minutes. There is no limit to the transaction. The transaction fees are low when we compare with the traditional transaction charges. It takes around 3 to 5 days when we transact using a fiat currency of that size. Taking this much time is not efficient in this age of digital, and cryptocurrencies came to the rescue.

Decentralized network

Cryptocurrencies are generated in a decentralized network without any central bank controlling the system. Since there is no one controlling it, the currency will be stable if the credibility and maintenance of the system are good.

Bottom line

It is time for us to at least try using these cryptocurrencies. Traditional currencies are not going anywhere in the near future, but some credible cryptos are already proving their purpose by solving the problems that fiat currencies couldn’t solve.  Governments have also recognized the huge benefits that these currencies offer and are making or changing laws to favor cryptocurrencies. Not many governments have regulated these digital tokens yet, but the move has started.

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Crypto Guides

The Evolution & Properties Of Cryptocurrency!

Introduction

We could say that the type of currencies we use today is employed as a medium of exchange for goods and services. In the olden days, transactions used to happen in the barter system. Barter system implies that goods are exchanged for goods. With this system, it took time to trade products and services as it is challenging to find people to accept their goods for the goods they want. Hence came the era of coins in gold or some other metal with a denomination printed on it. As some standard is associated with it, the trading of goods and services has become easy. Then came the paper notes making it easy to carry large amounts of cash, which was not possible with coins. We are this point where these paper notes are known as currencies. Each country has its respective currency (The US Dollar, Japanese Yen, Indian Rupee, etc.)

Evolution Of Cryptocurrency

Even though the purpose of the money didn’t change much, the way we use it kept changing throughout history. Banks came into existence to ease out the financial transactions. They played a significant role in global trade in terms of transferring money across different countries, thus improving the economy of each country. Physically minted cash would be less than 10% of the entire currency in the world. Remaining exists in the form of virtual currency as electronic money in online accounts. Central banks in each country control these accounts. Since power is vested within these financial institutions, the entire banking process is centralized. Hence the necessity of an alternative currency has emerged. These are termed as cryptocurrencies, and the primary purpose of their invention is to create a decentralized currency system where the entire network is not controlled by anyone at all.

What Are Cryptocurrencies?

Cryptocurrencies are digital or virtual currencies where cryptographic techniques are used to generate the units of currency and monitor the transfer of funds without a central bank. Thus, making it a decentralized way of producing and using money.

Cryptocurrencies are generated by using a blockchain platform that uses distributed ledger technology. The first-ever cryptocurrency that has come into existence is The Bitcoin in 2009, though the white paper related to this concept was released in October of 2008. Thus, 2009 signals the beginning of the era of cryptocurrency. There has been no looking back since then.

Properties Of Cryptocurrency

The three fundamental features of cryptocurrencies are Trustlessness, Immutability, and Decentralization. Let us understand these properties using the example of Bitcoin.

Trustless

Though the word trustless creates confusion to the readers, it merely means there is no need not trust anyone or anything to send or accept a cryptocurrency. If we say an environment is trustless, that means there is no need for you to trust anyone in the network. The Bitcoin network is a trustless environment. There was no currency before Bitcoin that was not monitored by a central bank. Every node in the blockchain network has a copy of the ledger; thus, there is no need to trust any authority.

Immutability

Immutability means that it cannot be undone. It is highly improbable to rewrite the history of the transactions in Bitcoin blockchain. Since all the transactions are recorded in the blockchain, the cryptographic techniques make it highly impossible to change any transactions. If any fraudulent transactions happen in the case of our bank accounts, the banks have the authority to change the transaction. But in the case of cryptocurrency, it is not possible. Thus, removing the concept of centralization and trust from these digital currencies.

Decentralization

It is the keyword when it comes to cryptocurrencies. Decentralization offers different types of tolerances. Tolerance concerning the infrastructure, component failures, hacking, and collusions. In the Bitcoin network, the ledger where the transactions are recorded is distributed among every node in the network. Any component failures don’t cause any problem to the functioning of the network. Hacking the blockchain is extremely difficult and a costly process. When it comes to traditional banking, individual entities can collide with each other to make profits at the expense of loss to others. This plot is not possible in the case of a cryptocurrency network, thus offering tolerance to collusion. Apart from all of these, there are many more advantages of a decentralized system over a centralized banking network.

Bottom Line

Therefore, Cryptocurrencies offer plenty of opportunities in today’s digital world, which traditional currency couldn’t provide. We will be further discussing the purpose of cryptocurrency and more properties of cryptocurrency in our upcoming articles. Stay Tuned. Cheers!

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Crypto Market Analysis

Today´s Events 23/6/2018

You can find here all the news about the upcoming hard fork, releases, exchange listings,  updates, conferences, new launches, etc. We gather the most relevant events and conferences for you to pick from.


Today´s Events 23/6/2018


Red Pulse (RPX) — AMA on YouTube
Sharpe Capital (SHP) — Qryptos Exchange Listing
MaidSafeCoin (MAID) — Meetup in Melbourne
Categories
Forex Market Analysis

Consolidation In The Crypto Market

Cryptocurrencies have been stagnant and without many big moves to either side. The reason for that is the uncertainty abbot what happens on the tax day. We see less movement in crypto because, whoever wanted to pull their money out before tax date, did already, and we now see only people that hold.

BTC/USD consolidating

After the recent spike due to positive fundamental news (approval of the Muslim community), Bitcoin has its momentum slowed down. It made an attempt over an 8230 Fibonacci retracement line of resistance, but failed and is now consolidating and going slightly downwards, with decreasing volume. The price range is currently between the 50 EMA and 100 EMA on the 1h time frame.

crypto consolidation

NEO/USD bouncing off the resistance line

As we have concluded in the last analysis, neo was in a tough spot, and the most likely thing that would happen to it was the bounce off the red resistance line (shown in the graph). That is exactly what happened to it. This is a big deciding point for NEO, as indicators are “fighting” for the range and the direction of the next movement. RSI just left overbought, volume is declining, and there is a major resistance on the upside, but there are also both EMAs as support, they crossed each other, signaling a bull trend. I am more inclined towards the bear side for a bit until all the indicators get in line.

NEO/USD bouncing off the resistance line

XRP/USD forming a triangle pattern

XRP has recently spiked, after the big announcement that regarded cooperation with Apple. When that happened, XRP spiked up and broke the $0.63 resistance line, which has now become support. It bounced off of it a couple of times, forming a perfect triangle pattern, with the expected breakout from the pattern around the 19th or 20th of April. It will most likely be an upwards move, but it can’t be said with certainty. EMAs and the support line form a “defense” against triangle patter break downwards, but ultimately, people will decide.

XRP/USD forming a triangle pattern

Final word

Markets are mostly consolidating since these are uncertain times fundamentally. Everyone is waiting for a catalyst, for a reason to re-enter the market. The next few days will determine the overall short-term trend of the market, so watch out for the swing trades for now. One thing is good, and that is the increasing volume in the general crypto market.

© Forex.Academy

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

Bitcoin’s Price explodes today above $8,000 In a big volume movement

Bitcoin has shown today that it can still trade with incredible swings as it did it the last year. 3 hours ago, bitcoin surged as much as 17% to trade above $8,00. We had not seen this price since last March 28. The No. 1 cryptocurrency reached as high as $8,061 and then backed down to trade near $7,676 as this update is written,

The rest of the market appears very solid, showing positive percentages in all the top 100 principal cryptocurrencies.  There is no a clear fundamental that could have sent the price to jump this way but there are some speculations in twitter about recent news that are talking about that bitcoin has been declared compliant with Islamic Tradition or Shariah Law.

This week, Blossom Finance, a microfinance firm based in Indonesia, published a working paper that says “bitcoin qualifies as Islamic money, except where it is banned by a local government.”

If this news is effective and Bitcoins is declared Holy for Islamic community, 1.8 billion people will be allowed to buy and trade with Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

Looking at the 4-hour price charts on the Broker JAFX it shows bulls are currently trying to test the resistance on the 200 EMA close to the $7.837.

However, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) and Stochastic oscillators are well below the 80 range showing BTC/USD markets are still not overbought and price can go higher a little after the break of the last 2 hours.

On the upside, we see some resistance at the $8,150. On the backside, if this run-up ends in a short party then there are strong supports between $7,500 through $7,100.

 

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Forex Educational Library

Source Evaluation Template For The Cryptocurrencies Market

Cryptocurrency market is still in its infancy stage. That means that the industry around it is too. People all around the world are jumping at the opportunity to take the piece of the pie, and whoever gets it first is his. This results in a great influx of financial layman’s offering advice, bringing news and teaching you how to trade, especially on youtube where people first come for information because it’s easier to accept it in a video format.

A sentence I commonly hear among those who offer this information is: This is not financial advice, do your own research. They say this in order to legally protect themselves, yet they do offer financial advice. That’s why doing your own due diligence in the cryptocurrency market is crucial. And to assist you in that I’ve created a template for you to evaluate your source of information.

I’ve divided them into three categories: news, ico’s and analysis.

Regarding news:

  1. Directness:

1.1 Is it a direct source (e.g., projects website or other social media outlets such as medium, (sub)Reddit, Twitter) (good)

1.2 Is it indirect source (news website) (neutral)

  1. Agenda:

2.1 Entertainment (neutral)

2.2 To inform (good)

2.3  Advertisement and/or interest (bad)

Your goal should be to be the closest to the source as possible. If you are interested in latest developments of your favourite crypto project, join their telegram group, or slack channel. Every established project has one. If not go to Reddit and find their subreddit, where admins are the official community managers for the project. Many of them also have a blog on Medium where they update their readers on a regular basis.

 

Regarding ICO recommendation:

  1. Who is it coming from:

1.1 Does it come from someone within the space (good)

1.2 Does it come from someone outside the space (neutral)

  1. Why is he recommending it

2.2.1 To promote because of his interest (bad)

2.2.1 Is it just a fresh topic (neutral)

2.2.3 Because he believes it’s a good idea (good)

Cross-reference that will other people recommending the same thing, and/or ask people for their opinion.

As an example, you don’t want to take your ICO recommendations from the CNBC’s show Crypto Trader. Why? Because those are sponsored, and the show is for entertainment purposes.

Analysis:

  1. Experience:

1.1 Success track record:

1.1.1 no track record (bad)

1.1.2 vague track record (neutral)

1.1.3 clear track record (good)

1.2 Prior (before crypto) engagement in financial markets

1.2.1 yes (good)

1.2.2 no (bad)

  1. Expertise:

2.1 Only crypto market (neutral)

2.2. Broad understanding of financial markets (good)

 

In the crypto world, everybody’s a trader or knows a thing or two about technical analysis. And that’s a good thing, but chose carefully who you are listening to when it comes to putting your money on the line. Ideally, you shouldn’t be listening to anybody. You should learn how to do your own analysis or higher a certified financial analyst to consult you on your investments.

That’s it. Now next time you are searching for information you have a way to validate them. I encourage you to expand on this template and create your own. Incorporate things that you find important when it comes to evaluating your source. And remember: always do your own research.

Categories
Forex Market Analysis

Daily Abstract – 2nd February 2018

Hot Topics:

  • DOLLAR – BUILDING A SIDEWAYS STRUCTURE BEFORE U.S. EMPLOYMENT DATA RELEASE.
  • FAANG – APPLE, AMAZON AND ALPHABET CLOSE MIXED BEFORE QUARTER EARNINGS RELEASE.
  • CRYPTOS – BTC CONTINUES THEIR SELL-OFF.

 

Main currencies daily performance.

DOLLAR – BUILDING A SIDEWAYS STRUCTURE BEFORE US EMPLOYMENT DATA RELEASE.

We are starting the second month of the year, and as usual, in the first week of every month, the market is expecting the employment data release. Today, the Bureau of Labour Statistics in the US will publish the unemployment rate. It is expected to remain unchanged at 4.1%, while Nonfarm Payrolls’ expected increase is to 184K.

The Index has returned to the past week’s lower values, building a sideways structure. We expect that the volatility generated by the data release could define the market direction.

 

FAANG – APPLE, AMAZON AND ALPHABET CLOSE MIXED BEFORE QUARTER EARNINGS RELEASE.

Alphabet <GOOG> has closed with an advance of 0.8% before the last quarter earnings release, where GOOG has reported an EPS of 9.7 ($/sh.) vs 9.98 ($/sh.) estimated, and a Revenue of 32.32B vs 31.87B expected. Amazon <AMZN> has closed the session with 2.65% of losses after the closing bell. AMZN reported an EPS of 3.75 ($/sh.) vs 1.85 ($/sh.) estimated, and a Revenue of 60.45B vs 59.83B expected. Finally, Apple <AAPL> also closed with losses (0.22%), the earnings reported was an EPS of 3.89 ($/sh.) vs 3.85 ($/sh.) estimated, and a Revenue of 88.3B vs 77.25B expected.

 

CRYPTOS – BTC CONTINUES THEIR SELL-OFF.

As we are forecasting from the Potential Dead Cat Bounce Pattern article, and as has been published yesterday in our Daily Abstract, the crypto-currency Bitcoin is making new lower lows; our vision is that BTC will reach the 8,000 level. BTCUSD falls to November 2017 levels. So far this year, Bitcoin has lost approximately 58.9%.

 

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Forex Market Analysis

Daily Abstract – 1st February 2018

Daily Abstract’s Hot Topics:

  • DOLLAR – FOMC, Federal Reserve maintains an unchanged interest rate at the end of the Yellen age.
  • NZD – Kiwi the best currency performer of the session aided by the investors’ confidence in market conditions.
  • FAANG – AMAZON despite the bullish gap, closes lower  
  • FAANG – GOOGL and AAPL close mixed before the earnings release.
  • CRYPTOS – BTC tests the psychological 10,000 support.

 

Main currencies daily performance.

DOLLAR – FOMC, FEDERAL RESERVE MAINTAIN AN UNCHANGED INTEREST RATE AT THE END OF THE YELLEN AGE.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) members in their last meeting of the Yellen age have decided to maintain the interest rate unchanged at 1.50%. The labour market has continued to strengthen and economic growth has risen. This meeting has been the end of the Janet Yellen era as chair, next month the chair will be the Republican Jerome Powell, who has been confirmed by the Senate on January 24.

Our vision still considers a probability of turning bullish; if the index consolidates above the weekly pivot, our forecast will have more confidence in selling the Euro <EURUSD>. Additionally, we are positioned to sell the Euro from 1.250 level (see long-term pick EURUSD Watching the Weekly F38.2 )

US Dollar Index 1-hour chart ( click on the image to enlarge)

 

EUR-USD 30-min chart ( click on the image to enlarge)

 

NZD – INVESTORS’ CONFIDENCE IN MARKET CONDITIONS THE BOOST KIWI.

Favourable market conditions are boosting New Zealand’s agro-industry; the central factor has been the increase of the dairy products exports. Dairy products and their derivatives are the most relevant contributors to exports, about 95% of New Zealand dairy products are exported.

On the technical side, the Kiwi is making a consolidation structure; we expect if it breaks down, the target level is the confluence between Daily S2 and Weekly S1, the zone from the Kiwi could find buyers again.

NZD-USD 1-hour chart ( click on the image to enlarge)

 

FAANG – AMAZON DESPITE THE BULLISH GAP, CLOSES LOWER  

In the last session, Amazon <AMZN> opens higher by 1.53%, boosted by the project between Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway (the Warren Buffett’s company) to create a healthcare company with “reasonable costs”.

The chart shows us a clear bull trend. Bullish positions must be considered above the confluence between Daily R2 and Weekly R2, which could be working as strong resistance.

Amazon <AMZN> 1-hour chart ( click on the image to enlarge)

 

FAANG – GOOGL AND AAPL CLOSE MIXED BEFORE THE EARNINGS RELEASE.

Google <GOOG> has been the best performer of the session with a 0.88% advance, aided by the expectation before the earnings release, which will be after the closing market; the analyst consensus expects $31.87B of revenues and $9.98 earnings per share (EPS).

We expect that GOOG reaches the weekly R1 level ($1,191.32) during the session, a zone that could find sellers.

Google <GOOG> 1-hour chart ( click on the image to enlarge)

 

Another company that will release earnings, after the market closes, will be Apple <AAPL> which has closed with a -0.17% performance. The analyst expects $77.25B of revenues and $3.85 EPS.

In the AAPL case, it is probable that it will reach the 164.22 level, the zone from where it could find buyers to the weekly pivot point (173.60).

Apple <AAPL> 4-hour chart ( click on the image to enlarge)

 

CRYPTOS – BTC TESTS THE PSYCHOLOGICAL 10,000 SUPPORT.

In the last session and the past week, Bitcoin <BTCUSD> has been testing the psychological level $10,000; we expect that BTC plunges to $8,074 level as a continuation of the bearish cycle started on the 17th December 2017.

BitCoiun <BTC> 4-hour chart ( click on the image to enlarge)