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Reena Shaw

FinCEN’s Proposal: Backlash Continues As Coin Center Urges For Widespread Participation Against Rules

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Several industry players have been quite vocal with respect to the proposal by the US Treasury Department and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network [FinCEN] which requires crypto operators to abide by regulations used to police conventional financial providers.

In the latest development, Jerry Brito, who happens to be the executive director of the non-profit crypto policy advocate group Coin Center, urged the community to comment against the agencies’ proposed crypto regulations, the deadline of which is January 4. In a series of tweets, Brito notified that Coin Center was working the Congress “to get some letters sent” to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin requesting an extension to the rushed comment period.

His tweet further read,

“Everyone in the cryptocurrency ecosystem should file a comment with FinCEN explaining how this rule would affect them and pointing out the unintended consequences. Filing a comment really does help.”

Months before his likely exit from office, Mnuchin dropped a regulatory proposal on the crypto industry. This left many players in the sector furious. The short period for commentary was considered a huge red flag by many proponents of the industry.

If passed, the new law would require the U.S.-based crypto platforms to check users’ identities and wallets on withdrawal of over $3,000 to a self-custodied wallet, or if they transfer over $10,000 to another platform.

Brito went on to explain that Mnuchin wants to get the proposed rule finalized before he leaves office on the 20th of January 2021. However, FinCEN is required by law to consider every comment before finalizing the proposal, Hence, if the agency gets “a lot of substantive comments filed”, they would not be able to finalize the rule before the said date.

FinCEN has to explore every comment filed concerning the proposal in question and work towards having a reasonable solution, hence, widespread participation by the crypto community could essentially delay the entire process and help the push for appropriate regulation by the next administration.

Ethereum’s Upcoming Dips Might Be Limited, Here’s Why

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Ethereum [ETH] has witnessed has seen its price rise steadily on the charts. The crypto-asset soared by approximately 20% over the holiday week as it appeared to be poised for yet another take-off. The technicals depicted a bullish outlook for the world’s largest altcoin after it broke the coveted $700-price level.

Despite creating a compelling opportunity for the bulls to breach crucial levels, Ethereum hit a minor slump of 0.76% over the past 24-hours which pushed its value to $723.7, At the time of writing, it registered a market cap of $82.3 billion and a 24-hour trading volume of $16.4 billion.

Ethereum [ETH] Daily Chart:

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According to Ethereum’s [ETH] one-day chart, it was found that the asset was continuing to trade within the confines of its immediate resistance and support levels. ETH oscillated between the upward sloping trendlines of an ascending channel. As per convention, an ascending channel concludes with a bearish breakout. Meaning, if Ethereum’s value could soon witness a correction to the downside.

The diverging trend between the 50 DMA [Pink] and the 200 DMA [Purple] continued to exhibit a bullish prospect for the coin.

Bullish Alignment

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MACD underwent a bullish crossover above the zero-line depicting a strong positive momentum. The RSI was also well above the 50-median line depicting a rising buy-pressure among the investors in the ETH market. However, the indicator has not crossed the overbought region which further, suggested that the crypto-asset has not formed a local top just yet and is primed for further gains.

Despite the mega-bearish pattern formation, the technicals were in favor of the bulls. Hence, a minor slip could potentially materialize in the offing but is not likely to be a strong downtrend in the long-term. Interesting levels for Ethereum to look out for were found at $778 and $823 respectively.

Meanwhile, it is important to note that $591 has formed crucial support for Ethereum, hence it is highly unlikely for the coin to see more damage than a plunge from this level. Other support points were $536 and $473.

Grayscale Now Has $19 Billion in Crypto AUM; Figures Triple

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It is, without a doubt, that Grayscale has effectively cornered the cryptocurrency industry. Bitcoin’s prices have unfolded tremendously over the holiday week, thanks to the growing institutional investor interest as well as the retail FOMO.

Owing to this, the digital asset manager, Grayscale Investments has hit yet another milestone, after it touched $19 billion in assets under management [AUM] on the 28th of December, up from the $16.4 billion announced just last week. With this, the figures have tripled since the start of November.

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Notably, Grayscale’s trust for XRP witnessed a significant decline all the way from $13.7 million AUM a week ago to the current $11.2 million. This can be attributed to the recent SEC-Ripple fiasco which has prompted intense sell-off.

Nevertheless, Grayscale products have attracted massive capital inflows over the course of the year. According to the latest data by the NY-based platform showed that Bitcoin continued to be its largest holdings with a staunching $16.3 billion followed by Grayscale Ethereum Trust [ETHE] at $2.1 billion, Grayscale Litecoin Trust [LTCN] with $151.3 million.

The world’s leading crypto asset management firm had garnered a lot of traction recently due to its DropGold advertising campaign. To top that, the company reported a growing interest in Ethereum earlier this month.

Besides, Ki Young Ju, who happens to be the CEO of CryptoQuant, revealed that out of the total $186 billion Bitcoin realized market cap, 16% is owned by institutional investors. This comes after Grayscale’s third-quarter investment report disclosed that 80% of investments to its products came from institutional investors, which were dominated by hedge.

In addition to the rising Bitcoin price, yet another factor that has made the US-based platform, realy popular among the experienced and the novice traders alike was the weakening dollar which has triggered institutional adoption. Furthermore, it is no news that certain major Wall Street firms have also integrated digital assets in their investment portfolio to hedge against dollar depreciation.

Confident about the massive figures, Barry Silbert, the Founder and CEO of Digital Currency Group which owns the digital asset manager, tweeted,

“You all clearly want Grayscale to hit $20 billion in AUM in 2020. I’ll take it”

Cardano Rallies By 20% As It Joins Bitcoin, Ethereum With IOHK’s Crucial Partnership

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Looking back at 2020, Cardano [ADA] can be heralded as one of the most promising altcoin projects. This year has significantly helped shape the network into a future-proof, third-generation blockchain.

More recently, Cardano has posted an impressive rally over the week as it catapulted gains of nearly 20%. The eight-largest crypto-asset changed hands at $0.181, at the time of writing.

Interestingly, ADA had previously struggled to push above the $0.16-level, however, over the past 7-days, this trend has reversed noticeably.  ADA witnessed a fresh upward momentum as it eyed to breach $0.2 while recording a multi-year high.

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The latest boost to the cryptocurrency coincided with a partnership. IOHK, which is the company behind Cardano,  recently announced its partnership with Wolfram Blockchain Labs to integrate the Cardano blockchain into Wolfram Alpha.

As a part of this deal, Cardano data would be integrated into the Wolfram Alpha computational intelligence engine. According to reports, Wolfram earlier integrated with Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains, as well as the ARK blockchain framework and Bloxberg. The official blog post also revealed that the IOHK team was currently defining a scope of work that would utilize Wolfram Alpha to offer Oracle services for Cardano.

Oracles are touted as a crucial component to drive smart contracts since they enable data to be transported from a variety of sources into the blockchain. The latest news has been claimed to be a ” landmark moment for IOHK” as it would give help expand Cardano’s ability to provide ways for developers to integrate advanced external information into their smart contacts.

Further explaining what the latest integration with Wolfram Alpha means and how working with the engine behind Siri is a big step for the blockchain, IOHK stated,

“This makes Cardano’s information available to virtual assistants like Alexa and Siri. Once integrated, users will be able to query the system to find information or solve computational problems as easily as asking their virtual assistant. We anticipate the initial phases of integration with Wolfram will occur Q2/Q3 of next year”

Notably, this is not the first tryst of IOHK with Wolfram. The two platforms have historically enjoyed close ties. The Founder and CEO of Wolfram Research, Stephen Wolfram had previously presented at Cardano2020 as well as at the IOHK Miami 2019 summit.

Litecoin Takes A Breather As Prospects Of An Upside Break Seems Unclear

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Litecoin posted an impressive rally of nearly 25% over the past week as it crossed crucial levels. For the most part, the fifth-largest cryptocurrency has struggled with the $120-level, however, following the latest Bitcoin-inspired bullish swing, the previously crucial resistance has now turned support. However, the bearish undertone was visible as several altcoins noted pullbacks in the past day.

After a mild choppy start, Litecoin took a plunge of 2.23% over the last 24-hours which pulled the price down to $129.83. At the time of writing, the silver crypto registered a market cap of $8.41 billion and a 24-hour trading volume of $9.122 billion.

Litecoin [LTC] Daily Chart:

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Litecoin’s one-day chart suggested that the price was in a mega bearish rising wedge pattern. This formation could induce a price break to the downside triggering a potential retest to lower levels. But if the daily moving averages are considered, the overall sentiment was found to be bullish.

An important aspect to consider was the movement of the 50 DMA [Pink] which moved upwards in tandem with the rising price candles and despite several corrections, it had failed to move above them. The rising gauge with respect to the 200 DMA [Purple] further validated a bullish sentiment.

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On a cursory glance, the technicals depicted a bullish outlook. But there was more to the picture. The OBV indicator showed strong yet consistent volumes behind the current positive price action. However, both the RSI and the Stochastic RSI depicted a bearish divergence creating an overbought reading followed by a lower high that matched corresponding higher highs on the price.

As depicted by the above charts, on a relatively lower timeframe the bullish hint continued, even as the price formed a bearish rising wedge pattern. However, over a higher timeframe, the price did not look promising meaning that Litecoin has topped off and was heading for a downtrend in the coming days.

Important target points for Litecoin stood at $145.3 and $168 respectively if the bulls manage to cut through the downward pressure. In addition, the support level for the coin stood at $102.4 and $71.84.

SEC Charges Crypto Fund Manager With Fraud; Obtains Emergency Asset Freeze

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The US Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC] revealed filing an emergency action as well as obtaining an order to impose an asset freeze and other emergency relief against quantitative trading firm Virgil Capital in Manhattan federal court.

Its affiliated companies were also included in connection with an alleged securities fraud relating to Virgil Capital’s flagship cryptocurrency trading fund, Virgil Sigma Fund LP.

According to the official release, Stefan Qin, the 23-year-old Australian hedge fund founder, Virgil Capital, has been accused by the SEC and his entities of defrauding investors in the Sigma Fund since at least 2018 by making material misrepresentations about the fund’s strategy, assets, and financial condition.

Kristina Littman, Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Cyber Unit stated,

“This emergency action is an important step to protect investor assets and prevent further harm. Qin allegedly made false promises to lure investors and then continued his deception to conceal his misuse of investor funds.”

The SEC complaint also alleged that Qin and the entities “misled” investors to believe their money was being used only for cryptocurrency trading based on a proprietary algorithm, while the defendants, in fact, utilized the funds for investment proceeds for personal purposes or for other undisclosed high-risk investments.

Furthermore, SEC also stated in its complaint that Qin and Virgil Capital have told investors who requested redemptions from the Sigma Fund that their interests would be transferred instead to another fund under the ultimate control of Qin but with separate management and operations, the VQR Multistrategy Fund LP.

Despite the requests, the complaint claimed that no funds were transferred to the investors and the redemption requests remained outstanding and that Qin attempted to misappropriate assets from the VQR Fund and to secure new investments in the Sigma Fund.

According to reports, Sean Hecker and Shawn Crowley of Kaplan Hecker & Fink were representing Qin. In an official statement, the law firm went on to say that Qin intends to fully cooperate with the regulator to provide a “fulsome set of facts” and was “committed to ensuring that no investors are harmed.”

Miners See Massive Gains As Bitcoin Nearly Quadruples

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From the beginning of 2020, the subsequent Black Thursday crash, and the following recovery, Bitcoin has certainly seen its fair share of ups and downs this year.

Bitcoin miners were currently earning $1,000,000 per hour. As noted by the blockchain intelligence company, Glassnode, the figures saw an increase of 185% since the block reward halving. The last time the miner revenue figures recorded such a high figure was back in July 2019 during which the block rewards were twice as high as they are today.

Undoubtedly, it was the surging Bitcoin price that prompted this effect. This is because higher bitcoin prices essentially push up the revenues from each block and hence the amount users are willing to spend to mine a block. Therefore, a higher price would induce miners to buy more mining hardware and increase electricity use.

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Bitcoin miners had previously generated an estimated $522 million in revenue in the month of November, which was up by nearly 50% from October. The steep rise in the revenue figures came as Bitcoin soared through November, setting a fresh peak by month’s end after accumulating massive gains along the way. It was earlier reported that the monthly aggregate revenue in November touched the highest level since September 2019.

Bitcoin Mining Sees A Shift: China’s Dominance Dwindling?

Meanwhile, shares of the Bitcoin-mining firms such as Riot Blockchain and Marathon Patent Group surged significantly as the cryptocurrency went on a fresh rally over the holiday weekend. It is important to note that, as the price surges, the mining devices become more difficult and expensive to procure. Hence, in recent times, several mining companies have revealed major purchases of new equipment.

For instance, the US firm, Marathon Patent Group has reportedly agreed to purchase 70,000 Bitcoin mining units from Bitmain, which happens to be a Chinese ASIC manufacturing giant. According to the reports, the deal is worth approximately $170 million and Bitmain is slated to supply Marathon with 7,000 S-19s in July 2021. Following which, 63,000 units will arrive in December of the same year.

Not until very recently, a few major mining operators have set up on the US soil. Interestingly, China’s mining dominance has been touted as a potential security flaw by many critics in the past years. Besides the US, the Nordic region has once again has become a lucrative place to mine Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which can be attributed to a substantial decline in electricity prices.

As the cryptocurrency reaches new all-time highs every week, the current market dynamics do give miners alternatives to countries such as China, Kazakhstan, and Canada where cryptocurrency mining is most prominent.

Bitcoin’s Taproot Is One Step Closer To Fruition With Binance Pool’s Support

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Bitcoin exploded in 2020, and the community saw an increase from around a little over $3,000 to now eyeing yet another high of $30,000. As the world’s largest cryptocurrency gains more and more recognition, in yet another positive news for the ecosystem, Bitcoin just received a seal of approval from Binance for one of its most anticipated technological upgrades.

According to the latest development, BTC’s Taproot update appears to be set for activation, with more than 91% of the hash rate have extended support for it. The latest news was revealed by Alejandro De La Torre, VP of Poolin who congratulated the BTC community.

It was Gregory Maxwell who first proposed Taproot back in January 2018. And this upgrade is perhaps the most anticipated soft-fork in Bitcoin since SegWit was activated in 2016.

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A quick primer: Taproot is essentially aimed to upgrade BTC’s smart contract capabilities, enabling the network users to send smart contracts disguised as regular transactions on the network. The goal is to modify the way Bitcoin’s scripts operate in a bid to improve privacy, scalability, and security by implementing a new digital signature scheme called, Schnorr. Implementing the upgrade requires a “soft fork” of Bitcoin’s code.

It was earlier seen that Binance Pool, which happens to be a recent entrant to the Bitcoin space, had not responded for the activation of the upgrade. Prior to the approval, out of the major mining pools, Binance Pool was the only one to withhold support.

Despite launching in just April of 2020, it turned to be the third-largest pool controlling over 11% of the hash rate, and hence its vote on the matter was crucial. Apart from a few smaller Bitcoin mining pools, the prominent ones had already given the green light to this upgrade.

Earlier in October 2020, the codebase for the smart-contract upgrade to BTC’s blockchain was reportedly merged into the BTC Core library, nearly a month after BTC core dev, Pieter Wuille created a pull request to merge the feature. Despite the fact that the finalization of the code for Taproot was the biggest upgrade in years, the Bitcoin developers were divided as to how to go about with its activation.

Cardano [ADA] Experiences Rising Buy Pressure As It Trades Close to $0.18

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Cardano [ADA] was one of the fastest-growing altcoins of the year, especially after the much-anticipated Shelley update. It witnessed a roller-coaster ride after Bitcoin’s route to new highs, which in turn, made ADA, the 8th largest crypto in the world in just a matter of less than a week after climbing from the 10th position of the crypto ladder. Furthermore, it projected gains of more than 412% year-to-date [YTD].

Over the past 24-hours, Cardano [ADA] witnessed a surge of 7.00% pushing the price of the coin to $0.167. At the of writing, the token registered a market cap of $5.22 billion and a 24-hour trading volume of $1.83 billion.

Cardano [ADA] Daily Chart:

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For the most part of December, Cardano remained oscillating between the trendlines of a symmetrical triangle as depicted by the above daily chart. The outcome could be a potential break on either side. As the coin awaited clarity in terms of the direction, there were some levels of interest for a short-term pullback.

After mild bearish hints, ADA flipped right back up from the 50 DMA [Pink] while the 100 DMA [Purple] continued to tread well below the ADA price candles. The gauge between the two moving averages was seen rising which was a positive indicator.

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Cardano suffered a minor pullback which triggered a bearish crossover in terms of MACD. However, the indicator was now hinting at a potential bullish crossover in the near-term which could push the price of the coin for an upside breakout.

Stochastic RSI suggested a rise near the overbought zone, which was another positive indicator for the coin. The RSI too was above the 50-median line depicting a sentiment of increasing buying pressure among the investors as the altcoin spot market jumped on the bullish bandwagon to reap the profits.

The above technicals for ADA indicated a bullish breakout on completion of the pattern formation as the bulls continued to aggressively defend the current price level.

For a bullish case, the levels to look out for were $0.172 and $0.182 respectively. In addition, the coin found significant support at points $0.149, $0.143, and $0.138.

Ethereum Breaches $735 Triggering Over 90% Addresses In Profit

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Late Chrismas Gift for Ethereum?

Ethereum had a bullish start for the day as it broke above $700 for the first time since the last week of May 2018. The largest altcoin was seen lacking bullish momentum as its price movement broke away from that of Bitcoin. However, Ethereum soon climbed to $735.93, at the time of writing after multiple pullbacks close to the coveted level.

According to the crypto-analytic platform, Glassnode, the latest surge triggered 90% of all Ethereum addresses [which roughly amassed for 47 million addresses] holding ETH are now in a state of profit. The last time this number was witnessed to be this high was back in January 2018.

The infamous Black Thursday crash is worth noting in this context because Ethereum has come a long way since then. In March of this year, only 3.2% of all ETH addresses were in profit as opposed to 90% following the spectacular price rise right after Christmas.

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Here’s what Messari’s Ryan Watkins has to say about the latest uptrend:

“2021 prediction: In 2021 we begin seeing institutions buy $ETH. Once you accept that Bitcoin may be valuable, it opens your mind to the possibility that other cryptoassets may also be valuable. It’s a much easier jump from $BTC to $ETH from there.”

While Bitcoin continued to be the darling of institutional investors and corporations, Ethereum was not far behind either. Amassing a market cap of $83 billion, Ether’s success story among institutional investors can be attributed to strong fundamentals. Especially, the decentralized finance [DeFi] sector happened to be one of the hottest and the most exciting thing in the cryptocurrency industry this year.

This helped the second-largest network to hold on to the leadership status as the enormous majority of DeFi projects were based on the Ethereum blockchain. In addition, the growing network activity, in turn, led to increased ETH transaction fees and strong demand for the underlying token.

The growing conviction around Ethereum as an asset class was witnessed this year. This was further evidenced by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s [CME] announcement of an upcoming launch of a futures contract on Ether in February 2021. This development was touted as a game-changer for the ETH ecosystem.

To top that, the Grayscale Ethereum Trust [ETHE] registered over $1.7 billion in assets under management [AUM]. It was also found that the shares of ETHE [OTCMKTS: ETHE] had surged by 700% YTD. This has also intensified the bullish outlook as many market participants now believe that once the Bitcoin rally subsides, there will be a capital inflow into altcoins with ETH being the first choice of high-profile investors.