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Bitcoin Struggling at $12,000 is Only a Small Problem

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Time and Time again, a resistance zone is seemingly getting attention from the community, which becomes Bitcoin’s immediate forward struggle. During the early period of 2020, The resistance set by $10,450 was considered the next big proving point, and right now, the tale is repeating with respect to the $12,000.

Bitcoin and Ethereum hit their yearly high of 2020 together during the last week of July and on the 1st of August. Since then, Ethereum has gone on to eclipse its $400 high, clocking in $423 at first, and then $442 over the past 24-hours. The same hasn’t been the case for Bitcoin, which was still under $11,900 at the time of writing this article.

However, the $12,000 resistance for Bitcoin was fundamentally more dependent on its macroeconomics than the momentum of a bull run, here’s why.

Bitcoin $12,000 will break because of retail and institution

A huge difference between Bitcoin rallies of the past to present is the fact that accredited players are involved in the BTC market at the moment. When Bitcoin dipped down to $11,000 on 2nd August, it was retail and institutional investors who were trying to buying the asset but a large portion of the market was selling as well.

Now, according to a recent report, because of the increasing net position of the CME Bitcoin Futures(Retail), institutional investors were getting forced to play their hand as well in the market.

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The improved net position depicted in the chart is a prime example that the trend is moving between unassured investors, to the accredited ones. The report mentioned that over time, the “smart money” from institutions would flood into Bitcoin, raising the net position even more.

The strong fundamental thing attested to the current bullish rally is that investors were not selling off under bearish pressure. During the time of 2017, or mid-2019, when Bitcoin peaked at their highs, the correction was quick to follow because the potential was not evaluated well.

The Open-Interest is a great example of the increased interest. 2020 has seen multiple exchanges registering high all-time high OIs and there is with respect to lack of strong foundation.

2020 has already been a game-changer for Bitcoin. There is no doubt $12,000 will be breached soon as well because the narrative of this bullish rally is far more strengthened than any other rally over the past couple of years.

Bitcoin Still a Favorite as Fidelity Reveals Large Chunk of Institutional Investors Hold Crypto

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The cryptocurrency market has grown stronger over the years, and industry supporters have asserted that institutional investors will give it a much-needed break. Although many mainstream organizations have attacked the digital asset world because of its instability, it turns out that a big chunk was actually in the field.

A recent Fidelity analysis showed that one-third of all large-scale institutions were involved in cryptocurrencies or crypto-related products. The survey also noted that Bitcoin was the preferred cryptocurrency among organizations.

Fidelity has been a key player in the financial sector for the longest time and made major news when they announced their interest in cryptocurrency research and development. According to research, the United States had a maximum number of institutions invested in crypto. Thirty-six percent of the 774 strong sample size across the US and Europe revealed that they owned cryptocurrencies or some form of cryptocurrency derivatives.

Focusing on the United States alone, almost 27 percent of all institutions are involved in digital assets. These organizations included pension funds, family offices, digital funds, traditional hedge funds, and investment advisers. The same survey conducted a year ago showed that only 22 percent of institutions dealt with any form of virtual assets. In 2019, Fidelity surveyed 441 institutions, a long way from the most recent 774.

Bitcoin has been a key target for many institutional players due to its strong presence in the financial market. Over a quarter of the sample size surveyed hold Bitcoin while a decent 11 percent hold the Vitalik Buterin co-founded Ethereum. In the year to date spectrum, Bitcoin has jumped by a massive 36 percent due to its strong grip on the coronavirus face. At the same time, traditional stocks have plummeted across the board, causing widespread panic.

Tom Jessop, the President of Fidelity Digital Assets recently said in an interview that Europe was more supportive and accomodating than the US when it came to digital assets. He believed that Bitcoin outshone the traditional assets in terms of return or overall value. Jessop added:

“Europe is perhaps more supportive and accommodating, That could be just things going on in Europe right now, you got negative interest rates in many countries. Bitcoin may look more attractive because there are other assets that aren’t paying return. These results confirm a trend we are seeing in the market towards greater interest in and acceptance of digital assets as a new investable asset class.”

At press time, Bitcoin was trading for $9774 with a total market cap of $179.85 billion. After a relatively bullish run over the past week, Bitcoin’s 24-hour trading volume had risen to $22.794 billion. Bitcoin was not the only cryptocurrency that witnessed a decent price action over the past week as Tether rocketed up the charts to become the third-largest cryptocurrency, overtaking XRP.

Bitcoin Spot Volumes vs Futures Volumes? Here’s how BTC had reached $10k in recent rally

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Bitcoin’s third halving is finally over after months of excitement and waiting. The block rewards for the miners are down to 6.25 BTC, and the long-term necessary changes will be observed when space is adjusted to the reduced supply of Bitcoin.

Before getting too far ahead of us, let us examine some of the adjustments that have taken place over the months of May and April in terms of exchange volume.

Longhash’s latest post indicated that bitcoin spot volumes had risen to rates seen back in 2017 over the past few months.

According to data, both Binance and Coinbase had a high level of activity in terms of BTC volume. Binance’s monthly amount of BTC / USDT was over 2.5 million BTCs, outperforming its last high of 816,000 BTCs back in January 2018.

Coinbase also showed a similar pattern and its monthly volumes remained just 118,000 BTC lower than the volumes seen during January 2018. It is important to remember that the price of Bitcoin in January 2018 was 48 per cent lower than the current value of Bitcoin.

Spot Volume vs Futures Volume; which one is a better identifier of demand?

Now, technically, rising volumes on both the spot and future markets indicate user demand, but there is a crucial difference. On spot exchanges, investors are unable to buy crypto with borrowed capital and there is no need for additional leverage to invest in Bitcoin with debt. Spot volume therefore indicates organic volume and demand backed by capital.

Today, orders placed on futures are always over-leveraged, pushing up the Bitcoin price continuously. The key issue is that, when the valuation plummets, those orders are removed and the uptrend registered is not based on a strong foundation.

Hence, the issue with such buy order is that it leaves Bitcoin to be susceptible to large corrections during a bearish rally.

Recent Bitcoin rally was driven by spot volumes 

The rise in spot volumes observed in the charts indicated that retail investors had a significant role to play in the April-May bullish rally for Bitcoin. Bitcoin also surpassed the $10,000 mark, but sadly, it did not carry consolidation.

As the volume of spots recovered faster than the trading activity in the Bitcoin futures exchange market, institutional demand also began to rise rapidly.

Now, an increasing volume of spots has been relatively evident provided that Bitcoin has also reported the highest number of active entities since December 2017. Active entities have shown the number of unique addresses entering the region and are thus reflective of the fact that retail investors have been particularly interested in the last few months.

While the common consensus expects the trend to slow down now after halving, it will be interesting to analyze retail investors from here onward.

South Korean Police Calls Upon Upbit, Bithumb, Korbit and Coinone to Help in ‘Blue House’ Investigation

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Cryptocurrency companies usually come under pressure from legal departments for the way they work. After the advent of Bitcoin over a decade ago, the industry has always been locked in a battle with authorities around the world.

This time, however, the South Korean police have called upon the services of cryptocurrency exchanges in the country to track ransom money for the infamous ‘Blue House’ incident. Upbit, Bithumb, Korbit, and Coinone are the four exchanges that will directly assist the police.

Four cryptocurrency exchanges said they will do all they might to help track down the 6.5 billion won that was received in the form of payment. The South Korean public has risen in chaos ever since it was announced that a small group of people had access to thousands of illicit sexual content.

Reports claimed that 1.8 million people had signed a petition asking the presidential Blue House to release the identities of the group chat network where the videos were posted.

A majority of the capital was transferred via cryptocurrencies with one confirmed member, Zhao Zhuobin, bagging almost 3.3 billion himself. The rest of the 3.2 billion is yet to be converted into fiat currency. Upbit, Bithumb, Korbit, and Coinone have said that they would also help in tracking the users who transferred the capital to the owner of the chat room.

South Korean Media has said that the Blue House chat room had over 260,000 members, some of which were non paying. The public outcry also resulted in the National Police Agency releasing the culprits’ identity: Cho Joo-bin. He was indicted for allegedly blackmailing at least 74 women, including 16 minors into creating videos of themselves. They were then asked to upload the videos to the chat room, where it was made available to paid members.

According to the South Korean Police his “malicious and repetitive criminal method that forced sexually abusive videos out of women whom he labeled slaves” should never be seen in the country again. The agency added:

“We decided to release his name, age and face after reviewing how it would serve the public interest regarding the people’s right to know and the prevention of similar crimes from recurring“

The accused worked using the alias “Doctor” and posted the videos on Telegram to the exclusive group of people. According to some claims, the accused charged almost $1200 in crypto per person. Essentially, this money was the entry fee for the Telegram group. Min Gap-Ryong, NPA Commissioner-General, acknowledged that the culprit had ruined the lives of several innocent citizens.

Police in South Korea were now on a warpath to uproot such practices from society. Currently, 124 suspects were being tracked down in relation to this case. South Korean police added that 18 people were arrested since last year in relation to sexual-abuse crimes.

 

Coinbase Progresses in the Japanese Market, Joins the JVCEA

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On 2nd March, JVCEA – the Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association, the Japanese virtual currency self-regulatory board released admission information of three new companies who joined in as class 2 members of the association. As per the records, Tokyo Hash Co., Ltd., Digital Asset Markets Inc., and Coinbase Inc. are the new additions in the association. 

This is not the first time Coinbase has wanted to spread its influence in Japan. Back in 2019, talks on obtaining a license were “going well” with Japan’s Financial Services Authority. The US-based digital currency exchange said that Japan’s strict inspection of the crypto industry is an advantage. Indicating the company’s assurance in securing regulatory approval. 

Japan has progressive regulations around cryptocurrency exchanges. They are legal to trade and run. Due to the infamous Coincheck hack of $500M, Japan made it a point to tighten its security, narrowing pathways, allowing only secure, legitimate exchanges to participate.

Japan is seen as a digital money haven for its enormous pool of retail financial investors and light-contact government strategies, however administrative and regulatory supervision has expanded as of late in the midst of the progression of prominent crypto hacks. Coinbase’s enrolment was thoroughly watched over, as per reports as the company’s entry in the Japanese market is a green signal towards the development of international companies in Japan.

What does this mean for Coinbase?

The Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association- JVCEA,  is a part of Article 87 of the Law Concerning Fund Settlement with Virtual Currency Exchangers as Members. It is a certified fund settlement business association with three types of membership classes. 

  1. Class 1: Cryptocurrency exchanges
  2. Class 2: Businesses applying for or planning to apply for virtual currency exchange registration 
  3. Class 3: TBD [Waitlisted]

This means Coinbase can now apply to become a regulated Japanese cryptocurrency exchange.

As part of the effort to accelerate the global adoption of cryptocurrency, Coinbase launched its office in Japan back in 2018. Under the leadership Nao Kitazawa [CEO at Coinbase, Japan] the new office was made to “lay the foundation for Japan’s crypto investors” and to access a range of Coinbase’s products. 

As observed, the class 2 membership with JVCEA will also be represented by Nao and his team. 

Coinbase has been eyeing the Japanese market and has been open about its plans for a while now. Back in 2016, Coinbase and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ [BTMU] formed a strategic partnership to support “Coinbase’s long-term international expansion efforts”. BTMU is the largest bank in Japan and a subsidiary of the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group [MUFG].

Coinbase is not the only giant trying to make a mark in the Japanese crypto market, a couple of months ago the messaging giant LINE was granted a crypto exchange license in Japan. Some on-going famous regulated exchanges in Japan are Quoine, Bitflyer, Bitbank, SBI VC Trade, GMO Coin, Huobi Japan, Btcbox, Bitpoint Japan, and Tech Bureau. It was also reported that Japan has one of the largest cryptocurrency trader base of around 3.5 million active investors.

 

Russia’s Central Bank Successfully Completes Pilot of Blockchain Platform To Issue Tokenized Assets

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Concerning the latest reports, the Central Bank of Russia has finally completed the pilot test of its blockchain platform. Looks like the country has moved ahead than China which has doubled down its views on the future of blockchain technology.

Russia Makes a New Move

Noticeably, the Central Bank of Russia in late December 2019 proposed that the project will be a part of the regulatory sandbox. However, the latest local report notes the “successful completion” of a pilot of a blockchain platform. More so, the platform will be used to issue and move the “digital rights”. By doing so, the country will be able to digitize securities, goods, services and other assets as well.

Interestingly, this move is perceived as the potential opportunity to attract new capital as well as to create a new avenue for consumers to invest in. However, the platform will also enable companies and entities to issue their digital tokens. More so, the new project is said to be “one of the largest sandbox projects”. Concerning the matter, Director of Financial Technologies, Ivan Ban elaborated the platform also entertains hybrid tokens. He went on to say that;

An important detail of the service is the use of hybrid tokens, which make it easy to adapt to the needs of business and consumers and provide flexible solutions to attract investment. Based on the results of the piloting, the Bank of Russia proposed to include in the draft federal law “On Digital Financial Assets” the provisions necessary for the introduction and development of such decisions in the emerging digital assets market, which were supported by government agencies and businesses.

Also, the country is almost ready with the draft bill “On Digital Financial Assets”, the approval of which will pave the way for this platform to perform its activities. However, as per the other news outlet, RBC, the Central Bank of Russia is requesting banks to flag accounts as “suspicious” that are associated with crypto assets. Accordingly, the bank is to modify key “375-P protocol” that reportedly instruct banks how should they deal with money laundering cases.

While the proposal to amend protocol has to be approved by the Govt, it creates a sense of fear among the hundreds of thousands of the crypto enthusiasts in Russia.

Looking at the scenario, the bank’s focus could be to estimate the number of citizens involved in crypto activities in-country and by amending the protocol which has not been amended since 2012, the bank could bring crypto in money laundering case.

‘Mimblewimble should not be considered as a viable replacement to ZCash or XMR,’ claims new research

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The Mimblewimble technology and the Grin token based on it had created news earlier in the cryptocurrency industry after claims of new security measures and an increased use cases for the tokens. Recently, however, a cryptocurrency industry official has revealed that he was able to break Mimblewimble’s privacy technology using cheap methods.

Ivan Bogatyy, the General Partner at MetaStable Capital, claimed that the new technology’s privacy was fundamentally flawed and that he was able to uncover sender and receiver addresses for 96 percent of Grin transactions.

What makes this news more astounding was the fact that the details could be snatched away from users in real time. According to Bogatyy, Mimblewimble faced systemic issues that could not be fixed with a debugging and urged users to not consider it as a viable replacement to privacy-oriented cryptos such as Monero and ZCash.

According to the author of the paper that pointed out the shortcomings of the technology:

“Several researchers have hypothesized a possible privacy weakness in Mimblewimble. My contribution is to demonstrate the precise way to perform an attack, prove its viability on a live network, and measure its efficacy. In live testing on Grin, I was able to unmask the flow of transactions with a 96% success rate. Therefore, it’s now clear that Mimblewimble should not be relied upon for robust privacy.”

Bogatty has pointed to Mimblewimble’s linkability feature as its downfall, adding that cryptocurrencies like ZCash did not face this problem because it is an unlinkable cryptocurrency blockchain. Because of the linkability feature, anyone can track a sender/ receiver’s location after deobfuscating the transaction graphs.

The author also made a comparison analysis with Mimblewimble against ZCash and Monero. When it comes to the internal architecture of a ZCash transaction, it was found that each private set included all shielded coins. These shielded coins are the ones that are assumed to provide anonymity as well as privacy.

Monero transactions derive their privacy from the set of all “decoy transactions”. The paper admitted that Monero did have its specific set of ingrained issues but still performed better than Mimblewimble on a per-privacy factor basis. The main problem in Mimblewimble pointed out by the author was that it has one unshielded coin that can be tapped into for transactional information.

The research was candid in mentioning that despite its flaws, the Grin token [based on Mimblewimble] was still more privacy-oriented than Bitcoin.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market conditions and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

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Dutch blockchain gaming company CEO on the run as fraudulent activities come to light

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New companies are being built on the blockchain daily, and one of the most significant contributors to that are gaming firms. In between the cutthroat crypto world, some companies have taken steps to gain unfair advantages, which have now been called out. One example of such a company is Komodore64, a Dutch blockchain organization that has filed for bankruptcy after the founder defrauded its investors.

The founder has been on the run after raising millions of dollars in investment rounds but failing to pay employee salaries or even deliver a product. As per the Dutch Newspaper, The Sprout, the company wanted to use blockchain technology to keep track of transactions that occur within the game.

The idea generated so much buzz that it received funds from multiple quarters with an Italian investor, even transferring 600,000 to the company.

Sam Narain, the alleged perpetrator, took drastic steps as the CEO to ensure that the company received investments no matter what. The information has come to light that he had even asked some of his people to pose as Goldman Sachs employees to fool investors into thinking he had a deal with them.

The company allegedly tanked all its savings by thrown extravagant parties and events with one launch party at the Fokker Terminal in Hague amounted to thousands of euros.

What made matters worse is that the company had not paid the supplier at that event either, bringing up the fraudulent nature of the case. It has not been fully confirmed as of yet, but the latest reports now show that the founder has been arrested in The Hague. The local newspaper also informed:

“Whether the arrest actually took place at that hotel is not yet clear. In the meantime it has been established that the entrepreneur was recently arrested and will be questioned on Tuesday, the curator of Komodore64 John Dullaart confirms to Sprout. According to him, it is not yet 100 percent certain that the arrest has to do with the bankruptcy of Komodore64, but it obviously has the appearance of that.”

The development still has its tendrils spread out as there is also speculation that the real co-founder was Max Theyse, who was not able to fulfill the role that was then taken up Narain. Police are still looking into more evidence to pin down Narain as the actual culprit and to ensure the disgruntled employees are helped out.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market conditions and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

Never miss our daily cryptocurrency news, price analysis, tips, and stories. Join us on Telegram | Twitter or subscribe to our weekly Newsletter.

Here’s what the BitTorrent token (BTT) hitting HitBTC means

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HitBTC

HitBTC is one of the oldest and most advanced cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. Founded in 2013, it operates out of Hong-Kong (owned by Hit Solutions Limited) and Chile. It used to have a Japanese office as well, but that branch was shut down because of new local regulations. It’s expected to open again in the near future.

HitBTC offers 491 different cryptocurrencies in more than 800 trading pairs, and its longevity has made it one of the most important platforms for crypto in the world. Besides its longevity (2013 is ancient history when it comes to cryptocurrencies), the platform is available in many countries all over the planet and it’s made a name for itself regarding reliability and security.

It’s a 100% crypto-crypto exchange, which means that you can’t use any fiat money to buy tokens or link a bank account or a debit card of any kind. But this is how most of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world work, so that’s not much of a surprise. The exchanges that allow trading in fiat currencies are still not more than a handful.

BitTorrent’s happy Valentine at HitBTC

The reason for us to introduce HitBTC to you in this article is quite simple. As of last Valentine’s day (Feb 14th), the company is listing the BitTorrent Token (BTT) in several trading pairs, especially against Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT.

This is very good news for the Tron network and its subsidiary, BitTorrent. It means that the recently launched cryptocurrency known as BTT is quickly gaining acceptance in many markets all over the world and will be readily available for trade in some of the most influential exchanges.

As you probably know already, nearly every blockchain network in the world includes (or needs) a cryptocurrency to keep the network going and to incentivize the creation of new blocks for the chain.

BitTorrent is not a blockchain network just yet, but it’s been the world’s largest decentralized network for years. Not too many months ago, Tron bought it and then announced that it would turn it into a blockchain network. Part of Tron’s blockchain network, as a matter of fact, and as such the BitTorrent network would issue a new Tron-based digital asset called BTT.

Project Atlas’ new coin

The merging of Tron and BitTorrent (called “Project Atlas”) has not been completed yet, and both networks remain independent. But it’s expected to happen over the next few months. That will make Tron the world’s largest blockchain by far, even surpassing BitCoin at least regarding users, if maybe not in value.

BTT is not supposed to become a retail currency as many other altcoins, but the means to incentivize users in the BitTorrent network to keep the network’s decentralization going on by sharing their files, bandwidth, and resources for longer periods of time in exchange for passive income in the form of a Tron-compatible cryptocurrency.

But that’s just the beginning. BitTorrent will become a blockchain of the third generation in the full sense of the expression so, soon, it will be able to run decentralized applications and smart contracts, just as Tron does. As that new stage comes to fruition, the use cases for BTT will multiply quickly.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

Tron Price Analysis

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The cryptocurrency market opened today, November 9, to almost all the cryptocurrencies seeing red. Popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin [BTC], Ethereum [ETH] and Tron [TRX] all witnessed a price bleed after a few days of price hikes. At the moment of writing, there was a systematic fall across the cryptocurrency spectrum.

1 hour:

https://ambcrypto.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/TRX-1-HR-1.jpg

The Tron one-hour graph shows the cryptocurrency form triangle with the uptrend and downtrend acting as the slopes. The price uptrend saw the price rise from $0.0232 to $0.0247while the downtrend saw Tron falling from $0.0248 to $0.023. The immediate resistance was holding at $0.0248 while the support has been maintaining at $0.0215.

The Parabolic SAR points to the price dropping which is evidenced by the markers being above the candles. This trend has been persistent for more than 24-hours.

The Chaikin Money Flow indicator shows the graph right at the axis, which still puts the cryptocurrency in the bullish zone. The fall from the top of the graph also indicates the money going out of the market due to the change in investor sentiments.

1 day:

https://ambcrypto.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/trx-1-day-3.jpg

The Tron one day graph shows the coin suffering an acute downtrend which has bought the price down from $0.0571 to $0.0231. The support for the cryptocurrency has been holding at $0.0182.

The Bollinger band shows the dominant sideways movement as indicated by the strict pipe like formation of the upper band and the lower band. Compared to the earlier breakouts, the currency Bollinger clouds have significantly reduced in size.

The Awesome Oscillator has shown a drastic reduction in the market momentum with the graph almost negligible now. The immediate green markers point to a hike in the momentum.

Conclusion:

The above-mentioned indicators majorly point to the current sideways price movement persisting. The Chaikin Money Flow indicators, on the other hand, shows a positive change in the investor sentiments.