2020 is Possibly the Last Year Bitcoin (BTC) Will Be Below $10k

John P. Njui   •   BITCOIN (BTC) NEWS   •   July 31, 2020

In brief:

• Bitcoin managed to brush off news of a shrinking US economy.
• Bitcoin has firmly regained the $11k price level.
• A previous Bloomberg report had concluded that active BTC addresses point to $12k.
• Using Metcalfe&'s Law, 2020 might be the last time Bitcoin trades below $10k.

On the last day of July, Bitcoin has shrugged off yesterday's alarming news of the US economy contracting by 32.9% in the second quarter of 2020. The lack of growth of the US economy has been linked to job losses and low consumer spending brought about by the economic effects of COVID19.

Bitcoin Firmly Regains $11k After Positive Earnings from Amazon, Apple and facebook

When news broke of a contracting US economy, the automatic response was one of caution as such information had the ability to drop the value of Bitcoin in an instant. Also yesterday, the big tech companies of Amazon, Apple and facebook released their quarterly earnings reports that propped back the stock markets. The positive news from the big tech companies also had a direct effect on Bitcoin which has since firmly regained the $11k price level. At the time of writing, Bitcoin is valued at $11,160 – Binance rate.

Bitcoin Active Addresses Point to $12k

Also to note, is that Bitcoin price is following a price prediction postulated by the team at Bloomberg in early July. According to the research team at Bloomberg, the number of active Bitcoin addresses point at BTC hitting $12k. They explained:

The number of active Bitcoin addresses used, a key signal of the 2018 price decline and 2019 recovery, suggests a value closer to $12,000, based on historical patterns.

2020 Might Be the Last Time Bitcoin is Valued Below $10k

In addition to all the positive news surrounding the crypto markets, 2020 might become the last year Bitcoin is ever valued at under $10k as shall be explained.

According to Bitcoin analysis done by Timothy Peterson of Cane Island Alternative Advisors, BTC’s value can be modeled using Metcalfe’s law. As earlier explained, Metcalfe's Law is primarily used in the Telecoms industry and Mr. Peterson has expanded on it in his analysis of Bitcoin.

Furthermore, Mr. Peterson has a very elaborate and simple chart that gives mid-November 2020, as possibly the last time Bitcoin will be valued at under $10k. Below is one of his Tweets proposing such a possibility for Bitcoin.

Money Printer Going Brrr Will Benefit Bitcoin's Value

With the Fed and European Central Bank continually printing fiat, more investors are flocking to safe-haven assets such as Gold, Silver and Bitcoin. This fact coupled with the recent bullish news of Visa, Mastercard and Paypal finally embracing crypto, it can be concluded that Bitcoin's general trajectory is up henceforth.

As with all analyses of Bitcoin, traders and investors are advised to do their own research and use adequate stop losses when trading Bitcoin.

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Original article posted on the EthereumWorldNews.com site, by John P. Njui.

Article re-posted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Crypto Hardware Wallet Maker Ledger Warns Customers Of Data Breach

By RTTNews Staff Writer | Published: 7/29/2020 10:32 AM ET

Crypto hardware wallet maker Ledger has warned its customers about a data breach on the Ledger website in June and July, which has compromised contact and order details of 9,500 customers as well as 1 million email addresses.

Meanwhile, the company confirmed that payment information, passwords or credentials and crypto funds are safe as the data breach has no link with its hardware wallets or Ledger Live security and crypto assets.

Ledger was informed about a potential data breach on July 14 by a researcher participating in their bounty program. A week after patching the breach, the company came to know about an earlier breach in late June by an unauthorized third party.

This breach had compromised e-commerce and marketing database used to send order confirmations and promotional emails, These consisting mostly of email addresses, but with a subset including also contact and order details such as first and last name, postal address, email address and phone number.

The unauthorized third party had access to a portion of the e-commerce and marketing database through an API Key. The API key has been deactivated and is no longer accessible.

The company said it was able to fix issue immediately after a detailed internal investigation with third party experts as it was limited to ecommerce and marketing contact information.

The company is also actively monitoring online marketplaces for evidence of the stolen database being sold on the internet, but it has found none so far.

Ledger had notified the French Data Protection Authority, CNIL, about the data breach on July 17. It then partnered Orange Cyberdefense on July 21 to assess the potential damages of the data breach and identify potential data breaches.

Following the assessment, it was concluded that the ecommerce and marketing database has been breached. The company said it has already informed all affected customers through an email.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

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Article written by an RTT News Staff Writer, and posted on the RTT News.com website.

Article reposted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Bitcoin Retakes $11k — Further Reinforcing Analysts Take That $20,000 Is In Sight

By Adrian Klent – July 28, 2020

At the time of this writing, Bitcoin is trading at a price of $11,026, which was first attained in the last 24hrs. The entire cryptocurrency community, especially Bitcoin users on Twitter have been tweeting tirelessly about the long-awaited price rally.

At present, Bitcoin is among the global Twitter trends with more than 100,000 tweets from the community. Regardless of the constant dips, analysts are still very confident that the big bull will make a crossover, and this is reflected in the live Bitcoin trading chart.

The one-day candlestick chart conveys Bitcoin’s sloppy movement from when Bitcoin hit $10,000 on the 27th of July, at 16:00 (UTC), and crossed over to $10,300. For the next two hours, the bears tested their luck but couldn’t hold strong as the mild bullish reversal steered the rally.

On the 27th of July, Bitcoin crossed the $10,600 and $10,800 resistance levels and hit $11,000. The daily all-time high was at $11,256, a mid dip sent Bitcoin below that price but the $11,000 price range was still maintained up until 8:00 am (UTC).

The momentum was lost shortly after and another dip to $10,700 was witnessed. Since then, the bulls have been struggling to stay afloat but power has been exchanged severally between bulls and bears. While bears’ impulse isn’t strong enough to pull the big bull below the $10,000 price mark, at least within the next few hours, the bulls will need to maintain the $10,500 mark as the minimum support level or Bitcoin might retest previous support. Hitting the $11,500 high could happen anytime soon. The next 24hrs could set Bitcoin in motion for $12,000 or prices could trade within the $11,000 and $10,000 if the market goes sideways.

Meanwhile, analysts are firmly stating that a $20,000 price may be attained sooner than later. As July comes to close, analysts are more bullish than ever. Popular analyst MoonCarl tweeted earlier today saying the bear market was over. If this is the case indeed, Bitcoin may trade above $10,000 through the rest of the year.

The editor at Kraken, Pete Rizzo also said that the ongoing bull run during this time translates to Bitcoin entering an “uncharted territory.”

MoonCarl wrapped up with another bold tweet that is being echoed by many. But whether or not Bitcoin hits $20,000 in the coming months, the bulls are once again largely in control of the market and new all-time highs may be attained from here on out.

DISCLAIMER

The views expressed in the article are wholly those of the author and do not represent those of, nor should they be attributed to, ZyCrypto. This article is not meant to give financial advice. Please carry out your own research before investing in any of the various cryptocurrencies available.

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The original article written by Adrian Klent and posted on ZyCrypto.com.

Article reposted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Cellebrite Launches CipherTrace-powered Crypto Tracer Solution

By RTTNews Staff Writer | Published: 7/28/2020 10:17 AM ET

Digital intelligence firm Cellebrite teamed up with blockchain security firm CipherTrace to launch a Crypto Tracer solution to provide investigators with visibility to track illicit cryptocurrency movement by offering cryptocurrency tracing and blockchain analytic capabilities.

The solution will help accelerate investigations involving blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. It will help investigators to lawfully obtain evidence and trace criminals who use bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for illicit activities, including money laundering, terrorism, drug and human trafficking, weapon sales, and ransomware schemes.

The CipherTrace Inspector-powered solution encompasses powerful and easy-to-use tools, investigation services, and training programs designed for investigators, analysts and non-technical agents. It helps investigators to aggregate and curate millions of open source and private references, deception data and human intelligence, providing full visibility into the lifespan of cryptocurrency transactions.

The graphic mapping and color-coded threat level transactions enhance the visualization and understanding of the activities and accelerate investigators' abilities to pinpoint primary and associated criminal activity and its perpetrators.

It is estimated that about $76 billion of illegal activities involve Bitcoin every year. Also, nearly all darknet market transactions involve cryptocurrencies, due to their ease of transacting online and across borders.

There has been a misconception and has long been assumed that blockchain and cryptocurrency transactions remain untraceable and unknown. The essence of blockchain is to indelibly keep a record of each step of every transaction and this helps to identify illicit blockchain activity by interpreting the data.

The perceived anonymity has encouraged criminals to use cryptocurrencies for illicit activity. All the transactions are recorded on the blockchain, which is a public ledger, enabling anyone to see the transactions, but they cannot see the identities of those executing the transactions.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

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Article written by an RTT News Staff Writer, and posted on the RTT News.com website.

Article reposted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Bitcoin Breaks $10K and 3 Weeks Before One BTC Prediction

John P. Njui   •   BITCOIN (BTC) NEWS   •   JULY 26, 2020

Quick take:

• Bitcoin has bulldozed the $10K psychological price level before dropping back to $9,900.
• This move by Bitcoin had been predicted by Timothy Peterson of Cane Island Alternative Advisors.
• His prediction had set a mid-August date for Bitcoin breaking $10K.
• BTC has achieved this feat 3 weeks ahead of schedule.
• The VISA, Mastercard, Paypal and OCC news could be behind Bitcoin’s bullishness.

Sundays are usually slow days in the crypto markets with many traders expecting sideways movement from Bitcoin (BTC) or a catastrophic dip. However, Bitcoin has done the opposite only moments ago when BTC wicked hard from the $9,700 price level to $10,115 – Binance rate.

With this quick move, Bitcoin has broken the psychological price level of $10,000. However, the King of Crypto has since dropped down to $9,970 as crypto traders attempt to figure out BTC’s next move.

A $10K Bitcoin Had Been Predicted, But by Mid August

The exciting move by Bitcoin above $10,000 had been predicted by Timothy Peterson, an Investment Manager at Cane Island Alternative Advisors. Mr. Peterson had predicted that BTC would retest $10,000 by mid-August. His prediction was based on his use of Metcalfe’s law. He made this prediction on July 1st via the following tweet.

#Bitcoin #10KCountdown is inspired by this price prediction from a popular (but not knowledgeable) bitcoiner. Using Metcalfe's law, I will show how predictable bitcoin's price is (within statistical margins). We're 49 days away. pic.twitter.com/VBnvNzsB0i

— Timothy Peterson (@nsquaredcrypto) July 1, 2020

Metcalfe’s law is usually used in the telecommunications industry and states that the effect of a telecoms network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system. Mr. Perteson has expanded this law to analyze Bitcoin and has even published a research paper about it.

He has since provided a glimpse of how he uses it to calculate Bitcoin’s value via the following tweet only hours ago.

#bitcoin #10KCountdown demonstrating that Metcalfe's Law determines bitcoin's value (and #ethereum, and #chainlink, and #twitter, and #facebook, and #google, and the internet, and #apple…) pic.twitter.com/BH4WsLXrVW

— Timothy Peterson (@nsquaredcrypto) July 26, 2020

What Next for Bitcoin (BTC) in the Crypto Markets?

Bitcoin’s surge above $10K has returned BTC to pre-Covid19 levels last seen in late February. To note is that the CME Bitcoin futures are still paused at Friday’s price of $9,600. Additionally, the CME futures expire this Friday, 31st July. Therefore, judging by past situations where there is a CME gap, Bitcoin will eventually dip down and fill it. To get a feel as to when this might happen, it is worth looking at the daily BTC/USDT chart.

(Click image for larger view)

From the daily Bitcoin chart, the following can be observed.

• Bitcoin’s price at $9,970 is above the 50-day, 100-day and 200-day moving averages, thus pleading the case for a bullish environment.
• MACD has crossed in a bullish manner around the baseline pointing that Bitcoin could continue pushing higher to retest $10,115.
• However, the daily MFI is high at 80 pointing to future sideways movement or a retracement.
• The mentioned moving averages provide adequate support at $9,300, $9,050 and $8,600 respectively.

Furthermore, Bitcoin could remain in bullish territory as a result of the news of VISA, Mastercard and Paypal planning on supporting crypto transactions. Additionally, the news of US banks being greenlighted to offer crypto custody solutions will provide much-needed fuel for BTC to rebound if it drops to fill the CME gap.

As with all analyses of Bitcoin, stop losses and low leverage are advised when trading BTC during volatile times.

Disclaimer: This article is not meant to give financial advice. Any additional opinion herein is purely the author’s and does not represent the opinion of EWN or any of its other writers. Please carry out your own research before investing in any of the numerous cryptocurrencies available. Thank you.

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Original article posted on the EthereumWorldNews.com site, by John P. Njui.

Article re-posted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Why Bitcoin Suddenly Spiked to $10,200, Instantly Liquidating $75M

The price of Bitcoin abruptly surged to $10,200, as it liquidated $75 million worth of short contracts.

Image courtesy of CoinTelegraph

            JULY 26, 2020

The price of Bitcoin (BTC) rose to as high as $10,272 on July 26 in an unexpected weekend rally. It liquidated $74 million worth of long contracts on BitMEX alone, catching many traders off guard.

The hourly price chart of Bitcoin. Source: TradingView.com (Click image for larger view)

There appear to be two main reasons behind the abrupt upsurge of Bitcoin from $9,700 to over $10,200. They are the liquidation of over-leveraged shorts and traders taking profit from over-extended alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins).

Profit-taking pattern observed as Bitcoin spikes

When the price started to rally, major altcoins, as well as well-performing DeFi tokens, began to slump. Ethereum declined from $322 to $311, and DeFi tokens, including Aave and YFI, saw steep rejections.

Cryptocurrency market performance July 26. Source: Coin360 (Click image for larger view)

The simultaneous rejections of major altcoins and the price surge of Bitcoin suggest that traders took profit from recent altcoin rallies. As traders moved their altcoin gains to Bitcoin, it possibly triggered a BTC uptrend, while altcoins declined.

ETH, as an example, rose from $247 on July 23 to $322 on the day’s peak, recording a 30% gain. Despite the strong sentiment around altcoins, investors are possibly taking a more cautious approach by hedging their gains.

Massive liquidations of short contracts

When Bitcoin initially broke over $10,000, it triggered over-leveraged short contracts to become liquidated. When BTC reached $10,200, it caused a cascade of liquidations to occur, totaling $74 million.

Bitcoin has seen many phases when more than $50 million worth of short or long contracts gets liquidated. But for this to occur within a span of a few hours is less typical.

The mass liquidations of long contracts at $10,000 also suggest that the $10,000 to $10,200 remains as a heavy resistance area. As soon as BTC hit $10,200, the price dropped below $10,000, marking a short-lived rally.

Investors express optimism over BTC’s near-term price trend

As the price of Bitcoin recovered strongly in recent weeks, some industry executives and investors expressed optimism toward BTC and ETH.

“Are you ready?” Grayscale CEO Barry Silbert tweeted when Ether price broke out of the dreaded $280 resistance level on July 25.

Well-known trader Peter Brandt, meanwhile, expects the price of Bitcoin to hit a new record high and eventually make its way to $50,000. He said:

“That is actually where my head is. Massive symmetrical triangle in $BTC points to ATHs, then $50k.”

But some variables could affect the short-term price trend of BTC price. First, the funding rate of Bitcoin is projected to be over 0.04% on BitMEX. That is nearly four times higher than the average funding rate of 0.01%. It signifies that the majority of the market is taking long positions.

For Ethereum’s ETH token, the funding rate is hovering at over 0.1%, which suggests the rally is beginning to get overheated. In February, ETH’s price rejected at $280 as its funding rate surpassed 0.2%, and when the overwhelming majority of the market was longing the asset.

Second, $10,000 has acted as a key psychological level for Bitcoin since October 2019. If BTC rejects at $10,200, it would still be lower than the previous peak in February 2020 at $10,473.

Although it would be far-fetched to call it a lower high formation, it might show that BTC price has not cleanly broken out of the multi-month range.

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Original article posted on the CoinTelegraph.com site, by Joseph Young.

Article re-posted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

World Stablecoin Association Launched For Cryptocurrency Community

By RTTNews Staff Writer | Published: 7/24/2020 10:23 AM ET

A consortium of cryptocurrency firms have teamed up to launch the World Stablecoin Association (WSA) with the aim to promote global development of stablecoins and actively engage in the advocacy of digital currencies.

Stablecoin focused digital asset trading platform VirgoX and blockchain capital markets firm Global Digital Assets (GDA Capital) are the founding members of the WSA.

Geneva- headquartered WSA is an independent, not for profit organization with a mission to unite business leaders, enterprises, community buildings and regulators in the global stablecoin industry.

The WSA membership will also be open to enterprises, government agencies and other active companies adding value to and advocating for stablecoins.

Other members of the WSA include leading global stablecoin projects such as BRZ, CBRL, Peg Network, QCAD, QC, Ren, Stably, USDK, XDB and capital groups such as Alpha Sigma Capital, Consensus Labs, Nova Club and BlockGeeks, whose CEO Ameer Rosic is also on the WSA steering committee.

According to reports, the WSA is already in talks with leading stablecoin projects such as Tether (UDST), USD Coin (USDC), Dai (DAI), and HUSD and they are all expected to join the WSA by the end of 2020.

The WSA has four pillars including policy analysis, education, partnerships and advocacy, with each member organization having at least one executive participating in at least one of the initiatives.

The policy analysis committee will join forces with other research institutions, think tanks and associations to analyze the global regulatory and economic landscape of stablecoins.

The education committee will publish educational material and arrange offline meetups and conferences including an annual World Stablecoin Summit each year in Switzerland.

The partnerships committee will leverage relationships across industry verticals to support members in forming meaningful global alliances and the advocacy committee will accelerate the stablecoin policy making process.

According to market intelligence firm TokenAnalyst, the use and demand for stablecoins have been growing exponentially over the past few years with an increase in on-chain stablecoin activities of 800 percent in the last 12 months alone with $290 billion in transactions.

The total daily trading volume of stablecoins is now the largest of any digital asset on the market today and the total market capitalization of all stablecoins is now third, ahead of Ripple and behind Bitcoin and Ethereum.

With the increase in adoption of stablecoins, the WSA will act as a neutral voice that represents the global stablecoin industry. The majority of the world will not hold their wealth or transact in bitcoin or any digital asset that is extremely volatile as it presents too much risk. This is where stablecoins are useful.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

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Article written by an RTT News Staff Writer, and posted on the RTT News.com website.

Article reposted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe