In Boost For Crypto Fidelity Gets Green Light For Bitcoin Trading And Custody

Fidelity Digital Assets, the crypto arm of asset management giant Fidelity, has been granted a licence by the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) to trade and store bitcoin.

The limited purpose trust company charter enables Fidelity Digital Assets to move forward with the rollout of its custody service to institutional investors. The platform will now also be able to execute trade orders on behalf of its institutional clients.

Fidelity Digital Assets will now come under the direct supervisory oversight of the NYDFS.

In a Medium blog post the company said: “Our designation as a New York trust company builds on the commitment we've made to our clients to continue to provide the services they require to proceed with confidence in their own work with digital assets.”

“The custody and trade execution services that we provide are essential building blocks for institutional investors’ continued adoption of digital assets,” added Michael O’Reilly, chief operating officer of Fidelity Digital Assets.

“The designation as a New York Trust Company under the supervision and examination of the DFS builds on the credibility and trust we're establishing amongst institutions and other market participants. We will continue to play a leading role in supporting the maturation of the entire ecosystem as we expand our business and the clients we serve.”

— Michael O’Reilly, COO, Fidelity Digital Assets

According to the Financial Times the NYDFS has only issued 23 such licences to companies operating in the crypto space.

“This approval is further evidence that innovation and consumer protection can coexist in New York’s evolving and expanding financial services industry,” said Linda Lacewell, the superintendent of financial services at the DFS.

Although US federal regulators have been somewhat reticent regarding crypto, New York appears keen to compete with other emerging crypto hubs such as Singapore, Switzerland, and Malta.

SEC to revisit Bitwise Bitcoin ETF decision

In other news, in a sign that the US Securities and Exchange Commission might be getting worried about falling behind against the global competition in the light of rumours of a Chinese yuan stablecoin and the impact of the Libra initiative.

Yesterday the SEC said in a statement on its website that it was revisiting the decision to reject the Bitwise bitcoin exchange traded fund.

Original article posted on the EthereumWorldNews.com site, by Gary McFarlane.

Article re-posted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Bitcoin (BTC) Price May See 13% Drop; Here’s Why

Bitcoin (BTC) took an absolute beating on Wednesday. For those who missed the memo, the cryptocurrency saw a 10% drop within an hour or two, plunging under the key level of $7,700 for the first time in around five months. This dramatic move came after countless analysts expected volatility to hit markets, citing the Bollinger Band amongst other indicators.

While the pain has hit traders hard already, leading analysts are expecting for Bitcoin to continue falling. Here’s why.

Bearish Bitcoin Factors

Speaking to CNBC in the wake of the recent $600 plunge, Mike Novogratz, the CEO of Galaxy Digital and a Wall Street veteran, said that he expects the leading cryptocurrency to fall further in the coming days. He claimed that there be another leg of selling pressure that will take Bitcoin down by at least 13% to $6,500. Novogratz added that for this move to be negated, there will need to be “new energy” that wrests Bitcoin back above $8,000.

He backed this prediction by looking to the “bunch of negative things that have happened recently,” specifically citing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) decision to stop Telegram from launching its crypto asset. Other bearish fundamental trends include Mark Zuckerberg’s hearing in Congress, the SEC’s decisions to make a case against other startups, and the fact that institutions have yet to really delve into the crypto markets.

It is important to note that it isn’t all bearish fundamentals for Bitcoin. CoinMetrics, a top cryptocurrency analytics firm, recently observed that Bitcoin’s implied 24-hour hash rate hit 115 exahashes per second, which is a metric that is seven to eight times higher now than it was during the peak of 2017’s bull run to $20,000.

Also, the Federal Reserve has continued to inject billions into the repo markets, which many see as a sign of impending collapse or at least troubles for the fiat financial system.

Why the Mid-$6,000s?

Novogratz isn’t the only one eyeing $6,500.

In a recent analysis, prominent analyst Dave the Wave, who has been short-term bearish for months now (and essentially called the recent downturn), said that Bitcoin is likely to fall further. This move lower, he claimed citing a geometric/fractal analysis of the last market cycle and the current, will end with Bitcoin bottoming in mid-November — just three weeks away.

In terms of the price at which the cryptocurrency will bottom, Dave’s ideal target is $6,700, which is where there exists a confluence of technical levels: the 0.5 Fibonacci Retracement of the $3,200 to $14,000 move, the bottom of a descending channel, amongst other important levels.

Original article posted on the EthereumWorldNews.com site, by Nick Chong.

Article re-posted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Want to Win $100,000 in Bitcoin by Eating Pizza? Here’s Your Shot

Pizza: A Bitcoin Staple

Pizza has long been an integral staple of the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency industry.

Back when Bitcoin was trading for literal cents, a computer programmer famously made the first real-life purchase with BTC, using 10,000 precious (then effectively worthless, as the market for them was so nascent) coins to purchase two pizzas from a user on BitcoinTalk, who ordered him Papa John’s. While 10,000 BTC was then chump change (then $40) for the programmer, Laszlo Hanyecz, that same sum of cryptocurrency is now worth some $100 million. Youch.

The trend of Bitcoin and pizza has continued years later. Earlier this year, Bitcoin payments upstart Fold recently released a fun portal based on the Lightning Network. Fittingly dubbed Lightning Pizza, it allowed consumers to purchase Domino’s with Lightning transactions, which are near-instant, effectively free, and (eventually) secured on-chain. Fold’s product lead, Will Reeves, told CoinDesk the following about his company’s newest venture:

“We’re trying to make bitcoin fun again and illustrate that lightning is at a point where it is mainstream-ready.”

And the crypto community celebrated.

Want To Win $100,000? First, Go to A Domino’s In France

The pizza motif has continued to make its presence known. As first spotted by Decrypt, the French branch of Domino’s Pizza is giving away $110,000 worth of Euros to celebrate its 30th birthday, giving customers of the chain a chance to win their prize in either fiat or Bitcoin. According to the website for this surprise competition, users will have a chance to enter into the draw from September 4th to October 6th.

The Importance of The Story

While some see the Bitcoin Pizza story as one that should be heeded as a warning not to spend BTC as a medium of exchange, some have begged to differ.

At an event in Los Angeles, Mati Greenspan, a lead analyst and cryptocurrency commentator at retail brokerage eToro, told a crowd that without Laszlo’s unfortunate run-in with pizza, “we likely wouldn’t be where we are today”.

Indeed, Laszlo’s showed the world — or all of BitcoinTalk at the time — that Bitcoin can actually be used as a medium of exchange, especially in a digital context.

While the dream of global payments hasn’t been had yet, with the CEO of Twitter even saying that Bitcoin currently isn’t equipped to become the Internet’s money, solutions like the Lightning Network are well on their way.

Original article posted on the EthereumWorldNews.com site, by Nick Chong.

Article re-posted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

JP Morgan Expects U.S. Dollar to Lose Traction: Boon for Bitcoin

Drop USD?

According to JP Morgan, the U.S. Dollar may be on its way out. This may be bullish for Bitcoin.

Jan Nieuwenhuijs, an analyst of gold, recently tweeted out a report from JP Morgan — one of the world’s largest banks. The jaw-dropping report revealed that the famous bank believes that the USD could “become vulnerable to a loss of value relative to a more diversified basket of currencies, including gold”. The bank’s analysts cite the “persistent and rising deficits in the U.S. (in both fiscal and trade.)”

Indeed. Forecasts currently chart America’s fiscal deficit to reach $1 trillion within the next decade. This could result in a relative devaluation against a diversified basket, as the bank writes, and may actually be a catalyst for the U.S. Dollar to start to recede as the world’s reserve currency.

JP Morgan’s harrowing report echoes comments made by Mark Carney, the head of the Bank of England — the monetary authority behind the Pound. As reported by Ethereum World News previously, the central banker said that the world is in need of an entirely new monetary and financial system, citing his sentiment that the U.S. Dollar-based system that exists today is quite archaic. In fact, Reuters reports that Carney said the USD is currently playing a “destabilizing” role in the world economy, citing the effects of globalization and trade spats.

He added that with the dollar being the de-facto reserve asset of the world, with USD being a primary settlement tool for international trade and central banks hoarding the currency, “developments in the U.S. economy, by affecting the dollar exchange rate, can have large spillover effects to the rest of the world.”

To Aid Bitcoin

According to Raoul Pal, this next global system will be a boon for Bitcoin and gold. The former head of Goldman Sachs’s hedge funds sales division and current Real Vision CEO explained that this new infrastructure, which will nearly definitely by digital, will act as an on-ramp for the cryptocurrency market.

Indeed, the wide adoption of a digital form of money will acclimate society to transition to Bitcoin and decentralized solutions, especially if governments are encroaching on the privacy and safety of citizens.

Original article posted on the EthereumWorldNews.com site, by Nick Chong.

Article re-posted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Bank of England Admits Crypto is the Future, U.S. Dollar to Fall

Crypto is here to stay and the greenback is on its way out. That was the sentiment portrayed by the Bank of England’s Governor, Mark Carney, at the central bank meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on Friday. Crazy, right?

Crypto a Topic at Central Bank Meeting

Over the past few days, the leaders of the world’s economy, the chiefs of and advisors to central banks the world over, have descended in a little town in (the pro-blockchain state) Wyoming, Jackson Hole. Financial media is also in attendance. There, these world monetary leaders are convening to talk about monetary policy and macroeconomic trends. This comes at an important time, as a growing number of Wall Street analysts and retail investors have begun to call for a recession, just as trade wars have raged and central banks have embarked on money printing sprees.

One interesting comment came from Mark Carney of the Bank of England, According to a report from Bloomberg, the leading central banker said that a Libra-like crypto asset has the capacity to replace the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. In other words, he’s saying that a digital asset backed by a diverse range of government assets, including bonds and fiat monies, has the potential to usurp the world’s go-to currency.

While he wasn’t exactly specific with his comment, Carney made it clear that the current system isn’t working in his eyes, saying that “in the longer term, we need to change the game”.

Of course, he didn’t explicitly say that a decentralized crypto asset is the future. But, the sentiment that a digital currency has the ability to literally overtake the world’s economy shouldn’t be taken lightly, even if it was made in reference to something as seemingly centralized as Libra.

t is important to note that if a consortium of central banks do go ahead with a Libra-like project, it is unlikely to be as corporate or decentralized/uncontrollable as Facebook’s David Marcus claims Libra will be.

Not His Only Interesting Comment

That wasn’t his only interesting comment. According to the same Bloomberg report, the U.K. monetary leader also stated that he believes the world is currently seeing “heightened economic policy uncertainty, outright protectionism and concerns that further negative shocks.” If you believe that Bitcoin is a proper store of value or safe haven/hedge, this comment should be seen as bullish for the “orange coin”.

Original article posted on the EthereumWorldNews.com site, by Nick Chong.

Article re-posted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Bitcoin Bleeds Out 6%, Falls to $10,500: Case for Bounce Growing

Bitcoin Sheds 6%

Over the past few days, bears have managed to wrest the wheel of the proverbial Bitcoin car from bulls. And since then, this class of investors has been driving BTC off a cliff.

As per the time of writing this article, the cryptocurrency has found itself changing hands for $10,560 apiece, having shed 6% of its value in the past day. Data from Coin360 suggests that Bitcoin is down around 11% in the past week, marking one of the larger weekly losses in this bull market.

This dramatic move lower comes shortly after countless cryptocurrency investors on Twitter were calling for bulls to commence their next leg to the upside. In fact, just the other day, an analyst from Goldman Sachs — the world-renowned investment bank — eyed a “short-term target at $13,971” for BTC. Should the cryptocurrency encounter that level, that would mark a double top, as $14,000 is where Bitcoin reversed in late-June.

The analyst continued, writing that Bitcoin’s potential move to tap $13,971 may be the “first leg of another five-wave count similar to the trend that lasted from December 2018 through June 2019.”

And thus, they advised their clients to buy any retracement from their aforementioned short-term target, barring that BTC “doesn’t retrace further than the $9,084 low.”

BTC Likely to Bounce

While the drop may seem like it has no end in sight, analysts are starting to expect a bounce — at least one in the short term. Analyst Crypto Hamster recently explained that Bitcoin’s recent drop reminds him of BTC’s drop in late-2018 to $3,000 from $6,000. In other words, a bounce may ensue in the coming days.

He explained that structurally, the moves look similar. The legs lower are losing momentum, as marked by declining volumes; the RSI, Stochastic RSI, and MACD histogram hit “extreme lows” and have started to print bullish divergences; the biggest sell volume occurred a while before; sentiment is overly bearish. This may imply Bitcoin could soon see a relief bounce.

That’s not all. The Bitcoin Fear & Greed index has reached the December lows. The indicator, which aims to measure how the market is feeling about BTC’s price action, reads an 11 — “extreme fear”.

According to the makers of Bitcoin Fear & Greed Index, a bounce — a short-term one at least. A description of the index from the website reads:

“The crypto market behavior is very emotional. People tend to get greedy when the market is rising which results in FOMO. Also, people often sell their coins in irrational reaction of seeing red numbers. Extreme fear can be a sign that investors are too worried. That could be a buying opportunity.”

Indeed, the last time the index had such a low reading, Bitcoin bounced higher in the weeks that followed. In fact, when this indicator last flirted in the low 10s, BTC gained 20% in the weeks that followed.

Original article posted on the EthereumWorldNews.com site, by Nick Chong.

Article re-posted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Bitcoin Earning Service Lolli Bags Partnership With Safeway

Lolli Bags Big Partnership, Helps to Drive Bitcoin Adoption

To most consumers, getting their hands on Bitcoin (BTC) is an arduous task. For those that aren’t so-called “crypto natives”, onboarding onto an exchange that doesn’t carry that same brand name as, say, E*Trade or TD Ameritrade’s Think or Swim may seem risky, especially when you involve passport details and other personal information. But, there have been companies trying to change this moat, so to speak.

One of these is Lolli, a Bitcoin-centric rewards service that acts much like browser extensions Honey or Rakuten Rewards. Today, the company revealed that it would be partnering with major grocery chains, marking one of its most massive partnerships to date.

Speaking to Yahoo Finance, the chief executive of the startup Alex Adelman revealed that his firm is teaming up with Albertsons and Safeway — two popular chains in North America. Safeway has 900 stores; Albertsons has some 2,300.

While the details of the partnership have yet to be fully released, the firm is expected to be offering up to a 3.5% rebate on transactions at the grocery chains, pretty much allowing for investors to rack up dozens of dollars worth of Bitcoin over the course of a year’s digital grocery shopping trips.

This partnership follows one with Hotels.com — a leading travel service that gets over 55 million visits a month according to SimilarWeb data.

Hotels.com joins Priceline, Hotwire, Hilton, the Marriott, and many other travel-centric partners of Lolli. The travel service brings its 325,000 listed hotels and properties, which exist in 19,000 locations, to the table, giving Bitcoin-friendly consumer countless options to travel the globe in return for some juicy BTC kickback.

Lolli is hoping to capitalize on the massive travel industry, which it claims netted over $1.1 trillion in the U.S. alone during 2018. The company claims that if 5% of this $1.1 trillion sum was routed through Lolli and thus Hotels.com, travelers could have made back about “$1,925,000,000 worth of Bitcoin (~170,354 BTC)” just by downloading the web browser application. To some, not using Lolli is just irresponsible.

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Why Lolli?

Lolli was built by devotees to the “stacking sats (satoshis)” movement, which involves Bitcoin diehards that wish to accumulate the cryptocurrency as much possible, usually on a periodic basis. Their ranks include popular commentators in the industry, including Marty Bent, Mr. Hodl, and The Bitcoin Rabbi.

But what’s the deal here?

Well, those that are stacking sats are under the impression that Bitcoin will become a widely-used currency and store of value, making it nonsensical to not accumulate the asset when it’s still young. This ties in with the investment strategy of dollar-cost averaging (DCA), which sees investors spread out purchases over a period of time to reduce risk and increase potential returns.

Original article posted on the EthereumWorldNews.com site, by Nick Chong.

Article re-posted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe