Wall Street Journal (subscription) | Why You Won't Be Buying a Coffee With Bitcoin Anytime Soon - WSJ Wall Street Journal (subscription) The cost of buying or selling the digital currency recently hit an all-time high, making day-to-day transactions like buying a cup of coffee impractical. |
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Bitcoin is currently down about $500, or nearly 17%, from its June 12 th peak of $3,000 per coin. Essentially every other major cryptocurrency, including Ethereum and Litecoin, has seen similar declines. There have been fluctuations since the peak, but the overall trend has been steadily downhill for weeks.
While it can seem odd to apply old-school securities terms to newfangled digital money, that means the crypto market is nearing the conventional 20% decline that defines bear territory.
Few insiders or regular Fortune readers are likely surprised by this. "Bubble" was maybe the single word most consistently spoken by expert panelists at the Consensus conference in late May. Our Robert Hackett diagnosed a speculative bubble two weeks before the peak.
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Recent weeks losses werent the one-day implosion often associated with a bubble. But the more important feature of bubbles delirious optimism ungrounded in reality has been swirling for months. Investment Strategist Matt Prusak, writing at Coindesk, has rounded up some novel examples of "dumb money" (his term) rushing into cryptocurrency. Many of them are quite entertaining if you arent among those taking losses right now.
Prusak points out, for instance, this account of amateurs rushing into the market as it peaked:
The tweet is particularly notable, of course, because Dmitry Buterin is the father of Vitalik Buterin creator of #2 cryptocurrency Ethereum. Dmitry, like most insiders, has been watching for a correction for weeks.
Pusak also points out this doubly amusing post from BroBible, titled "What is The Etherum [sic] Cyrptocurrency [sic] and How Will It Make You Rich AF?" It was posted, misspellings and all, as the market was already heading down.
Pusak dives into several other dimensions of crypto-mania, but Ill cite just one more thats particularly illuminating. Through the entire course of the runup, the value of Ethereum (ETH) has been tracked closely by the value of Ethereum Classic (ETC). While Ethereum may be the cryptocurrency with the broadest real-world adoption, Ethereum Classic is a so-called fork, completely distinct from Ethereum and with barely a fraction of Ethereums adoption.
Pusak says it is "highly likely the price [of ETC] has been driven significantly higher by uninformed investors simply not understanding the difference between the two similar to how adding ".com" to a companys name in 1999 sent stock prices up on average 74%."
To be clear, calling the cryptocurrency market in a given month a hype-driven bubble is not the same thing as deriding the technology. This is revolutionary stuff with huge long-term potential, and for some, declining prices will mean a buying opportunity . But it's an extremely volatile, high-risk asset, and theres every chance that any particular coin even Bitcoin itself could end up being worth nothing at all.
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Considering how the Internet is for porn, and Bitcoin is the internet of money, it is evident BTC and adult content mix well. Quite a few adult content platforms accept Bitcoin and cryptocurrency payments, for obvious reasons. We have taken a look at some of the top platforms accepting Bitcoin to date, which can be found below. Do keep in mind there are a lot more adult content companies who accept Bitcoin, though.
Everyone who has ever browsed the internet for adult content will have come across the Livejasmin platform. The company is famous for its live webcam stream of adult content, where users can pay to interact with the streamer. Over the past decade or so, Livejasmin has become a household name in the adult content industry. The company started accepting Bitcoin payments quite some time ago, and it appears they are doing quite well since making this switch.
One of the many popular adult websites to accept Bitcoin payments goes by the name of Chaturbate. The platform has been around since 2011 and built up a solid reputation in the industry due to their live streams of erotic and pornographic performances. It is a platform where people can chat with others and have a good time, so to speak. User spend Bitcoin in the form of tips to make streamers perform specific actions. It has proven to be quite a popular business model to date, and that will not come to change anytime soon.
When the Xotika platform launched, Bitcoin community members were quite impressed. It offers everything one would expect from an adult content platform, with a large focus on live interaction with streamers. Xotika started accepting cryptocurrency payments from day one and has quickly grown to become a big player in the cryptocurrency-adult content industry. Future improvements will be made to the platform over the coming years, as the company is only just getting started, by the look of things.
Although technically not your typical adult content website, Playboy Plus is quite popular among adult content enthusiasts. The company started accepting Bitcoin payments a few years ago, thanks to the integration of BitPay services. There are multiple membership plans to choose from, which include access to HD photos and videos. It is good to see such prominent companies pay attention to Bitcoin as well.
It is not entirely surprising to see Porn.com accept Bitcoin payments. This adult content service provider feels Bitcoin has a bright future in the adult sector, thus accepting it as a payment for their premium service makes a lot of sense. Using Bitcoin as a payment method gives users access to unlimited HD streaming, no advertisements, and a very large DVD archive library. Considering how the platform offers a vast library of adult content, Bitcoin users have taken a liking to this platform for obvious reasons.
If there is one major pornographic video content creator everyone knows, it has to be Naughty America. This particular company has been around since 2001 and continues to bring quality adult content to the industry as a whole. Knowing such a major player in the industry accepts Bitcoin payments is quite significant, to say the least. Bitcoin and the adult industry create a very powerful mix, that much no one can deny.
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Top 6 Adult Websites Accepting Bitcoin Payments - The Merkle
"Donor-advised funds are a great way to give nonpublicly traded assets. Some charities will accept such assets directly, but only if they have the requisite expertise in-house," said Juan Ros, a certified financial planner and vice president for financial planning and philanthropy at Lamia Financial Group in Thousand Oaks, California.
Gifting appreciated assets comes with a double tax benefit: "Not only do you get to deduct the fair market value of the gift as a charitable deduction, but you also get to avoid paying tax on the unrealized gain of the donated property," said Chad Hamilton, a CFP in Denver who specializes in philanthropy.
For example, let's say a business owner makes a deal to sell his company and gifts shares of his stock worth $50,000 to a donor-advised fund. The business owner would avoid taxation on that $50,000 when the company is sold.
Assuming a cost basis of zero and an effective tax rate of 30 percent, a combination of long-term capital gains, state income tax and Medicare surtax, that is a long-term capital gains tax savings of $15,000, Hamilton said. Plus, that $50,000 gift is available to be claimed as a itemized charitable tax deduction.
Or let's say you want to unload bitcoin after its rapid rise this year. If you donate the bitcoin instead of selling it, you can take a charitable deduction for the fair market value on the day you give it away.
Another bonus: You'll also avoid capital gains taxes on the increase in value over time, which you would pay if you sold the bitcoin and then gave the charity the cash from the sale.
You can only deduct the fair market value if you held the bitcoin for more than a year before giving it away. If you've held it for less than a year, your deduction is limited to your cost basis, or what you paid for the digital currency, not its current value.
"Often people have appreciated assets, like stock, business interest or real estate, but they don't think of gifting those and instead just give cash," Hamilton said.
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More donors give bitcoin and assets other than cash to charities - CNBC
Renwick Haddow is accused of duping investors into investing in a fake Bitcoin trading platform. Photograph: Benoit Tessier/Reuters
US authorities on Friday charged a British businessman with securities fraud, accusing him of deceiving investors over what turned out to be a fake trading platform for the cryptocurrency Bitcoin.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleged the clandestine Renwick Haddow, a UK citizen living in New York, diverted funds invested in a phoney Bitcoin site as well as from a flexible workspace firm Bar Works into accounts in Mauritius and Morocco, totalling $5m.
It said he touted experienced senior executives as behind the operations who turned out to be phantoms, and misrepresented the details and success of both companies.
Andrew Calamari, director of the SECs New York office, said: Haddow created two trendy companies and misled investors into believing that highly qualified executives were leading them to quick profitability.
In reality, Haddow controlled the companies from behind the scenes and they were far from profitable.
Bitcoin Store claimed to be an easy-to-use and secure way of holding and trading Bitcoin that had generated several million dollars in gross sales. The SEC alleged that in fact it never had any operations nor generated the gross sales it touted.
In 2015, Bitcoin Stores bank accounts allegedly received less than $250,000 in incoming transfers, none of which appear to reflect revenue from customers, the SEC said.
Haddows investors pumped more than $37m into Bar Works, which claimed to provide workspaces in old bars and restaurants, but in fact primarily sold leases coupled with sub-leases that together functioned like investment notes, the SEC said in a statement.
The commission alleged that throughout Haddow was hiding his connection to the companies given his checkered past with regulators in the UK, where he has faced similar charges for investment schemes.
According to a report in Crains, 27 investors from China filed suit in the state supreme court on 16 June seeking repayment of more than $3m invested in Bar Works, which they called a Ponzi scheme.
Another investment group filed a similar case against Bar Works in Florida in recent weeks.
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UK dealer charged in US over multimillion-dollar fake Bitcoin site scam - The Guardian
Entrepreneur Mark Cuban, who previously helped Bitcoin's value drop after calling it a "bubble," is now interested in another digital currency. And no, it is not Ethereum, but the UnikoinGold .
According the Coindesk , Cuban is participating in another fundraising round of one of his portfolio companies , a sports-betting blockchain platform dubbed Unikrn, via an initial coin offering.
An ICO is a crowdfunding method that has grown in popularity as of late among blockchain startups, with more than 30 ICOs already this year. Companies sell their own digital currencies and use the proceeds to fund their businesses .
Unikrn has already raised some $10 million from investors, including Ashton Kutcher. The company allows anyone to place bets with its digital token, the Unikoin, according to Coindesk.
Investors will be allowed to register for the pre-sale starting mid-July. About 1 billion UnikoinGold tokens will be up for grabs.
The company has yet to establish a price for the UnikoinGold, though investors will be able to exchange digital currency for Ether, the token under Ethereum.
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Mark Cuban Is Backing Cryptocurrency That's Not Bitcoin or ... - Fortune
About two months ago, hedge fund billionaire Michael Novogratz made a bold announcement: He'd put 10% of his net worth into digital currencies including Bitcoin and Ethereum. But a lot can happen in a couple of months. Specifically, the price of Bitcoin has more than doubled, and the Ethereum price has multiplied six-fold.
So around the time the cryptocurrencies reached all-time highs earlier in June, with the Bitcoin price hitting $3,000 and Ethereum breaking $400 the following day, Novogratz thought the current crypto boom had topped out. He sold "a bunch" of his digital coins.
"I think the market had a spectacular run, and trees dont grow to the sky," Novogratz said this week, speaking at CBInsights' Future of Fintech conference in New York. "So I probably still have roughly 10% of my net worth in crypto, but its been scaled way back."
I own a lot less coins, theyre just worth more," Novogratz added.
His call turned out to be well-timed. Just days after setting record prices, Bitcoin and Ethereum crashed as much as 25% in just 24 hours. Ethereum kept right on falling, at one point trading 46% off its high and that's not even counting last week's flash crash in which the price briefly plummeted to just 10 cents.
Cryptocurrency traders have become accustomed to their prices violently whipsawing up and down in waves a 30% drop in the Bitcoin price in May preceded its recent peak by about two weeks but the current downdraft appears more sustained. Though the cryptocurrencies, rooted in a technology system known as the blockchain, have each since recovered some of their losses, they have yet to come anywhere close to their highs.
Now, Novogratz, who formerly ran a hedge fund at Fortress Investment Group and now invests in blockchain companies, thinks the cryptocurrencies have peaked for the time being, and it could be a while before they return to record levels. "I think we may have put the highs in for the year in Ethereum, and you're going to slowly consolidate," he said at the conference.
To be sure, the billionaire is still bullish on digital currency over the longer term hes just waiting for the right time to buy again. And he has a pretty good idea of when that is.
If Bitcoin fell back down to $1600, he said, hed "be buying a lot of it." And if the Ethereum price retreated to between $150 and $200, it would be cheap enough to merit buying more, he added.
Those prices would give Ethereum a total market value of about $20 billion, which "sounds about right for where we are" in the evolution of the technology, Novogratz said.
After all, even if you believe, as he does, that the cryptocurrencies have much further to run he compares the current phase of the industry to the third inning of a baseball game investors who bought in amid crescendoing hype have still gotten burned in the meantime. "If you buy Ether at $400 and it goes to $200, I dont care what inning you think it is, it feels really shitty," Novogratz said. "Youve got to be pretty careful when you enter these things."
(Lest anyone doubt the present frenzy among cryptocurrency traders, a popular Reddit thread points to a newly created website shouldisellmybitcoins.com , which generates a No response in the form of a different amusing Gif image each time anyone clicks on it.)
Eventually, however, Novogratz believes there will come a time when investors are better off getting out of cryptocurrency entirely though its likely still a long way off. "I sense that this blockchain, Bitcoin, Ethereum, ICO revolution is going to be the single greatest bubble of our lifetime," he predicted. Of course, when that bubble pops, its probably a perfect time to buy back in.
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BBC News | Bitcoin accepted at New York pre-school BBC News The head of two Montessori schools in New York won't let parents pay by credit card - but he is accepting Bitcoin. Marco Ciocca, co-founder and chairman of the Montessori Schools in Flatiron & Soho, added the option in June, after growing inquiries ... |
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If you are investing, does bitcoin have an intrinsic value, like gold? To me, bitcoins look more like tulip bulbs. Photograph: Benoit Tessier/Reuters
How can I invest in bitcoin? Id like to invest a few hundred pounds. Andy
There are at least three ways, though only one of them looks rational today. First, you could mine your own bitcoins. Second, you could buy some from an exchange. Third, you could buy shares in a fund that has invested in bitcoins.
Please note that answering your question is not a recommendation, and I am not qualified to give advice on investments. However, as electronic payments expert Dave Birch put it to me on Twitter: one doesnt invest in bitcoin, one gambles on bitcoin.
The problem is that people can make money by buying things that are essentially worthless, such as used postage stamps, Beanie Babies, and (historically) tulip bulbs. Tulipmania operated on the bigger fool theory, also known among stock traders as momentum investing. For example, tulip bulb prices may be insane but they keep going up. I may be a fool to buy them, but I expect a bigger fool to buy them from me. Simply replace buy low, sell high with buy high, sell higher. This works until you run out of fools.
However, you can buy things that dont depend on bigger fools appearing, such as land and gold. Their prices may vary dramatically, but over the long term, they retain real value. When tulip bulb prices were tumbling, everyone wanted to sell. When gold prices tumble, people with money look forward to an investment opportunity.
Bitcoin is a digital currency. If you want to buy a camera for 250, then you need a way to transfer 250 to the seller. In theory, it doesnt matter if you pay cash, write a cheque, email the money via PayPal or use bitcoin. In reality, you have to balance a range of factors including convenience, security and transaction costs. Id use a credit card, if possible, because bitcoin payments are not reversible and offer no consumer protection.
But if you are investing, does bitcoin have an intrinsic value, like gold? To me, bitcoins look more like tulip bulbs.
The price of a bitcoin may increase because, for example, it is attractive to technology enthusiasts, and because we are all reading stories about how people made or failed to make fortunes. But, like tulip bulbs, bitcoins could be worthless when the bubble bursts.
As Henry Blodget told CNBC: Look, this is a perfect asset for a speculative bubble. There is a finite supply. There is no intrinsic value. If anybody is persuading you that it should somehow be related to some GDP or gold put down the Kool-Aid and back away.
You could argue that banknotes dont have any intrinsic value either. However, banknotes are backed by governments that have a strong interest in keeping their value relatively stable. Governments dont (yet) care what happens to bitcoins.
Bitcoins are mined by people solving problems with computers. In the beginning, the best way to make money from bitcoins was to mine them with a home PC. However, bitcoin mining becomes more difficult the more miners there are. Today, you need specialised hardware, and you need to join a mining pool where large numbers of miners work together and share the results. Coins are not pure profit because of the cost of the hardware and the electricity consumed when mining. Also, you dont know what bitcoins will be worth when you start mining them.
However, there must be dozens of digital currencies besides bitcoin, and the CoinChoose website lists a Top 20. Well known alternatives include Ethereum, Litecoin, Dogecoin and Bytecoin. You might find one that is still worth mining, or that might represent a better gamble than bitcoin. CryptoCompare is another useful website.
Ethereum is interesting because its backed by an alliance that includes JP Morgan, Microsoft, Intel, Banco Santander, Credit Suisse Group, UBS and BP. Its designed to perform transactions very much faster than bitcoin, and its hashing system is decentralised by design. It favours individuals, not mining pools.
You can buy bitcoins from a bitcoin exchange or online broker, directly from another individual, or from an ATM. Coin ATM Radar lists about 50 bitcoin ATMs in London, many of them in convenience stores. As when buying foreign currencies, theres a fee, which can range from 3.1% to 17.6%. The website covers 56 countries and you can search for an ATM near you.
A bitcoin ATM usually takes cash from your bank card, though some only accept banknotes. It sends your digital currency (bitcoin, litecoin etc) to your wallet, which could be a smartphone app, or to your email address. Some ATMs can print paper wallets that you can scan later.
If you buy a digital currency from an exchange, it may well offer you an online wallet, but your money is at risk unless you have the keys. When the Mt Gox bitcoin exchange was hacked, around 850,000 bitcoins went missing. It was a $450m loss at the time, but at todays exchange rate, it would be $2bn.
There are dozens of different wallets for different purposes, with hot wallets on smartphones and cold storage wallets held offline on paper, on hardware devices (cards, thumbdrives etc) or on separate PCs. These are equivalent to your spending money and your savings account respectively.
You will need to research wallets. However, We Use Coins has a decent guide, and it recommends BitPays Copay to beginners. Its easy to use and it runs on iOS, Android, Windows and Windows Phone, MacOS and Linux. It can also handle shared accounts.
I used my Android phone to search for bitcoin wallet on Google Play, and gave up when it produced around 200 results. Copay was near the top. It only took two minutes to create a wallet, and it prompted me to make a backup: Watch out! If this device is replaced or this app is deleted, neither you nor BitPay can recover your funds without a backup.
It also warned me that Anyone with your backup phrase can access or spend your bitcoin. I dutifully wrote it down.
Once the wallet is set up, you can use the app to buy bitcoins from Coinbase in 33 countries, and from Glidera in the USA. It can take several days to buy or sell bitcoins via Coinbase.
Some investors presumably ones who do not have teenage children think bitcoin is for the tech-savvy, difficult to buy and perhaps even harder to store safely. This has given rise to funds that buy bitcoins or related assets such as mining companies. Last month, The Motley Fool described one ETF as The Worst Way to Buy Bitcoin. At the time, the story said, shares in the Bitcoin Investment Trust cost about twice as much as the bitcoins it owned, but typically they have traded at an average premium of 39% to underlying value of the bitcoin.
You could buy dollar bills for $1 each, so why would anyone pay $1.39 to invest in a $1 bill which is actually worth less than $1, because of the 2% annual management fee? Answer: the laws of supply and demand.
Other American investors were conned by a Ponzi scheme that offered shares in bitcoin mining machinery.
Stories like that could be signs of a bubble market, but if so, when and how it will end is impossible to say.
Have you got another question for Jack? Email it to Ask.Jack@theguardian.com
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How can I invest in bitcoin? | Technology | The Guardian - The Guardian
Say what you will about the cryprocurrency market in the first half of the year, but give it this: it wasnt boring.
In contrast to the U.S. equity market, where a popular measure of volatility has been hovering near a multidecade low since May, there was nothing but volatility in the realm of digital currencies, underscored by jaw-dropping gains on the year and a gut-wrenching drop this month.
Digital currencies hit a number of key milestones in 2017, including breaking into the 12-digit club, as the combined market value of all cryptocurrenciesled especially by bitcoin and ethereumsurpassed $100 billion for the first time ever, and currently stands near $104 billion.
Cryptocurrencies have become so prominent that major semiconductor stocks have started to move based on how readily their chips are used by miners, who use high-powered computers in a race to solve complex puzzles. Those who solve these problems are rewarded with the digital gold of bitcoin and other digital currencies.
The volatile ride cryptocurrencies in garnering increased attention from mainstream companies and average Joes and Janes, belies the setbacks it has faced on the regulatory front. Notably, the Securities and Exchange Commission in March rejected what would have been the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund, as well as the reputation hits from recent high-profile cyberattacks where bitcoin ransoms were demanded.
Still, the overall trend in crypto in 2017, as it was last year, was shockingly positive. The price of single bitcoin BTCUSD, -0.98% currently sits at $2,565.47, up 165% thus far this year, though down 15% from a record high above $3,000 hit earlier this month.
Gains for ethereum has been even more pronounced. Not only has bitcoins chief rival surged past it in terms of daily trading volume, according to CoinDesk data, but it is also up nearly 3,500% on the year, having rallied from $8.40 at the end of 2016 to a shade under $300 presently. And that surge includes ethereums current bear market, as it is down more than 20% from a record hit earlier this month.
See also: Heres how blindingly fast bitcoin has been surging
Read more: How cryptocurrency ethereum looks set to overtake bitcoinin one chart
The size and scope of the rallies in digital currencies easily eclipses the year-to-date move of more traditional assets like stocks. For example, the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.88% despite enjoying its own run-up, has gained a much milder 9% year to date, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.68% is up 8.6%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +1.43% is up a touch more than 15% in 2017. Among the best performing commodities, palladium PAN7, -1.77% is up more than 25% on the year. None of those rallies approach the year-to-date surges in popular cryptocurrencies.
Perhaps for that reason, questions about whether these digital currencies are in a bubble have emergeda debate that will undoubtedly continue to rage in the second half of the year. That is particularly if they show further stabilization and add to their string of records.
Whatever, the future holds for bitcoin, it appears that with its $42 billion valuationenough that it has become bigger than such iconic brands as Delta Air Lines DAL, +1.89% and Deere & Co. DE, +1.71% one can no longer argue that bitcoin is simply a niche asset, even if bitcoin and its rivals are risky and untested.
And while one proposed metric for bitcoin valuation suggests the digital currency is within historical realms, Morgan Stanley recently argued that government regulation was needed for bitcoin to continue its dalliance into the record books.
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What delivered the best return of 2017's first half? Bitcoin and ethereum - MarketWatch
Those behind the recent cyberattack affecting businesses around Europe have successful received a total of nearly 4 bitcoins, worth around $9621 at today's price.
On Tuesday, reports emerged of a ransomware virus affecting businesses and governments throughout Eastern Europe. Ukraine and Russia have been particularly affected.
The malware, which has been identified as a modified version of the "Petya" virus, has also affected business in Western Europe, including Maersk, Merck and WPP.
The virus locks users out of their computer and demands a ransom of $300 paid in Bitcoin.
According to the bitcoin blockchain, there have been 42 confirmed transactions to the bitcoin wallet listed in the malware attack. The address is 1Mz7153HMuxXTuR2R1t78mGSdzaAtNbBWX.
The wallet has so far received a total of 3.751 bitcoins from victims. Coindesk lists the current price of a bitcoin at $2564.46. Technically, the hackers should have so far made $12,600, if the 42 transactions each represent one victim paying the $300 ransom.
Steve Malone, director of security product management at Mimecast, advised those affected not to pay the ransom.
"This new outbreak once again highlights the disruptive power of ransomware like never before. Simply by encrypting and blocking access to files, critical national services and valuable business data can be damaged," he told CNBC via email on Tuesday.
"Mimecast advises organizations never to succumb to the pressure to pay the ransom to regain access to their applications and data. There is no guarantee this will unlock files and further motivates and finances attackers to expand their ransomware campaigns."
However, some organisations cannot allow for their systems to be unavailable for any amount of time, points out Greg Sim, CEO at Glasswall Solutions. Among those affected include utilities, airports, banks and government systems.
"Hackers are targeting those that cannot afford to have downtime," Sim told CNBC via email.
"An airport simply cannot have its systems down for a prolonged period of time or chaos ensues. If they do not give in and pay the ransom, then they risk their public image being dragged through the mud."
In May, a similar ransomware attack made only $50,000 despite infecting around 200,000 computers. Law enforcement will be closely watching the bitcoin address, as they may be able to track where the owners of the wallet send the bitcoins when they actually want to spend it or convert it into another currency.
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Hackers have made just 3.7 bitcoin or less than $10000 with the latest cyberattack - CNBC
In our previous BTC-USD analysis, there was a fear of a massive Head and Shoulders pattern that had very low price projections for the entire crypto market. In a turn of events, when BTC-USD made its test of the Head and Shoulders neckline, it actually responded in a market reversal.
Figure 1: BTC-USD, 6-hr Candles, GDAX, Head and Shoulders Rejection
Yesterday, the crypto market took a turn upward as the market leader made a Double Bottom Reversal pattern that sent a market-wide bear run into an immediate bull run. As the BTC-USD market made an attempt to test the boundaries of the lower prices of the bear run, volume began to pick up and sent us into a market reversal. How does one spot this pattern and where are we headed in the next few days?
Figure 2: BTC-USD, 30-min. Candles, GDAX
Characteristics of a Double Bottom Reversal pattern include the following:
A descending trendline within an established bear trend (shown in white)
An initial bottom that temporarily reverses before retesting the established low (basically forming a W pattern)
After a test of the previously established low, the test is rejected
It is important to note that in order to confirm the reversal pattern, typically you want to see consistent increased volume at the lower values (shown in dark pink)
After the low is rejected a second time, it continues upward and breaks the descending trendline established in step 1 (shown in yellow)
After breaking the descending trendline, the price then forms a neckline with the rest of the pattern (shown in light pink)
From there, to confirm the trend reversal, we would want to see a break of the neckline followed by a retest of the neckline (shown in light blue)
All the above characteristics are very strong indicators of a complete bear market reversal into a bull market. As mentioned in the previous BTC-USD analysis, the bear run would continue the trend downward until significant volume picked up. In our case, the volume picked up very strongly and made a complete market reversal. Much like BTC-USD, this pattern is seen throughout several major players in the crypto market: ETH-USD, LTC-USD, ETH-BTC, etc.
It is unclear where the top of the bull run will lead us, but what is clear is that volume has dramatically picked up, indicating market interest in the higher prices. Until the volume begins to die down, the price will continue to push higher.
Head and Shoulders pattern was strongly rejected in the form of a Double Bottom Reversal
Bearish trend has ended in a strong bull trend
Trading and investing in digital assets like bitcoin and ether is highly speculative and comes with many risks. This analysis is for informational purposes and should not be considered investment advice. Statements and financial information on Bitcoin Magazine and BTCMedia related sites do not necessarily reflect the opinion of BTCMedia and should not be construed as an endorsement or recommendation to buy, sell or hold. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.
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Bitcoin Price Analysis: Double Bottom Reversal Chases Out the ... - Bitcoin Magazine
Michael Novogratz says cryptocurrencies could be worth more than $5 trillion in five years - if the industry can come out of the shadows.
"The Nasdaq got to $5.4 trillion in 1999, why couldn't it be as big?" the former hedge fund manager said in an interview. "There's so much human capital and real money being poured into the space, and we're at the takeoff point."
To get there, though, companies need to develop sound business principles to satisfy regulators and lend legitimacy to the budding industry, one of Wall Street's biggest bitcoin bulls said Tuesday at the CB Insights Future of Fintech conference in New York.
That's proving an uphill battle amid bitcoins' growing reputation as a currency favored by black marketeers and hackers. The industry took another reputational hit Tuesday after a cyberattack spread around the world, disabling computers and demanding users pay $300 in cryptocurrency to unlock them. It follows the WannaCry hack in May.
While bitcoin was little changed at $2,379.62 as of 4 p.m. in New York, some chipmakers whose products are used in mining the cryptocurrency also retreated. The PureFunds ISE Cyber Security ETF, known as Hack, erased earlier gains to trade little changed.
Bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency, is up more than 140 percent this year, and ethereum, the digital asset based on the ethereum blockchain, has surged to about $240 from just $8 at the beginning of the year. The cyberattack comes after questions about the sustainability of this year's rally and the scalability of the digital assets had already been dragging down prices.
The recent sell-off has shrunk cryptocurrencies' total market cap to about $90 billion from a high of more than $110 billion, according to Coinmarketcap.com.
Novogratz said he took some profits on his bitcoin and ethereum holdings as prices surged, but still has 10 percent of his net worth invested in the sector, including blockchain-based assets he bought in fund-raising mechanisms known as initial coin offerings. He is looking to add more ethereum if it falls between $200 and $150, and more bitcoin if it falls to $2,000.
Bitcoin could become a viable store of wealth, similar to gold, while ethereum could be the platform underpinning the Googles and Facebooks of the future, while money transfers to securities settlement will probably be done using blockchain technology, he said.
Novogratz, who has spoken about investments in bitcoin since 2013 and formerly managed Fortress Investment Group LLC's liquid strategies business, has been one of the most prominent supporters of cryptocurrencies on Wall Street.
Companies need to develop sound business principles to satisfy regulators and lend legitimacy to the budding industry, he said.
"Pay your taxes, because nobody in that space pays taxes. It's a bunch of libertarians," he said, adding he thought a core group of developers have good intentions. "There really is a revolutionary spirit among the guys that are building this system."
Bloomberg's Alexandria Arnold contributed to this article.
Published: June 28, 2017 3:01 AM EDT
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If you were affected by the latest global cyber attack that locked businesses out of their computer systems, here's a tip: Don't pay the Bitcoin ransom. You'll be sorry if you do.
Beginning in Ukraine and quickly spreading to large multinational corporations ranging from Maersk to Merck , the ransomware wave has caused incredible disruption and ground operations in affected organizations to a halt. The extortionists have demanded a payment of $300 in Bitcoin in order for victims to regain access to their systems.
"We guarantee that you can recover all your files safely and easily," the ransom note reads.
There's a problem though. People who pay the Bitcoin fee associated with the attackwhich security researchers have dubbed Petya, NotPetya, ExPetr, Nyetya, and other variations on that themeshould not expect to recover their files even if they do pay. So much for that guarantee.
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The ransom note requests that victims, after paying, provide their Bitcoin wallet ID and another identifying detail (a unique "personal installation key," which the attackers provide). The attackers advise affected people to send this information to a certain email address: wowsmith123456@posteo.net.
As Fortune noted on Tuesday, Posteo, the email service used by the attackers quickly suspended the attackers' account , leaving them unable to communicate with their victims and preventing them from sending along decryption keys. This means there's no obvious way for victims to get a decryption key from the supposed extortionists, even if they do pay.
Fortune's own note to the email address bounced back, as seen in the screenshot below.
Some security researchers have questioned whether this attack can even be properly categorized as ransomware. Matthieu Suiche, CEO and founder of the Dubai-based cybersecurity firm Comae, told Fortune that he believes it is more appropriately considered as "wiper" malware, meaning malicious software that intends to destroy data rather than hold it hostage.
Other experts have agreed with the essence of Suiche's analysis. "Despite its presentation as ransomware, ExPetr ultimately functions as a wiper since we have discovered that the attacker doesn't have the ability to decrypt the files even when receiving the payment," a spokesperson for Kaspersky Lab told Fortune in an email.
Raj Samani, chief scientist at Intel ( intc ) spinout McAfee, concurred. "We always recommend for ransomware victims to not pay," he said. "In the case of WannaCry and the Petya ransom demands it's even more advisable since the likelihood of receiving decryption keys are almost nil."
Better put that $300 toward something more useful, like replenishing the office's IT procurement fund.
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Jun.27.2017 / 2:08 PM ET
Bitcoin isnt like traditional currencies, and not just because it doesnt exist as actual coins or paper banknotes.
Unlike traditional currencies like the dollar or euro, Bitcoin isnt controlled by a single government or central bank. Instead, every transaction involving the popular cryptocurrency is logged in a computerized public ledger called a blockchain. This collection of receipts is maintained on millions of devices around the world in individual collections called blocks. Each time theres a transaction involving Bitcoin, an anonymous data fingerprint appears in a block recording the exchange.
This key innovation is the basis for "Block Bills," a collection of paper banknotes that bring the virtual payment system into the real world. As works of art, the whimsical bills have no monetary value. But they provide a map to the inner workings of the Bitcoin systemand they have a subtle beauty all their own.
In some way, the project is a loose data visualization, but I mainly wanted to make the bills be interesting on their own as artworks, says Matthias Drfelt, the Los Angeles-based artist who made the notes.
Each of the 64 bills in the collection represents a single block in the blockchain ledgers. The colors vary according to the volume of transactions. A less colorful bill represents low volume, while a more color bill represents high volume.
In some way, the project is a loose data visualization, but I mainly wanted to make the bills be interesting on their own as artworks.
At the bottom of each bill is a white bar with symbols that represent the specific address of the Bitcoin. On the left is a series of dots that encode the history of all the transactions. The timestamp at the bottom-right corner of each bill indicates the moment when that block of transactions was created.
Lastly, the centers of the bills feature an indistinct image of a human being or imaginary creature. The idea here, Drfelt says, was to create something that reflects all the supposed privacy and anonymity connotations that Bitcoin has."
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Fanciful Bitcoin Banknotes Show How Digital Currency Might Look in the Real World - NBCNews.com
The burgeoning cryptocurrency industry has already drawn some charismatic and distinctive personalities to the forefront. One of the earliest important people within the world of Bitcoin is now preparing to make a comeback. Charlie Shrem was a Bitcoin pioneer, having founded a startup called BitInstant in 2011. BitInstant was a crucial early transaction facillitator, although it fell by the wayside in 2013. Shrem eventually went to federal prison after pleading guilty to involvement with a customer who acquired Bitcoins for resale purposes on the underground market called Silk Road. Now, months after his release, Shrem has plans to help to further strengthen the industry which has already grown so fast.
Besides his work with BitInstant, Shrem was an important early figure in the history of Bitcoin because of his widespread advocacy for the cryptocurrency. A 2013 GQ profile on the emergent currency featured Shrem, and he figured prominently in a documentary called The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin. According to a profile by Fortune, Shrem spoke frequently at industry conferences and co-founded an organization called the Bitcoin Foundation for the purposes of advocating on behalf of the digital currency.
In the Fortune profile, the author indicates that Shrem "claims he's no longer operating mainly for himself and instead wants to use his talents to strengthen the crypto-community." It's true that Shrem's work with Bitcoin made him a millionaire before sending him to prison. What will he do now?
Shrem has set his sights, at least in part, on working with Dash, one of the more recent additions to the cryptocurrency line-up as well as one of its fastest-growing members. Shrem proposed the creation of a prepaid debit card onto which users could load Dash coins. Those coins would be converted into dollars or other currency to be used at any business which accepts debit cards. Shrem's card is the first that could be used in the United States.
Shrem has also reportedly joined the startup Jaxx as head of business and community development. Jaxx aims to create digital wallets allowing users to hold multiple currencies. Founded by Anthony Di Iorio, co-founder of Ethereum, Jaxx looks to be at the forefront of a new wave in cryptocurrencies: when various blockchain networks can all communicate and partner with one another. These so-called "parachains" could help to propel the industry even further, bringing cryptocurrencies even more into the mainstream and allowing for extreme ease of transacting and exchanging between currencies. In this way, Shrem may have a hand in continuing to develop the cryptocurrency world as it looks ahead to the future.
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Silk Road Bitcoin Felon Aims to Help the Industry He Corrupted - Investopedia
Forget dish sets and kitchen appliances, some couples are putting bitcoin on their wedding registries.
Some tech-savvy wedding-goers are gifting the digital currency to new couples, as its value surges to new highs. Like purchasing a stock or bond, buying bitcoin is all going well an investment in the future. Sounds crazy, right? Bitcoin is notoriously volatile. But if you got married in 2011 your $100 Bitcoin gift would be worth more than $238,000 today.
While people are giving bitcoin, there hasnt been a tipping point. Honeyfund, a honeymoon registry that allows guests to give cash rather than gifts, has seen more than a dozen customers donate in bitcoin, said chief executive officer and co-founder Sara Margulis. In recent years, more than a dozen customers have chosen to route donations to the site from bitcoin wallets. Zola, a wedding registry website, has had just two cash funds created for bitcoins since 2013, a spokeswoman said.
Business Insider editor Emily Cohn tweeted that the currency was given to her and her husband at their wedding and ultimately proved to be the best gift we got. Her husband Ben Eisen, a former MarketWatch reporter, wrote about the experience in The Wall Street Journal in 2016, noting that one bitcoin had been worth $230 around their wedding in September and had jumped to $430 by the end of the year. As of June 26, less than a year later, it is worth $2,383.
The unpredictable nature of the currency that paid off so well for this couple also means the gift may not be the best choice for the average wedding couple, said Neeraj Agrawal, a spokesman for bitcoin advocacy group Coin Center. Because it is so volatile and has a learning curve, use your best judgment on whether or not the happy couple would genuinely appreciate a cryptocurrency gift, he said.
If you do decide to gift in bitcoin, the same etiquette would apply to the currency that applies to cash gifts, Agrawal said, spending an appropriate amount fo money and accompanying it with a card. People should spend anywhere from $50 to $250 on a wedding gift depending on their relationship to the bride and groom, said etiquette expert Jacqueline Whitmore. Thats 0.02141 to 0.10719 in bitcoin at its current value. Friends of marrying couples give an average of $99, according to a study from American Express, and family members gift an average of $127.
Others wedding industry experts say bitcoin is about as common as gold coins from a pirate ship. That is, theyve never been asked to add it to their wedding gift registries. A spokeswoman for MyRegistry.com said theres no evidence any of the 153 million gifts added to their system since it began in 2005 were for Bitcoin.
I would expect it to pop more as millennials come into the wedding age, Honeyfunds Margulis said. Its something you will do if your friends and family are already into bitcoin not something most couples would do.
Thats another rule when gifting Bitcoin: Make sure to gift it only to people who are ready to dive into cryptocurrencies, Agrawal said. Though Eisen and Cohn are thrilled with their wedding gift and how much its grown, others may end up forgetting about the digital present and leave it wrapped up online. Avoid using a wedding gift as an opportunity to proselytize a technology you personally believe in, but the recipient could not care less about, Agrawal said.
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Google "bitcom ATMs in (your city)." That should provide you with a map of all the Bitcoin ATMs in your area.
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Bitcoin rival ethereum plunged Monday despite a major exchange's efforts to shore up confidence by announcing a credit for customers who lost money during last week's flash crash.
Ethereum, also known as ether, traded 20.9 percent lower at $239.63 Monday afternoon, according to CoinDesk.
Last Wednesday, ethereum briefly plunged in a flash crash from above $300 to 10 cents on Coinbase's GDAX exchange. On Friday, the exchange said it would credit customers who "experienced a margin call or stop loss order" on GDAX during the flash crash.
GDAX reported Monday afternoon, ET, a temporary halt in trading for all products, which was resolved within an hour.
Ethereum one-day performance
Source: TradingView, Coinbase
Ethereum is still up about 2 percent for June, and 2,500 percent for the year, according to CoinDesk data. At its peak, ethereum had surged more than 4,000 percent for the year.
An unsubstantiated rumor Sunday that ethereum's founder Vitalik Buterin had died also reportedly hit ethereum's price for a brief period. Ethereum fell from around $329 to a low of $284 Sunday before recovering, according to CoinDesk. Buterin tweeted a picture of himself Sunday evening, ET, to dispel the rumor.
William Mougayar, author of "The Business Blockchain: Promise, Practice, and Application of the Next Internet Technology," said he did not believe the rumor was the main factor behind ethereum's decline.
"We need to see a full 24 hour cycle in order to fully assess what is actually happening," he said in an email to CNBC. "These cryptocurrencies are traded globally, especially with a large amount of activity coming from China, so I'm waiting to see what happens around 6PM EST this evening."
Digital currency investors also pointed to the reversal of last week's exuberance stemming from the launch of several ethereum-based projects, which ended up clogging the network. The inability of ethereum to handle the orders raised worries that digital currency may soon face a debate over an upgrade model, similar to a heated controversy over bitcoin's future that has weighed on that currency.
Two different methods for upgrading bitcoin, SegWit2x and BIP148, are set to go into effect July 21 and Aug. 1, respectively. Initially the systems were incompatible, threatening to split bitcoin in two and likely reducing its value. However, a developer announced earlier this month a way to make the two methods compatible, helping bitcoin recover from lows of the month.
Bitcoin traded nearly 5 percent lower Monday around $2,452, still up about 5 percent for the month and 153 percent higher for the year, according to CoinDesk.
In a blog post Monday, digital currency investor and Union Square Ventures partner Fred Wilson said the decline in ethereum was profit-taking after a massive run higher in the last six months.
"My gut says we are headed for a selloff in the crypto sector," he said in the post. But he said he remains optimistic about the future of cryptocurrencies over the next five to 10 years.
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Ethereum is crashing by 20% right now after confidence in bitcoin rival shaken - CNBC
Barclays has been in discussions with regulators and financial technology or fintech firms about bringing cryptocurrencies like bitcoin "into play", the bank's U.K. chief executive told CNBC on Monday.
Ashok Vaswani revealed that the banking giant has met with Britain's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) watchdog to talk about how to make bitcoin safe in response to a question about whether Barclays could support bitcoin.
"We have been talking to a couple of fintechs and have actually gone with the fintechs to the FCA to talk about how we could bring, the equivalent of bitcoin, not necessarily bitcoin, but cryptocurrencies into play," Vaswani told CNBC at the Money 20/20 fintech conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.
"Obviously (it's) a new area, obviously an area we've got to be careful with. We are working our way through it."
Vaswani did not expand on to what extent Barclays could be involved with bitcoin. Barclays has recently been involved in the digital currency space. Last year the bank partnered with social payments app Circle. The start-up, which received a license from the FCA last year, allows users to send money to each other in messages, and supports bitcoin. Barclays provided Circle with an account to store sterling, as well as the payments network to transfer money.
Banks have typically been very cautious of being associated with any companies involved with bitcoin due to the cryptocurrencies bad reputation as being used to buy illegal items on the so-called "dark web".
But the world's largest cryptocurrency by market cap has seen rising retail investor interest, as well as a major rally since the start of the year that has seen its price hit record highs. Even though the price has pulled back in recent days and there is still volatility, regulators are becoming interested in bitcoin, which is lending legitimacy to the digital currency.
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Barclays spoke to regulators about bringing bitcoin 'into play' - CNBC