Monthly Archives: August 2022

Economist and gold bug Peter Schiff has made some dire predictions about cryptocurrency, particularly bitcoin and ether. He explained that The need to sell bitcoin to pay the bills will only get worse as the recession deepens, adding that bitcoin is poised to crash to $20K while ether will sink to $1K.

Gold bug Peter Schiff, the chief economist and lead strategist at Euro Pacific Capital and founder of Schiffgold, has made some dire predictions about bitcoin, ether, and the crypto market in general.

He tweeted Saturday:

Bitcoin looks poised to crash to $20K and ethereum to $1K Dont buy this dip. Youll lose a lot more money.

Schiff further explained in several tweets Sunday: With food and energy prices soaring, many bitcoin Hodlers will be forced to sell to cover the cost. Grocery stores and gas stations dont accept bitcoin.

The economist noted: When Bitcoin crashed during Covid no one needed to sell. Consumer prices were much lower and Hodlers got stimulus checks.

Schiff stressed:

The need to sell bitcoin to pay the bills will only get worse as the recession deepens and many Hodlers lose their jobs, especially those working for soon to be bankrupt blockchain companies.

If circumstances change, long-term buyers without paychecks will be forced to sell, he added.

Most bitcoin proponents continue to ignore all bitcoin and crypto predictions made by Schiff, with many seeing his gloomy expectations as a buy signal for BTC.

Possibly the most consistently bad investment advice on public record, one Twitter user wrote. Another asked Schiff: Check bitcoin or Ethereum 5-year charts, then check golds. Which would you rather have held? Which would you rather hold for another 5 years?

At the time of writing, bitcoin is trading at $26,212.07 whereas ether is at $1,373.77.

Furthermore, a growing number of grocery stores and gas stations have started accepting bitcoin as well as other cryptocurrencies. Sheetz, a major Mid-Atlantic restaurant and convenience chain, announced in May last year that it had become the first convenience store chain to accept bitcoin. Several convenience stores and gas stations have also installed two-way bitcoin ATMs, including a leading convenience and fuel retailer, Circle K.

While Schiff is bearish about bitcoin, ether, and the crypto market in general, many people are very bullish about BTC. Venture capitalist Tim Draper recently doubled down on his $250K bitcoin prediction. U.S. Senator Ted Cruz said he is incredibly bullish on bitcoin and has a weekly BTC buy. Devere Group CEO Nigel Green said last week that he expects a bull run and a significant bounce in the price of bitcoin in the fourth quarter of this year.

JPMorgan said last month that the firm sees a significant upside to bitcoin. The global investment bank has replaced real estate with crypto as its preferred alternative asset. Moreover, a recent Deloitte survey found that 85% of U.S. merchants say enabling crypto payments is a high priority for them.

What do you think about Peter Schiffs warnings? Let us know in the comments section below.

A student of Austrian Economics, Kevin found Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open-source systems, network effects and the intersection between economics and cryptography.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

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Economist Peter Schiff Explains Why He Expects Bitcoin to Crash as ...

A popular crypto analyst is breaking down how the partnership between two financial giants could trigger a Bitcoin (BTC) explosion to $773,000.

Last week, US-based crypto titan Coinbase announced that it teamed up with BlackRock, the biggest asset manager in the world, to bring cryptocurrency trading to wealthy clients.

In a new strategy session, the host of InvestAnswers tells his 443,000 YouTube subscribers that the partnership could boost Bitcoins market cap by a trillion dollars at the very least.

If BlackRock puts 0.5% of their assets under management into Bitcoin using my multiplier which is 21x, that will impact the market cap by $1.05 trillion, which will add about $75,000 to Bitcoins price, taking it to $98,000, and an ROI (return on investment) from todays price is 326%. This is very, very achievable

Now if they allocate 1%, which of course will take time to get to that level, that would add about $2.1 trillion to the market cap, $150,000 to the price, and that would take the future price of Bitcoin to $173,000, which is a 652% gain from here.

If they add 5%, which is what Dan Tapiero says, I think its way too aggressive. Maybe over time, maybe in the next three to five years, that could be possible. That would take the price of Bitcoin to $773,000 in the next three to five years pretty easily.

The crypto strategists analysis was inspired by comments from 10T Holdings CEO Dan Tapiero. According to the prominent macro investor, the deal between BlackRock and Coinbase could propel Bitcoin above $250,000,

Chart that got BlackRock excited about partnership with Coinbase!

No bigger a macro opportunity for BlackRock than acting to facilitate Bitcoin adoption. [A] 5% shift in BLK assets is $500 billion, greater than BTC value today. Catalyst for path to $250,000+ post BTC halving becoming clear.

BlackRock currently has $10 trillion in assets under management.

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Featured Image: Shutterstock/Bryan Vectorartist/Natalia Siiatovskaia

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BlackRock and Coinbase Deal Could Trigger Bitcoin Burst to $773,000, According to InvestAnswers - The Daily Hodl

On Monday (August 8), Bitcoin is trading above the $24,000 level for the first time June 13.

According to data by TradingView, on Binance, the $BTC price broke above the $24,000 level at 8:32 a.m. UTC on August 8, and currently (i.e. as of 9:34 a.m. UTC on August 8) $BTC is trading around $24,157, up 5.02% in the past 24-hour period.

Earlier today, Matt Corallo, an open source engineer atSpiral, which is an independent, bitcoin-focused entity within the Block ecosystem of companies, criticized those Bitcoin maximalists who are more focused on attacking other projects than with explaining why Bitcoin is great and unique.

Corallo joined the Spiral team at Block in October 2019. Prior to that, he was working as an engineer for nearly three years at Chaincode Labs, which is a Bitcoin research and development center based in Midtown Manhattan, New York. Corallo has been writing patches for the BitcoinJ Open Source Library since June 2012.

Corallo, who is the 10th known contributor to Bitcoin Core, took to Twitter to criticize the small segment of Bitcoin maximalists that is usually labeled toxic by the crypto community:

This upset a few Bitcoin maximalists, such as Bitcoin advocate Samson Mow:

One thing that might have helped to drive Bitcoins latest price rally is the recent partnership announcement between BlackRock and Coinbase:

On August 4, Coinbases Brett Tejpaul (who is Head of Coinbase Institutional) and Greg Tusar (who is Head of Institutional Product) published ablog post, in which they stated that Coinbase and BlackRock were going to create new access points for institutional crypto adoption by connecting Coinbase Prime and Aladdin.

The blog post went on to say that Coinbase is partnering with BlackRock, the worlds largest asset manager, to provide institutional clients of Aladdin, BlackRocks end-to-end investment management platform, with direct access to crypto, starting with bitcoin, through connectivity with Coinbase Prime. Apparently, Coinbase Prime will provide crypto trading, custody, prime brokerage, and reporting capabilities to Aladdins Institutional client base who are also clients of Coinbase.

Joseph Chalom, Global Head of Strategic Ecosystem Partnerships at BlackRock, had this to say:

Our institutional clients are increasingly interested in gaining exposure to digital asset markets and are focused on how to efficiently manage the operational lifecycle of these assets. This connectivity with Aladdin will allow clients to manage their bitcoin exposures directly in their existing portfolio management and trading workflows for a whole portfolio view of risk across asset classes.

Featured Image viaPixabay

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Bitcoin ($BTC) Surges Above $24K for the First Time in 8 Weeks - CryptoGlobe

Ether (ETH), Ethereum's native token, has been continuing its uptrend against Bitcoin (BTC) as euphoria around its upcoming network upgrade, "the Merge," grows.

On the daily chart, ETH/BTC surged to an intraday high of 0.075 on Aug. 6, following a 1.5% upside move. Meanwhile, the pair's gains came as a part of a broader rebound trend that started a month ago at 0.049, amounting to approximately 50% gains.

The ETH/BTC recovery in part has surfaced due to the Merge, which will have Ethereum switch from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) mining.

From a technical perspective, Ether stares at potential interim losses as ETH/BTC paint a convincing rising wedge.

Rising wedges are bearish reversal patterns that occur when the price trends higher inside a range defined by two rising, converging trendlines. As a rule, they resolve after the price breaks below the lower trendline by as much as the structure's maximum height.

Moreover, a declining volume and relative strength index (RSI) against a rising ETH/BTC further increases bearish divergence risks. This gives weight to the wedge's bearish setup for a target of 0.064 BTC, or down 11% from Aug. 's price.

Meanwhile, technicals paint a brighter picture for Ethereum against the U.S. dollar. The potential of a 10% breakout for ETH/USD looks strong in August due to a classic bullish reversal pattern.

Related:Decentralized finance faces multiple barriers to mainstream adoption

On a four-hour chart, ETH/USD has formed what appears to be a "double bottom." This pattern resembles the letter "W" due to two consecutive lows followed by a change in direction from downtrend to uptrend, as illustrated below.

Meanwhile, a double bottom pattern resolves after the price breaks above its common resistance level andas a rule of technical analysisrises by as much as the distance between the first bottom and the resistance.

As a result, ETH could rally toward $1,940 in August, up 10% from Aug. 's price.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

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Ethereum price rises by 50% against Bitcoin in one month but there's a catch - Cointelegraph

Any currency must have an exchange value, i.e., it can be exchanged for products or services. Cryptocurrency has been trying to bridge this usability gap for a while now; however, to make it popular as a means of payment, the industry was marred with periods of high transaction fees. Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency and the leader of altcoins, has become synonymous with high gas fees. Acknowledging the same, the co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, noted that the crypto payments would again make sense as transaction costs reduce to mere cents due to layer-2 rollups.

CoinTelegraph quoted Buterin during the ongoing Korea Blockchain Week [KBW], adding that blockchain data compression is the final hurdle to getting the gas fees down. Although layer-1 is slowly working on reducing the gas fees, the real wonders of the Ethereum ecosystem were observed on layer-2 scaling solutions. For instance, the cheapest L2 alternatives were Loopring and ZKSync. Loopring charged $0.01 per transaction, whereas the cost of a single transaction on ZKSync was $0.02.

During his talk, Butering pointed at Optimisms layer-2 solution, which has worked to reduce the size and cost of data in blockchain transactions by introducing zero byte compression. He noted,

So today with roll ups, transaction fees are generally somewhere between $0.25, sometimes $0.10, and in the future with roll ups with all of the improvements to efficiency that I talked about. The transaction costs could go down to $0.05, or even maybe as low as $0.02. So much cheaper, much more affordable, and a complete game changer.

While Ethereum was at the center of the high transaction fees claims, Buterin pointed at Bitcoin and noted that its peer-to-peer electronic cash system had become expensive over time. Until 2013 it was cheaper than traditional payment methods; however, blockchain transaction has become expensive given its adoption.

Buterin stated,

Its a vision that has been, I think, forgotten a little bit and I think one of the reasons why it has been forgotten is basically because it got priced out of the market.

Nevertheless, Bitcoins layer-2 Lightning network has been at work to address this issue and could eventually reduce the cost to fractions of a cent.

Buterin set his sight on lower incomes countries or places where the existing financial system is not very effective to solve the problem. With the cheap crypto transactions, citizens will gain access to vital payment structures over the internet, which has already seen massive adoption despite the cost of International remittances.

However, if we zoom out, Ripple was already working on connecting many such countries through its On-Demand Liquidity technology. Using XRP, Ripple is offering payment solutions to crypto users and the world. Through its On-Demand Liquidity [ODL] services, Ripple has largely bridged financial gaps in offering remittance services. Recently, Ripple signed a partnership with FOMO Pay, one of the leading payment institutions in Singapore, to improve its treasury payments by leveraging ODL.

Nevertheless, his vision for Ethereum was to make transaction costs cheaper and help ramp up adoption for non-financial applications like domain name system [DNS] servers, humanity proof of attendance protocols, and Web3 account management services.

You need to actually send a transaction to create a DNS name, you need to actually send the transaction to recover your account, you need to actually send a transaction to meet some of these adaptations. If doing each of those operations costs like $11, then people are not going into it.

While many have repeatedly questioned Ethereums scalability plan, Butering noted that it wasnt just like some boring thing where you need as cost numbers go down. scalability, I think actually enables and unlocks entirely new classes of applications.

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This will reduce Bitcoin, Ethereum Tx fees to cents: Vitalik Buterin - Watcher Guru

Bitcoin (BTC) goes into another key macro week in the United States with a welcome break to the upside.

After avoiding a now-familiar breakdown around the weekly close, BTC/USD is surging higher at the time of writing on Aug. 8 to once more tackle resistance in place for two months.

Can the bulls win out? Momentum appears to be strong across crypto, but a host of potential stumbling blocks lie in the way.

With fresh U.S. inflation data due, the macro picture could yet upset the status quo, while sellers likewise show no sign of budging to allow reclaim of levels above $25,000.

Amid continued claims that Bitcoin is enjoying nothing more than a bear market rally, Cointelegraph takes a look at the state of play on the market as the new week begins.

These five factors will be worth bearing in mind when considering where Bitcoin price action could be going over the coming days.

Unlike recent weeks, Bitcoin allowed traders to breathe a sigh of relief at the Aug. 7 weekly close.

Instead of declining at or immediately after the candle close, BTC/USD instead began gaining, these gains including an impressive hourly candle, which saw almost $500 added.

The close in itself was impressive, constituting Bitcoins highest weekly candle close since June a firm break from the previous weekly downtrend data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingViewshows.

BTC/USD 1-week candle chart (Bitstamp) with 200-week MA. Source: TradingView

In addition, BTCs price defended its key 200-week moving average (MA) two closes in a row, cementing the likelihood of that trendline now forming support. This comes despite multiple retests during the week, with the 200-week MA sitting at around $22,900.

Prior to the close, some were already predicting volatility.

For popular trading account TraderSZ on Twitter, this would take the form of a big violent move, one which ended up being to the upside.

I know its hard to convince you that $BTC has touched the Bottom. But you cant ignore it. Never Break This Line in History, fellow account Jibon added alongside a weekly chart featuring another MA trendline.

Looking at possible targets, anywhere between $25,000 and $28,000, commentators believe, with Cointelegraph already reporting on one traders expectations of a $30,000 retest.

Analyzing separate data governing two exponential moving averages (EMAs), meanwhile, trading resource Stockmoney Lizards agreed with Jibon about a macro bottom already being complete for Bitcoin.

Cycles repeat. Shortly after EMA bands crossing, cycle low is in. From there, the uptrend is close, it summarized on Aug. 7:

Mid-term target 38k - 40k which be in this descending resistance level area. After this, we'll see a breakout and another bull run.

$40,000, while lofty by todays standards, is also not without its adherents even as part of an extended bear market relief rally.

The main macro event in what is otherwise a sleepy summer month is due in the coming days.

U.S. inflation will become top of the list of discussion topics in crypto and beyond on Aug. 10 as the Consumer Price Index (CPI) figures for July hit the radar.

The schedule is already ingrained in the minds of risk asset traders everywhere while not indicative of a specific trend in and of themselves, CPI releases are reliably accompanied by market volatility before, during and after the fact.

The question on everyones lips this time around, however, is whether inflation has peaked.

The question is complex: Fuel prices began decreasing in July, while CPI components such as rent prices conversely hit all-time highs.

The decline in commodities is a key cause for optimism for Tesla CEO Elon Musk, as Cointelegraph reported, who used the trend as a basis for suggesting that inflation would be going down from here.

This could change, obviously, but the trend is down, which suggests that we are past peak inflation, he said during Teslas Annual Meeting of Stockholders last week.

After months of key interest rate increases, meanwhile, the Federal Reserve will not make a decision on further monetary policy moves until September. More broadly, the central bank is in a bind, commentators argue, being unable to hike rates much further without unintended side effects.

According to on-chain monitoring resources, hodlers are unmoved by the latest upticks in BTC price action after months of declines.

While this is nothing unusual, it remains interesting to see how long-term holders resolve will be tested should further gains enter.

In automated updates this week, on-chain analytics firm Glassnode noted that the amount of the BTC supply last active in the past 24 hours is declining on average, potentially reflecting a lack of knee-jerk reactions to price moves.

Likewise, the seven-day MA of median on-chain transaction volume reached one-month lows of its own on the day, beating its previous lows from Aug. 1.

On higher timeframes, the trend is also visibly skewed toward pragmatism. The portion of the BTC supply which has stayed dormant in its wallet for three years or more continues to increase, reaching new all-time highs of 38.426% on the day.

Bitcoin % supply last active 3+ years ago chart. Source: Glassnode/ Twitter

The changes are more easily viewed on the HODL Waves metric, which provides an overview of what proportion of the BTC supply has remained dormant for specific lengths of time.

2022, it shows, has seen a marked increase in coins stationary for between one and two years.

Bitcoin HODL Waves chart (screenshot). Source: Unchained Capital

On the topic of hodling, current conditions appear to be firmly lackluster for exchanges amid little genuine interest in buying crypto assets.

While the worlds largest asset manager, BlackRock, announced a partnership with U.S. exchange Coinbase last week, its order book remains dead, one commentator puts it, with retail interest absent this summer.

Byzantine General further noted a crazy imbalance between bids and asks, indicating that the majority of exchange users are waiting for BTC/USD to match its June lows of $17,600.

Data from the Binance order book supplied by on-chain monitoring resource Material Indicators likewise highlights gaps in activity much above $24,000.

This can change quickly, however, as spot price moves up and down its trading range.

BTC/USD buy and sell levels (Binance) as of Aug. 7. Source: Material Indicators/ Twitter

When it comes to the bear market rally, sentiment data may offer an unlikely clue as to whether the true bottom is really in.

As noted by research firm Santiment and macro analyst Alex Krueger, mainstream interest in Bitcoin bear markets in fact tends to peak just after, not before, macro asset price bottoms.

While Kruger contrasted the events of March 2020 with 2009 in the S&P 500, Santiment pointed to social media content relating to Bitcoin around BTC price floors.

Even mentions of classic crypto-crowd terms such as moon and Lambo peak once the worst of the price drawdown is done, it concluded in findings published last week.

During the crypto slide in 2022, the crowd has been calling for moon and lambo in a sarcastic fashion whenever prices drop again, researchers explained on Twitter:

However, the true irony is that spikes in these words are actually often marking moments when $BTC is about to rise.

Bitcoin social media engagement chart. Source: Santiment/ Twitter

According to the sentiment gauge, the Crypto Fear & Greed Index, meanwhile, support is building above the markets extreme fear zone, which has been absent since mid-July.

The Index measures 30/100 on Aug. 8, unmoved versus the day prior and representative of fear being the overall market mood. Extreme fear corresponds to a score of less than 25.

Crypto Fear & Greed Index (screenshot). Source: Alternative.me

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Has US inflation peaked? Five things to know in Bitcoin this week - FXStreet