Josh Gnaizda is the founder of Crypto Fund Research. The opinions expressed here are the author’s own. The following article originally appeared in Institutional Crypto by CoinDesk, a free weekly newsletter for institutional investors focused on crypto assets. You can sign up here. It’s one of the worst-kept secrets in the alternative investment industry: net of fees, hedge funds struggle...Read More
When a financial system like the crypto market lacks liquidity, a crash becomes inevitable. This was the case at the margin trading marketplace hosted by U.S.-based crypto exchange Poloniex toward the end of May, when the value of a lesser-known crypto asset, CLAM, experienced a sudden, sharp crash. This resulted in the generalized loss of...Read More
Stocks, US Dollar, and yields crashed Friday after President Donal Trump ordered the US manufacturers to find alternatives to China, in a series of Tweets. Trump’s tweets came after China announced new tariffs on another $75 million worth of US goods including autos. These tariffs that range between 5% and 10% will be implemented in...Read More
Craig Wright, the Australian entrepreneur who controversially says he’s bitcoin’s anonymous inventor Satoshi Nakamoto, has made another attempt to cement that claim in the public domain. On Thursday, Wright posted the bitcoin white paper on the scientific journal hosting site, SSRN, citing himself as the author on Aug. 21, 2008. The SSRN (formerly the Social...Read More
On Aug. 24, most of the top 20 cryptocurrencies are suffering moderate losses on the day while Bitcoin (BTC) hovers around the $10,130 mark. Market visualization courtesy of Coin360 Bitcoin price is currently down by 0.6% on the day, trading at around $10,130 at press time, according to Coin360. Bitcoin 7-day price chart. Source: Coin360 Ether...Read More
In a bid to keep the decentralized finance space free of scam artists, DeFi ecosystem Maker attempted to trademark the term “DEFI.” According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the Maker Ecosystem Growth Foundation registered a trademark application for DEFI last January. Slang for ‘decentralized finance,’ the trademark was not granted and...Read More
A British judge has ordered the confiscation of $1.1 million worth of cryptocurrency from a hacker who used phishing attacks to steal personal data and sell it on the dark web. As The Telegraph reported on Aug. 23, judge Joanna Korner of Southwark Crown Court ruled that the police could confiscate $1.1 million worth of...Read More
The crypto industry is making great strides in establishing Security Token Offerings (STOs) as a secure fundraising method. With the market’s attention diverted to the first-ever SEC-supported STO, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) pledging “plain English” directives on ICOs, 2019 could finally see security tokens used as fundraising tools. In 2018, the...Read More
Major cryptocurrency exchange Binance states that some leaked Know Your Customer (KYC) images overlap with those processed by a third party vendor. In an announcement on Aug. 23, Binance said that its investigation of a KYC data leak that occurred on Aug. 7 is still ongoing. The exchange’s security and investigations team is purportedly trying...Read More
Hotmine CEO Oles Slobodenyuk couldn’t have picked a better place to pitch his product: a bitcoin mining rig that doubles as a home heating appliance. Irkutsk, Eastern Siberia, is famously cold in the winter, when subzero temperatures are the norm. So a few weeks ago, when Slobodenyuk took the stage at the Baikal Blockchain and...Read More
Ethereum Classic (ETC) price has surged 40% this week on several bullish news stories, according to data from Coin360. Over the past seven days, ETC price has climbed from around $5.50 to roughly $7.30 by press time. It now sits in the number sixteen spot by market capitalization between Chainlink (LINK) and DASH. Ethereum Classic...Read More
View Bitcoin’s recovery from $9,755 to $10,255 seen in the last 24 hours lacks volume support and could be short-lived. Supporting the case for a drop back to $9,755 are the rising-wedge breakdown on the hourly chart and a bearish candlestick pattern on the 3-day chart. Wednesday’s rising-wedge breakdown on the 4-hour chart is still...Read More
Problems with Amazon’s cloud service, AWS, are disrupting services at some cryptocurrency exchanges on Friday. The Binance exchange is seeing problems internationally, according to its CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, who tweeted: It’s causing some 500 error messages on APIs and affecting some withdrawal processing — CZ Binance (@cz_binance) August 23, 2019 The KuCoin cypto exchange is...Read More
Rwanda’s central bank, the National Bank of Rwanda, is researching how to offer an official digital currency. BNN Bloomberg reported the news on Aug. 22. The central bank is said to be interested in offering digital currency as a means to increase transaction efficiency and foster economic growth. However, Financial Stability Director-General Peace Masozera Uwase...Read More
Money transfer service Xendpay has joined Ripple’s global transaction network RippleNet to support international transactions. Going beyond the U.S. dollar Ripple announced the news on Aug. 20. Per the announcement, RippleNet will allow Xendpay to provide money transfer services beyond the United States dollar. Xendpay will use Ripple’s pre-existing network of banks and other financial...Read More
Cryptocurrency liquidity has long been a thorny issue for enthusiasts and evangelists. Although they eagerly promote the ecosystem and tout blockchain’s benefits, the elephant in the room that most enthusiasts willingly ignore is the challenging liquidity conditions that impact cryptocurrency markets’ orderly flow. The enormous volatility witnessed across the cryptosphere has been a staple of the...Read More
Bitcoin back to around $10,000, every time it happened since it was hit two months back, altcoins bled even more After the shitcoin carnage, alts may be heading into a region of support,” said analyst Willy Woo BTC long term price target: Easily 100x Bitcoin has dropped below $10,000 yet again. The $10,000 level was...Read More
Untrusted exchanges still command the lion’s share of global cryptocurrency trading volumes, a CryptoCompare report published on Aug. 21 reveals. As of July, D-E rated low-quality exchanges represented 64% of trading volume — a staggering $316 billion — whereas top-rated AA platforms accounted for just 5% or $31 billion. A-rated exchanges nonetheless increasing share Lower...Read More
View Bitcoin’s defense of the 100-day moving average and a bullish divergence of an hourly chart indicator suggest scope for a minor price bounce to $10,300 Bitcoin will remain in the hunt for a drop to $9,467 (Aug. 13 low), as long as the rising wedge breakdown seen on the 4-hour chart remains valid. A...Read More
Taiwanese crypto exchange Maicoin is in talks with Facebook about becoming a member of the Libra Association. As local media outlet the Taipei Times reported on Aug. 21, Maicoin wants to join the nonprofit responsible for developing the social network’s long-awaited stablecoin. The company is specifically looking to operate a node on the blockchain-based network,...Read More
American cryptocurrency exchange Kraken will add support for Basic Attention Token (BAT) and Waves (WAVES). According to an announcement on Aug. 21, the exchange’s users will be able to deposit and withdraw the aforementioned coins starting tomorrow, Aug. 22, as well as trade with both assets. Kraken will roll out trading pairs between BAT and...Read More
The protests in Hong Kong, which have been taking place since late March, now represent the most significant domestic disturbance in China in thirty years. Fearing government reprisals, protesters are employing a wide variety of methods to evade the sophisticated surveillance techniques the authorities are believed to be using. These include wearing masks to block...Read More
Stablecoin operator Tether plans to issue a Chinese yuan-backed stablecoin, local industry media ChainNews reports on Aug. 21. Tether to issue a renminbi-pegged stablecoin Bitfinex shareholder Zhao Dong informed the outlet that Tether — the stablecoin operator behind USDT — plans to issue a new stablecoin in the near future. It would be backed by...Read More
Ethereum’s cryptocurrency, ether, is losing altitude, with signs suggesting the asset has ended a bull market from December lows with a drop below $200 last week. The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is currently trading at $183 on Bitfinex, representing a 7.3 percent drop on a 24-hour basis. Prices fell 10.18 percent last week and...Read More
E-cash inventor David Chaum has unveiled yet another cryptocurrency which he says is resistant to quantum computer attacks. Chaum plans for quantum armageddon In a blog post issued Aug. 20, Chaum championed the new offering, Praxxis, which has seen a six-month development process. The new blockchain follows on from Chaum’s Elixxir project, which debuted in...Read More
Tuesday, Aug. 20 — following a brief period of recovery, almost all of the top-20 coins by market capitalization have entered the red again, with Bitcoin (BTC) hovering around $10,700. Market visualization. Source: Coin360 The leading digital currency BTC is struggling to stay in positive territory, being up by a modest 0.26% on the day...Read More
The increased cost of transacting on the ethereum blockchain is hurting the software’s adoption, says project creator Vitalik Buterin. Speaking with the Toronto Star this week, Butertin suggested projects that are considering whether to build on the technology will likely be butted out as the blockchain is overloaded with transactions, or in his words “almost full.”...Read More
Binance.US, an upcoming subsidiary of one of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges that will be compliant to operate within the United States, has recently gotten investors excited with an announcement that the platform was reviewing 30 new assets for listing. Importantly, the news also shed some light on the Digital Asset Risk Assessment Framework —...Read More
View Bitcoin has created a rising wedge pattern on the 4-hour chart. A wedge breakdown, if confirmed, could yield a drop to levels below $10,000. Bitcoin’s recent recovery from $9,467 lacked high-volume support, so a rising wedge breakdown looks likely. The weekly chart is also flashing bearish signals. A high-volume move above $11,000 would invalidate...Read More
The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) is almost ready to launch its government-backed digital currency, official sources say. An Aug. 20 report from the CPC-owned English-language news portal China Daily further revealed that the central bank digital currency (CBDC) may have been influenced by the unveiling of Facebook’s planned cryptocurrency, Libra. ‘Inspiration from Libra’ After...Read More
