Day: November 7, 2017

Sheba Jafari, vice president at Goldman Sachs FICC Market Strats team, believes the bitcoin price will surpass the $7,900 mark in the short-term.

“The market has shown evidence of an impulsive rally since breaking above 6,044. Next in focus [$]7,941. Might consolidate there before continuing higher,” said Jafari.

$7,941, a Realistic Target?

Jafari’s bitcoin price trend analysis and the prediction were criticized by the bitcoin community for its specificity. Most traders, investors, and users of bitcoin understand by now that it is virtually impossible to predict the price of bitcoin in both the short and long-term specifically on the dot. Hence, the $7,941 price target of Jafari seemed like an overarching effort from Goldman Sachs to appeal to the bitcoin community and cryptocurrency sector.

But, the general sentiment that the price of bitcoin will increase in the short-term despite the November 16 hard fork is shared amongst some of the most highly regarded experts within the cryptocurrency sector. Max Keiser, a prominent financial analyst, and host of RT’s Keiser Report, recently reaffirmed his mid-term target of $10,000, given the increasing demand for bitcoin from the traditional financial industry of the US.

Earlier this week, CME Group, the largest options exchange in the world by volume, announced that it intends to launch a bitcoin futures exchange by the end of the fourth quarter of 2017, to address the rapidly growing demand for bitcoin from institutional and retail investors.

Terry Duffy, CME Group Chairman and CEO stated:

“Given increasing client interest in the evolving cryptocurrency markets, we have decided to introduce a bitcoin futures contract. As the world’s largest regulated FX marketplace, CME Group is the natural home for this new vehicle that will provide investors with transparency, price discovery and risk transfer capabilities.”

CME’s integration of bitcoin and launch of a bitcoin futures exchange will provide immediate liquidity and a regulated channel for high profile traders to invest in bitcoin, which would allow the bitcoin price to gain upward momentum and lead a new rally.

How About the SegWit2x Hard Fork?

Several analysts have argued that the dominance index of bitcoin has increased above the 61 percent mark over the past few days because investors in alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) have allocated their funds into bitcoin for a brief period of time in order to obtain B2X upon the SegWit2x hard fork. Thus, some analysts have predicted a major correction on the price of bitcoin after the SegWit2x hard fork.

It is highly likely that the price of bitcoin will decrease subsequent to the hard fork. But, given the market’s optimism towards CME’s bitcoin futures exchange and bitcoin ETFs, the price of bitcoin would likely be able to surpass $8,000 regardless of the SegWit2x hard fork.

In the short and mid-term, the price of bitcoin is en route to reaching $10,000, as Keiser emphasized. As liquidity for bitcoin traders increases, the so-called “money on the sidelines” will continue to migrate to bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market.

Earlier this year, Goldman Sachs had also predicted that Bitcoin price will hit $3,000. The price eventually did, but that was a popular opinion, anyway.

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Thailand’s Bank of Ayudhya and IBM have completed a blockchain pilot aimed to streamline the contract management process.

Bitcoin service providers are officially declaring their stance on SegWit2x. This upcoming hard fork may prove to be a rather disruptive force. No one knows for sure how things will play out in less than two weeks from today. CoinJar has clarified its position on this fork. The company will only support one form of Bitcoin for now. That situation may change come January 2018, depending on how the ecosystem looks then.

It is evident services such as CoinJar are in an awkward position right now. With three Bitcoin forks this year alone, a lot has changed these past few months. It is up to individual companies to either support them all or not. In the case of this particular company, only one Bitcoin will be supported. That makes a lot of sense and will also help avoid confusion. Keeping customers safe from financial harm and losses is still the number one priority.

An Interesting Approach by CoinJar

Some people may wonder what the company will do with SegWit2x. It will all depend on how viable this fork proves to be in the long run. If it is an altcoin by January 2018, CoinJar may integrate support eventually. If it becomes the main Bitcoin chain, that will become the default supported currency. For now, the company still defines SegWit2x as B2X, and the current BTC is B1X. Once the dust settles after the fork, it will be interesting to see who gets the BTC “crown”.

The current plan is to monitor the network for 96 hours after the fork. At that time, CoinJar will calculate an “adoption threshold”. This is based on an average of the price and hashpower of both chains. The “winner” of this calculation will become the official BTC on CoinJar. It seems these rules are pretty fair, although 96 hours may be a bit short. A lot of volatility will occur in the first few week or weeks.

Moreover, it is possible the scale of power will tip a few times as well. Depending on the profitability of B2X, miners may switch back and forth to maximize earnings. We have seen the same with Bitcoin Cash until very recently. It is evident there are a lot of factors to take into account as far as this hard fork is concerned. We can only hope companies such as CoinJar will not regret their initial decision.

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ICOs and digital currencies are now considered securities in New Zealand.

Disappointed in the way ICOs are often handled, and needing wide distribution, Blockstack has dropped the pre-sale for its upcoming token launch.

The reality of SegWit2x is going to be highly complex, Jimmy Song has said.

Most altcoins have started to recover some of their lost value over the past 24 hours. Although most of the gains are rather small, Monero has successfully bucked this trend. Thanks to a strong 12.38$ gain over the past 24 hours, things are looking pretty solid for the Monero price. This increase is mainly driven by increased trading volume due to some technical developments as of late.

Monero Price Jump was to be Expected

The year 2017 has been pretty good for the Monero price. With the value surpassing $140 not too long ago, people knew there would be a massive correction before things stabilize. Ever since reaching this new all-time high, we have seen the Monero price come down toward more normal levels once again, effectively stabilizing just above $85 for an extended period of time. This sudden “bearish” attitude was only to be expected.

More specifically, this downward trend was only partially caused by profit-taking. Not too long after the Monero price hit its all-time high, the Bitcoin price started its bullish momentum. Right now, that upward trend is stalling a bit, although most people expect Bitcoin to hit at least $8,000 before the year is over. Whether or not that can be achieved, remains to be seen. The upcoming SegWit2x fork will certainly shake things up quite a bit in this regard.

For Monero, things have been stuck in sideways trading motion for several weeks now. Slowly but surely, the USD value remained the same, but the Monero price kept losing ground compared to Bitcoin itself. It seems things are slowly reversing again, although this temporary uptrend is not a permanent stable level by any means. Just because the trading volume surpassed $125m for one day doesn’t mean this trend will continue for several days, let alone weeks or months.

Speaking of the trading volume, this $125.7m in volume is pretty interesting. It is still well below the volume altcoins in the top 10 should generate right now, but given Bitcoin’s bull trend, that is not entirely surprising whatsoever. Most of the volume comes from Bithumb, although its $49.2m is far less compared to what the exchange generates for other currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum Classic, and Bitcoin Cash. This seems to indicate this is not an actual “pump” either, although the opinions may still be divided on that front.

Unlike some other currencies, the Monero price may effectively be responding to recent technological developments. With multisignature support finally in the testing phase, things may get a lot more interesting for Monero supporters in the future. It will still take weeks, if not months, until we see this functionality become a part of the overall ecosystem, though.Still, it is a pretty big deal for Monero as a whole, especially in regards to future darknet marketplace adoption.

No one knows what the future holds for the Monero price. It is certainly possible this small uptrend will effectively be negated in the days to come. At the same time, Monero is a currency which doesn’t need any major pumps to solidify its position in the cryptocurrency industry. The developments and technology speak for themselves, and there are some interesting things still on the horizon as we speak. An interesting currency to keep an eye on, although everyone should always do their own research in this regard.

CySEC is aggressively advancing projects to explore the benefits of Blockchain.

It’s no less than a miracle for an organisation to grow to an extend Indicoin has, in such a short span. People have open heartedly welcomed this noble project globally, as a result of which, over 96% Tokens have already been sold in a time which has proven to be extremely non conducive for ICO’s in general.

Indicoin is now in the final few hours of it’s token sale. Hence, it is the last chance for those who have not yet contributed in the INDICOIN TOKEN SALE, and also for those who are looking to increase their contribution before INDI Tokens are listed on some of the most popular exchanges in the world.

It has already been officially announced that INDI tokens will be traded on HitBTC as soon as the Token sale ends. Indicoin is also in talks with some other renowned exchanges and is expected to come out with an official announcement regarding the same very soon.

The post India’s First Token Sale Ends In few Hours ! appeared first on NEWSBTC.

Securities Commission Malaysia has revealed it is planning a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies, as well as a DLT pilot.

Futures trading has become incredibly popular in the Bitcoin world. Speculators still get exposed to price volatility without buying Bitcoin itself. So far, the number of platforms trading said Bitcoin futures is still relatively small. Argentina will get its own platform to focus on cryptocurrencies moving forward. Mercado de Termino de Rosario sees a lot of merit in BTC trading and speculation right now.

It is remarkable to see how Bitcoin has evolved in Argentina. It is another one of those South American countries struggling financially. Inflation and a decreasing Peso value require some creative solutions. Consumers and entrepreneurs are looking for new ways to make money. It is the perfect place for a Bitcoin boom, although nothing spectacular has happened yet. Mercado de Termino de Rosario aims to change all of that in the very near future.

Bitcoin Futures are Coming to Argentina

More specifically, Argentina’s largest futures operator will introduce cryptocurrency futures contracts. This decision comes at a time during which the Bitcoin price has set several new all-time highs in quick succession. Moreover, major altcoins are starting to recover, which can create a lot of interesting trading opportunities. Most investors don’t want to buy Bitcoin or other currencies directly, though. A futures market is the best solution in this regard.

For the time being, this new feature is still in development. A basic framework has been created for custodial services and using Bitcoin as collateral. An official launch of this new market should occur before the end of this year. At the time of writing, no exact date has been communicated by ROFEX. The company is pretty excited about this development, mainly because their customers requested this new trading option. It doesn’t appear as if any other cryptocurrency besides Bitcoin will be supported at launch.

In the end, these futures will expose more people to Bitcoin and the BTC price. This will also lead to even more speculation. Whether or not that is a good thing, remains to be seen. It is evident there is a lot of positive momentum in the Bitcoin community right now. At the same time, the upcoming SegWit2x fork may still disrupt a few things. More and more companies are focusing on Bitcoin futures as we speak. Slowly but surely, cryptocurrency is gaining mainstream traction.

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