Day: November 29, 2017

Bitcoin prices are showing the first signs of bull market exhaustion, with several indicators suggesting overbought conditions.

BitPay is the largest online Bitcoin payment processor in the world. The company has introduced some changes over time, which aren’t always appreciated. In a new effort, the company is addressing challenges associated with Bitcoin. The Bitcoin Payment Protocol will soon become mandatory for all transactions. This protocol has been on the company’s roadmap since back in 2014. It is an interesting change, as it will prevent any errors made during the payment process.

To put this into perspective, few people have issues paying a BitPay invoice. All they need to do is copy the wallet address or scan a QR code. It doesn’t require a degree in rocket science to successfully complete transfers. However, for novice users, things are not necessarily clear-cut in this regard. There is plenty of room for errors, which can have very dire consequences. In fact, the biggest issue is sending the wrong Bitcoin amount. Without any auto correction in place, that can lead to a complicated partial refund process.

Another Interesting Change by BitPay

Other issues include sending it to the wrong address or paying a low fee resulting in payment delays. None of these scenarios are acceptable to users or BitPay themselves. Addressing these problems has proven to be quite challenging, as there is no “cookie-cutter” solution right now. Moreover, BitPay merchants and customers are getting tired of these erroneous transactions. Everything needs to be done manually, which costs a lot of time and money.

This is where the Payment Protocol comes into the picture. It is designed to eliminate any user error in Bitcoin payments. Transactions occur through an SSL-based connection between customer and BitPay directly. There will be no copying of information or entering payment amounts manually. Instead, the users’ client will automatically receive the payment request and fill in all the details. One would wonder why this feature was never introduced sooner.

This new feature allows for proper analysis of transactions to automatically determine the miner fee. That is a rather interesting development, although not one most people may approve of. It does eliminate payment delays and erroneous payment information. However, it also takes away some control users have over their own funds. It is not hard to see the benefits of Payment Protocol, but it’s not an ideal situation either. However, it is a valuable addition. All of this will depend on whether or not wallet service providers will integrate this new feature.

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Russia’s central bank warned against investing in cryptocurrencies in its annual Financial Stability Report released Tuesday.

New Zealand’s financial markets watchdog has warned citizens from investing in an initial coin offering for an online marketplace.

In yesterday evening’s bitcoin price analysis, we highlighted the fact that bitcoin was closing in on $10,000 and that, if we saw a break of that level, there was a good chance we would see a considerable degree of follow-through on the back of the break. Why? Because this sort of action nearly always translates to some psychologically driven loading and the fear of missing out causes fringe participants to pick up positions.

What we didn’t predict was just how far this follow-through would go.

The bitcoin price is currently trading around $10,700 apiece – up close to $1,000 on yesterday’s action alone.

We have said it on a couple of occasions over the last few days and we will say it again – we are almost certain to see some degree of correction near term. How steep this correction will be remains to be seen but, that it is coming, is a certainty.

All we can do is set up against the intraday charts as we see them and try to be ready for any correction as and when it does hit.

So, with this in mind, let’s get some levels in place that we can use to try and do just that. As ever, take a quick look at the chart below before we get started so as to get an idea where things stand and where we are looking to jump in and out of the markets according to the rules of our intraday strategy.

The chart is a five-minute candlestick chart and it has our range overlaid in green.

As the chart shows, the range we are looking at for the session today comes in as defined by support to the downside at 10,620 and resistance to the upside out 10,738.

If we see a close above resistance, we will jump into a longer trade towards an immediate upside target of 10,770. Conversely, a close below support will have us in short towards 10,580.

Let’s see what happens.

Charts courtesy of Trading View

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Even though Bitcoin is still firing on all cylinders, we see the valuable altcoins cement their position in the top 20 as well. One currency that is currently overlooked a bit is Litecoin, despite the Litecoin price surpassing $100 earlier tonight. It is evident the silver to Bitcoin’s gold should not be ignored whatsoever. Even though its market cap is lower than it perhaps should be, the Litecoin price is holding its own with relative ease during this Bitcoin bull run.

Litecoin Price is Tearing it up

It is good to see the Litecoin price momentum established earlier this week continue unabated. While most people would expect altcoins to crash in value while the Bitcoin price is setting new records pretty much every hour, that is far from the case. There are some altcoins which are subject to extreme volatility right now, but the majority of established currencies is rolling with the punches right now. Litecoin is perhaps one of the best examples in this regard, as this altcoin is only appreciating in value as time progresses.

More specifically, the Litecoin price was well below $93 less than 24 hours ago. Ever since the Bitcoin price started surpassing $10,000 there have been some concerns as to whether or not LTC could keep the momentum going. Price stability would have been the first priority, but things turned out quite differently. In fact, we saw the Litecoin price rise to almost $103 in quick succession, which took a lot of people by surprise. Although there has been a small correction ever since things are still looking pretty good.

With the Litecoin price dropping from $103 to $96.58, it is evident a lot of people took their profits and looked for a lower entry point. Surprisingly, the Litecoin price hasn’t dropped lower ever since that time and is now close to surpassing $100 once again. A major feat of strength by one of the older altcoins, and it goes to show any cryptocurrency with an actual purpose will survive this “onslaught’ without too many problems. There will be some volatility in the coming days and weeks, but the established currencies will only come out stronger, by the look of things.

Litecoin also has a very solid trading volume, which has been hovering around $500m for several days now. In the past 24 hours, we saw $585m worth of LTC change hands across all of the exchanges, which clearly indicates there is still genuine demand for this currency. Altcoins have a lot more promise when it comes to future gains, even though most of them are reaching a new all-time high in the very near future. Bitcoin is becoming a catalyst for altcoins to thrive, rather than the other way around.

GDAX is still the go-to place for Litecoin trading right now. This exchange would be a lot more popular if they decided to add all other major altcoins as well, but for now, that is not on their agenda. Bithumb is in second place and is just $3m behind GDAX in volume. Bitfinex completed the top three, although their Bitfinex is far less significant. We once again see three fiat currency markets dominate the landscape, further confirming fresh capital is entering the market.

It will be interesting to see how Litecoin holds its own in the coming days. There is no reason to think any of the major altcoins will go through a correction in the near future. The battle for a new all-time high Litecoin price is still in effect, and $110 seems a likely target for this week. Then again, we may see some currencies effectively break out, rather than simply move up slightly. A lot can change in the world of cryptocurrency, that much is rather evident.

Hackers are scouring the Internet for Bitcoin wallet archives and targeting Ethereum clients.

Horizons ETFs Management has filed for a new blockchain exchange-traded fund with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The OpenBazaar platform has been well-received by the overall cryptocurrency community. A decentralized marketplace solution with Bitcoin support is a major step toward mainstream adoption. However, Bitcoin is not a perfect currency whatsoever. In fact, there are some big issues with it when it comes to payments. This is why the OB team is working on integrating new cryptocurrencies over time. So far, it seems Bitcoin Cash and ZCash are both on the shortlist.

It is always good to see existing platforms integrate support for additional cryptocurrencies. There is a lot more to this industry than just Bitcoin, to say the very least. A lot of the altcoins in the top 10 are also worth paying attention to. This is why the OpenBazaar team announced they would integrate more cryptocurrencies over time. However, it remained unclear which currencies those would be. There have been some rumors regarding Monero and Litecoin integration, but that is about it. It now seems ZCash and Bitcoin Cash are coming to this platform as well. An interesting choice, to say the very least.

Altcoin Support is a Good Thing for OpenBazaar

One has to acknowledge Bitcoin Cash is slowly making a big name for itself. In fact, this popular altcoin has a pretty loyal following as of right now. That means there are plenty of people looking to spend BCH for whatever purposes possible. With the addition of OpenBazaar support, a lot of new opportunities will be unlocked. At the same time, it is still up to individual sellers to enable these altcoin payments as well. There’s no guarantee anyone will do so, albeit there’s no reason not to either.

How all of this will affect the OpenBazaar platform, remains to be seen. It is quite a remarkable project which has successfully garnered a lot of support. Anyone in the world can sell any legal item or service in exchange for Bitcoin. With no centralized infrastructure, stores cannot be taken down all that easily either. Adding more support for different cryptocurrencies will only result in more exposure for this platform. While it may not replace the darknet anytime soon, it is a worthy competitor to eBay and other auction sites.

While this is still a pull request on GitHub, there’s no reason the developers won’t integrate it. More cryptocurrency support will eventually lead to more users. OpenBazaar is a solution more people need to embrace willingly over the next few years. Although a great concept, it is still a niche project at this point in time. A lot of cryptocurrency communities feel left out due to the Bitcoin-only approach. BCH and ZEC are both valuable additions to this platform.

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