Day: December 6, 2017

Cryptocurrency has been getting a lot of attention in mainstream media lately, leading to a large influx of people wanting to get in on the action. As a co-founder of a cryptocurrency index fund, a blockchain developer and a Bitcoin miner, I have a little advice for those folks who are new to the scene and want to ride Bitcoin’s coattails. I’m purposely targeting Bitcoin mining, ignoring other — possibly more profitable or easy to mine —currencies. However, most of the challenges and calculations I’m introducing in this article will apply to altcoins as well.

Late on Tuesday, November 14th, Wall Street history was made when the SEC declined requests from exchanges to delay the implementation of Rule 613 — or the CAT (Consolidated Audit Trail). Originally, the 20 Self-Regulatory Organizations (or SROs) were supposed to go live on November 15, 2017. These would then be followed by large Broker-Dealers in 2018, and smaller B/Ds the next year. Exchanges were required to begin feeding trading data into CAT by November 15th, but many are not completely ready to comply. Word on the Street is that many players are waiting and watching to see if the SEC will come through with a compromise to push back the date for compliance.

What’s leading Bitcoin’s insanely parabolic price movements? The price is up $2,500 in a single day.

In a patent awarded Tuesday, the second-largest bank in the U.S. describes a potential cryptocurrency exchange system for its corporate clients.

In a truly surprising turn of events (sarcasm intended), the Queen of England’s bank has expressed scepticism over Bitcoin. The exclusive financial services provider declared the Bitcoin price to be built on nothing but speculation. They also stated that they’d not be investing themselves. One of Coutts’ investment strategists, Lilian Chovin explained to the UK’s Telegraph:

Its sharp rise brought back memories of the dotcom bubble back at the turn of the century.

Coutts is a private bank which, until recently, catered exclusively to members of high society. Nowadays they accept noted entrepreneurs, sportspeople, entertainers, and executives too – clearly, it’s still quite selective with its clientele. It’s therefore hardly surprising that such an institution can’t see the value in a permission-less system of global exchange. It kind of (read: completely) takes away their raison d’être.

Chovin went on to state that there were no fundamentals underlying Bitcoin. This made it a poor investment in her view. Meanwhile, of course, the price of Bitcoin has rocketed from around $760 this time last year, to over $14,500 at the time of writing.

The investment strategist clearly ignored the similarities to the complete lack of backing which render fiat currencies as worthless sheets of paper until they’re sentimentally imbued with value en masse:

“Our view at Coutts is that, as an investment asset, electronic currencies like Bitcoin have nothing but sentiment backing them up.”

One factor that Chovin did highlight as dangerous for Bitcoin going forward was that it seems “vulnerable to government sanctions”. She concluded by stating that there are no plans to include Bitcoin as part of Coutts’ investment strategy.

Like most naysayers from large banking institutions, she did claim that blockchain technology likely had a future. She added that it could prove useful in business and finance.

Finally, it’s not just Bitcoin that Coutts fears is in a bubble. Rather, the entire technology sector is likely overvalued in their eyes. Chovin explained:

“Technology has been a significant outperformer this year in the US. It has risen by around 35pc in US dollar terms which is almost double the return from US equities.”

However, the investment strategist didn’t dismiss all areas of tech as overpriced. She noted that along with the potential for blockchain technology to improve banking and finance, that AI and driver-less cars also looked promising.

Image: PixaBay

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The price of bitcoin continued to show gains on Wednesday, defying critics to set a new all-time high on a stellar night-time trading session.

We’re sure you’re used to us posting these kinds of articles by now – after all, we’ve had all-time highs just about every week for some time. However, today Bitcoin did something that it’s never done before. It increased in price by a massive $2,500 in one day. To put that into perspective, that’s over $40 billion pouring into the market in a 24 hour period. Or, to put it the most exciting way:

We’re above $14,500…*

What exactly is driving this sudden surge in demand for the world’s hottest cryptocurrency is unclear. Is this the surge of “institutional money” that we’ve been hearing about since about 2013? Or, is there something else that’s got people clamouring to get their hands on the planet’s first digital and scarce asset? Is it that Bitcoin has proved itself as a worthy store of value, and a way for people to escape the bonds with which central banks bind them?

There has been a lot of news that seems to legitimise Bitcoin as a worthy investment for institutional types recently. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange declared that they’d launch what they presumed would be the world’s first Bitcoin Futures market on December 18. There was already talk of the Chicago Board Options Exchange following suit, but on Monday, they announced that they would beat the CME Group to offer the financial product. They’ve undercut their rivals and declared their market will go live on December 10.

In addition, the planet’s second largest stock market, the NASDAQ, and now the Tokyo Financial Exchange also has a plan to launch Bitcoin Futures in early 2018. Meanwhile, the Cantor Fitzgerald exchange has declared their intention to launch a Bitcoin derivative. Clearly traditional investors are waking up to the idea of Bitcoin as a more mainstream trading option.

However, there’s likely more to it than just people trying to beat the big money into the market. Bitcoin itself appears stronger than ever before, irrespective of the price. On several occasions throughout 2017, we’ve had trying times. We faced the early setback of the Winklevoss ETF getting denied in the early part of the year, the takeoff and subsequent slowdown of Ethereum’s Ether token in the spring, the summer’s hard fork drama, the September China crisis, and recently, the insanity that was Segwit2x. Each time, Bitcoin has emerged stronger. It successfully demonstrated resistance to government regulation, infighting, and contentious forks. You name it, in 2017, Bitcoin dealt with it.

After such an incredible year, it seems fitting that Bitcoin is getting its recognition in the institutional sphere. Whether or not this bodes well for its long term future remains to be seen. Bitcoin has the potential to be much more than just a tool for the rich to play around making and losing millions with. Hopefully, 2018 will be the year in which we see the world’s first permission-less, trust-less cash system help to bail out the citizens of the earth from the toxic banking system that has been strangling it for so long now. For now, we can just celebrate this momentous all-time high.

* All figures have been taken from industry price monitoring website Coinmarketcap and are accurate as of the time of writing.

Image: PixaBay

The post Bitcoin Price Goes Absolutely Parabolic appeared first on NEWSBTC.

Despite regulated futures markets being approved in the US and Japan, South Korea wants no parts of the market. At least two securities firms had to abruptly cancel upcoming seminars on Bitcoin futures trading following regulatory ban.