Day: December 6, 2017

Financial institutions are suddenly scrambling to offer Bitcoin-related investment products. Given their opposition to cryptocurrencies for many years, this change of heart is rather intriguing. Bitcoin futures are seemingly the go-to product for banks and trading platforms. Tokyo Financial Exchange is the latest institution to get on this bandwagon. Consumers in Japan demand more exposure to Bitcoin, which is a positive sign.

It is always interesting to see how banks are eating their words when it comes to Bitcoin. For many years, these companies deemed this cryptocurrency unworthy. In late 2017, they are forced to introduce Bitcoin-related investment products. While futures contracts introduce even more price volatility, it is also a positive change. Exposing institutional investors to cryptocurrency can have some surprising results in the long run.

Tokyo Financial Exchange Embraces Bitcoin Futures

With Tokyo Financial Exchange getting on board, the future looks very bright. This company is one of Japan’s top financial exchanges today. Their Bitcoin futures products will launch in early 2018. No specific date has been announced at this time. The company follows the examples set by CBOE and CME, among others. Rest assured we will see more financial players offer Bitcoin-related products soon.

Moreover, it seems Tokyo Financial Exchange has other big plans as well. A study group will be formed to gain a better understanding of cryptocurrencies. This group will also monitor the futures market and look for ways to improve this product. Given the positive Bitcoin regulation in Japan, this process shouldn’t be too cumbersome to complete. Japan is one of the few countries approved Bitcoin as legal tender. Most other regions continue to oppose cryptocurrency at every possible turn.

No one can deny Bitcoin captivates an audience on a global scale. The world’s leading cryptocurrency has shocked a lot of people in recent months. Although it is not perfect,  it makes for a great speculative vehicle. In terms of using it as an actual currency, your options are still somewhat limited. These futures contracts provided by Tokyo Financial Exchange will impact Bitcoin as a whole. Whether that will be positive or not, remains to be determined.

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With all eyes on Bitcoin as it broke through another price barrier during Asian trading this morning many forget about some of the altcoins that are also reaching new heights. The Bitcoin digital locomotive may be pulling many of these altcoins up with it as it trades above $12,000 and strives to go even further. The main reason being that the majority of altcoins can only be purchased with Bitcoin, and this serves as part of their limitations.

One such coin that this does not apply to has seen a similar surge in investment over the past week or so, Japanese crypto asset Monacoin. It is only fitting that Japan, being a world leader in technology, has its own cryptocurrency marketed in its own language. Enter Monacoin (MONA) which isn’t a new asset as such but was launched in January 2014 – a long time ago in the world of cryptocurrencies.

Emerging from a Litecoin fork two years ago Monacoin was invented by a ‘Mr. Watanabe’, another Japanese pseudonym just like Satoshi Nakamoto. It is well established and unlike a number of other altcoins with altruistic ambitions, it has remained just a cryptocurrency. The difference is that a token has some degree of utility within the service it is designed to fund, a cryptocurrency does not and there are a number of tax implications with the latter which is why most ICOs today are the former. Additionally, Bitcoin has not seen the uptake in Japan as it has in other countries so the need for their own version has been filled.

The recent interest in Monacoin has been fueled by Japan’s stance on cryptos in general. The government of Japan opened up new possibilities for cryptocurrencies when it accepted them as legally viable payment methods. Asian neighbors such as China and Vietnam have taken the opposite stance and attempted to block and stifle them. With over 125 million citizens and an emerging digital payment marketplace, Japan is seen as a new battleground for cryptocurrencies as businesses and institutions strive to accelerate adoption.

Monacoin has been a direct beneficiary of this and has seen an uptake in both investment and actual usage as a digital currency. Price has jumped three-fold in the last week alone from $5.5 on November 30 to around $15 today. Up until early October, Monacoin was valued at less than a dollar so it is clear this altcoin still has a lot of fuel left in its tanks. If mass adoption within Japan occurs and it becomes a government approved digital asset, the sky is the limit.

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European consumers may have a new access point for cryptocurrency transactions. Revolut has announced that it will allow users to complete transactions in cryptocurrencies.

Indonesia’s central bank has revealed is considering regulations that would outlaw bitcoin transactions from 2018.

Square, one of the most widely utilized financial applications globally founded by Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey, has started to expand its pilot integration of bitcoin across its user base.

According to the official announcement made by the Square Cash App team, the company’s bitcoin brokerage services will be provided to more of the Square Cash App’s most active customers. In the upcoming weeks, more users will be able to purchase, sell, and store bitcoin directly on the Cash App.

The Square team said that it believes bitcoin empowers its users to participate in the global financial system. “We believe cryptocurrency can greatly impact the ability of individuals to participate in the global financial system, and we’re excited to learn more here,” said the company.

Square Will Compete With Coinbase and Existing Companies in Cryptocurrency Industry

By market valuation, revenue, and profit margin, Square is significantly larger than financial service providers within the bitcoin and cryptocurrency market. Coinbase, the US-based bitcoin brokerage, and wallet platform, became the first and only billion-dollar startup in the industry, achieving a $1.6 billion market valuation.

Square’s market cap remains at around $15 billion, nearly 10 times larger than that of Coinbase, the largest bitcoin and cryptocurrency company in the global market.

Given Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s optimism towards bitcoin, it is highly likely that Square will continue to provide bitcoin services to its users. With a full roll-out of its bitcoin integration, the Square team will be able to compete against existing companies in the cryptocurrency sector, such as Coinbase.

Researchers at Credit Suisse, a Swiss financial service company, and the country’s leading commercial bank stated that the integration of bitcoin could lead to tens of millions of dollars in additional revenues in the short-term. As the cryptocurrency market continues to grow at an exponential rate, Credit Suisse analysts Paul Condra and Mrinalini Bhutoria explained that the revenues could increase rapidly.

“Despite these [regulatory] risks, the upside could be significant if cryptocurrencies become more mainstream,” wrote Condra and Butoria.

Although the two analysts emphasized that there are regulatory risks in integrating bitcoin, such risks have become non-issues in the global cryptocurrency industry, considering that the US and Japan, two of the largest markets, have imposed strict regulations for businesses.

The two Credit Suisse analysts added, ”given Square’s tendency to move judiciously into new technologies, we expect it will do the same with bitcoin purchases. We believe the largest risk is regulation, which could limit its ability to provide the service or outright ban it. Square is also exposed to liquidity and counterparty risk as it must source bitcoin for users either by pre-buying or using an exchange.”

More Financial Institutions Will Provide Bitcoin Support

The cryptocurrency market has evolved into a  $370 billion industry, with the daily trading volume of all cryptocurrencies in the market combined surpassing $20 billion. In the mid to long-term, every financial company will try to penetrate the market and provide support for the emerging asset class.

In South Korea, the third largest bitcoin exchange market behind Japan and the US, Shinhan, the country’s second biggest commercial bank, has started testing bitcoin wallet and vault services. A Shinhan spokesperson told Naver News, a media publication of the nation’s most widely utilized search engine, that it intends to serve users and traders on exchanges, considering that major South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges such as Bithumb were hacked multiple times this year.

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We aren’t even midway through the week and already the bitcoin price has broken through the $12,000 mark and, at least for the near term, looks set to hold above that level. Things overnight moved relatively slowly initially but once the just mentioned major threshold was taken out, things really started to pick up and we’re currently trading in around 12,670, meaning 13,000 isn’t an unrealistic target on an intraday basis – especially on the slightly wider time frames.

We are looking at things from a little bit of narrower perspective right now, however, so let’s try and get some levels in place that we can use to push forward into the session today. 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 one-minute candlestick chart and it has our key range overlaid in green.

As the bitcoin price chart shows, then, the range we are using for the session this morning comes in as defined by support to the downside at 12605 and resistance to the upside at 12670.

The latter of these two levels is the above-mentioned resistance level and so we will address that one first (since we are trading so close to it as things stand).

So, if we see price close above resistance, we will enter long towards an immediate upside target of 12735. A stop loss on the position somewhere around 12650 should ensure we keep things tight from a risk management perspective.

Looking the other way, if price closes below support, we will enter into a short position towards an immediate downside target of 12555. A stop loss on this one at 12620 should do the job.

Let’s see how things play out.

Chart courtesy of Trading View

The post Bitcoin Price Watch; $13,000 In Play appeared first on NEWSBTC.

Major US Bitcoin Exchange Bitstamp Lists Bitcoin Cash as Bcash But Reverts Decision.

Cryptocurrencies will continue to appreciate and decrease in value, regardless of any price they may have. In the case of IOTA, there are still a lot of different opinions on whether or not this altcoin has any real potential. The IoT industry should not be underestimated by any means, though. The IOTA price is still moving up as we speak, and it even surpassed $5.4 at one point. As of right now, the markets are slowing down a bit, and the price per MIOTA is dropping.

IOTA Price is Still Holding Strong

The past week has been quite incredible for holders of the MIOTA token. According to Coinmarketcap, IOTA‘s market cap now sits above $12.68bn, which is extremely surprising. What is quite interesting isn’t IOTA’s price, but rather the way this currency has followed to achieve this number. The IOTA price has increased quite spectacularly over the past few days, and it seems this rally may still have some momentum in the tank to push toward another all-time high.

More specifically, we saw the IOTA’s price hit an all time high of $5.55 a few hours ago. That is pretty impressive, considering the price of this token sat at a value of $3 a several hours prior. It is evident that at this point this currency is attracting a lot of attention from the cryptocurrency community. IOTA can certainly make an impact on the IoT sector in the next few months and years. Moreover, the Tangle technology is of great interest as well, despite there still being some concerns over its viability.

With another 44.94% gain over the past 24 hours, it remains to be seen how steep the upcoming price correction will be. MIOTA Also gained 33.93% in value compared to Bitcoin, which is quite interesting to take note of. The world’s leading cryptocurrency is setting a new all-time high as we speak, yet a few currencies can effectively appreciate in value despite this momentum.

IOTA has a more than solid amount of trading volume right now as well. Whereas most altcoins barely break the $1bn mark at times, IOTA has over $2.46bn worth of trading volume in the past 24 hours. It looks like the demand for this crypto will not diminish anytime soon, especially when this IOTA price rally is still in full effect. Whether or not this trading volume will become the new normal for IOTA or is just a temporary flash in the pan, remains to be determined.

Bitfinex is still the main driver of the trading volume for IOTA right now. Their lead over Coinone is pretty spectacular, even though this latter exchange valued IOTA at over $7.55, which is definitely overpriced. That exchange’s price is currently excluded from Coinmarketcap, though, which is something we have seen affect other altcoins in the past as well. South Korea is massively driving up the value of all cryptocurrencies right now, although it is unclear why these prices would be excluded from Coinmarketcap. Regardless, this doesn’t seem to affect the IOTA price rally in the slightest.

It is unclear what the future holds for IOTA and the price of this intriguing token. Although the value of IOTA has yet to be fully determined in the real world, speculation certainly hints at big things to come. The active community is also doing its part in this regard, that much no one can deny. For speculators, these are golden times to be involved in cryptocurrencies. What goes up in value will eventually come down, though, and IOTA will – most likely-  not be an exception in this regard.

The creator of VR-planetariums Altair VR-company starts pre-ICO.

“Joining ICO was a deliberate step for us. We raise funds for making a platform like Wikipedia, but for cognitive VR-films,” – explains company’s CEO Konstantin Urvantsev. – “The platform will be a global VR-simulator aimed at studying the world in all aspects and spheres.People will be able to study the structure of the earth, space, go on safari using only VR-glasses. And they will get the access to VR-films for tokens”.

The internal economy of the platform is built on the blockchain: any external input is fulfilled only for tokens: to have an access to watching VR-films about cognition of the world, you need to buy a token. In addition to the payment token, reputation points are also effective to measure the professional skills of participants in the ecosystem. For example, a geography teacher with a high reputation index will be able to get a grant from the platform for creation a VR-film on the subject.

“We plan to invite not only specialists to create content on the Altair VR-platform but everyone who wants, which will make the technology global”, – says company’s CTO Alexey Irkov. On the basis of the platform will continue working virtual education franchise (distribution of the existing VR-films), giving access to children from all over the world.

Scheduled ICO date – January 29, public pre-ICO will start on December 11 and will last until December 26. An active presale for early investors has already been launched with a special offer when buying tokens from the amount of $10,000.

The main targets for ICO are:

– decentralized VR-platform for the cognition of the world controlled by the profile community through the blockchain;

– creation of the world cognition VR-encyclopedia, as a matter of fact VR-Wikipedia on blockchain.

Also it is necessary to tell about the main advantages of a platform for VR-community:

– ability to monetize your own VR-content through the Altair platform with low commissions;

– tender content creation based on smart contracts and regulated by the community itself;

– full control of copyrights and deductions for content.

According to the project’s road map, the launch of a base platform will take place in the first quarter (Q1) of 2018. For more information

About the company

AltaiR VR, the creator of the world’s first virtual planetaria, is on the market of additional education since 2011. In 2016 the company released its own projection system with the function of content protection, at the same time it launched VR-solution for educational films demonstration.The company’s franchise is represented in 15 cities around the world.

In January 2017 the company published Altair Fulldome Cinema application in Oculus Gear VR store (the analogue of App Store and Google Play with applications for VR-gadgets).During the first month the application was downloaded more than 40 thousand times, because watching films was free of charge. In May 2017 the number of downloads exceeded 100 thousand, the application entered the top of the world Oculus Store, and the partners set a paid subscription: now for watching one film you need to pay $10, month subscription costs $30.

Previously the team has received investment from IIDF, as well as high expert evaluation of Mega and MTS accelerators Corp.

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DDoS attacks are the most common threat to cryptocurrencies.

Why futures represent a big turn in adoption for Bitcoin.

The announcement of Sony teaming up with IBM last August created a huge buzz as they integrate Blockchain technology with an educational platform.

MUFG and NTT Data are collaborating on a blockchain proof-of-concept aimed to foster trade between Singapore and Japan.

There have always been concerns over using Bitcoin as a currency. Not only is it not straightforward for most consumers, the number of platforms accepting BTC is also limited. That situation is slowly coming to change, but other things are happening as well. A lot of major musicians and online stores now accept Monero payments. This makes Monero the one currency seemingly succeeding where Bitcoin and Ethereum failed to make a big impact.

No one can deny the appeal of Bitcoin and Ethereum in the world of cryptocurrency. However, using them for real-life purchases can be quite cumbersome. In most cases, it is simply impossible, even for most digital services and products. In the music industry, cryptocurrencies have not made the biggest of impacts yet by any means. Bitcoin and Ethereum have been talked about a lot, but bar a few artists, no one is jumping on this opportunity just yet.

Monero Makes Mainstream Progress

That makes it all the more interesting to see 45 musicians accept Monero payments right now. Additionally, five online stores will also accept XMR payments as of this week. Anyone who pays for purchase son any of these platforms will receive a nice discount. Artists such as Weezer, Slayer, Dolly Parton, and Mariah Carey all embrace Monero in this regard. This is a remarkable decision, considering how this cryptocurrency has flown under the radar for most of 2017.

It is evident a lot of people have ignored this cryptocurrency for far too long. It is important to have proper use cases, instead of only being a store of value. Considering how Monero is about privacy, it makes this news even more interesting. Monero is, according to G-Eazy, the safest, more secure, and most private cryptocurrency. It is an intriguing development in the world of cryptocurrency, that much is certain.

All of this is part of the Project Coral Reef. This venture is the brainchild of Naveen Jain, a big Monero fan. His collaboration with various artists allowed this venture to become a real thing. Cryptocurrencies lack general acceptance first and foremost. Monero may be the first currency bar Bitcoin to make a meaningful impact in this regard. It is evident big things are happening to all cryptocurrencies right now. This initiative will help put this currency on people’s radar.

The post Dozens of Artists Accept Monero Payments Instead of Bitcoin or Ethereum appeared first on NEWSBTC.

Cointelegraph (Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency and Blockchain News)

New Fed Appointee May Be Driving Bitcoin To All-Time Highs Cointelegraph (Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency and Blockchain News) The problem is that should the Fed desire to lower interest rates to something under zero on savings or checking accounts individuals could simply withdraw paper money from their accounts to keep from losing money. This freedom to protect the value of ... and more »