Day: December 19, 2017

Scalability is the talk of the town in the cryptocurrency world. Every network and blockchain are scrutinized based on their performance. Although the Ethereum network isn’t perfect, an interesting milestone has been reached. The network successfully processed 1 million transactions over the past 24 hours. With an average of 43,963 transactions per hour, things are looking pretty good. It’s certainly a lot better compared to Bitcoin, even though that network transferred more value in the same period.

Comparing Ethereum and Bitcoin usually makes little sense. Both projects are very different from one another. However, both currencies are considered to be a store of value at this point. This is mainly thanks to the value gains for both currencies throughout 2017. As a result, it is worth exploring how both networks perform at any given moment. Over the past 24 hours, Ethereum comes out a lot better in most regards.

An Interesting Milestone for Ethereum

More specifically, the Ethereum network handled over 1 million transactions without too many problems. Bitcoin processed 412,883 transfers in the same period, which is less than half. Even though Bitcoin processed over 17,000 transactions per hour, it’s a lot less compared to Ethereum. That network has an average of nearly 44,000 transfers per hour. More importantly, Bitcoin fees are so high anything else looks cheap right now.

The average Bitcoin transaction is subject to a fee of $28.09 in the past 24 hours. At the same time, the median transaction fee is $16.59. Both of these numbers are unacceptable. In Camp Ethereum, the average fee is $0.9912 with the median transaction fee going as low as $0.368. It is evident this discrepancy cannot be overlooked any longer. Even though one BTC is 22.5 times as valuable as one ETH, this difference in fees is getting a bit absurd. If people were told they’d pay $20 in BTC fees three years ago they would’ve laughed out loud.

Despite the numbers not favoring Bitcoin, the network still has its strengths. Over 17% of the market cap’s value was transferred don the network in the past 24 hours. This is almost twice as high as Ethereum’s “spenditure” in the same period. Although most people would assume people hoard Bitcoin, this number is certainly interesting to keep an eye on. Moreover, the average transaction value for Bitcoin is $130,000. Ethereum, on the other hand, has an average value of $7,413. Interesting correlations and differences, to say the very least.

The post Ethereum Network Processes Over 1 Million Transactions Worth Almost 10% of the Market cap appeared first on NEWSBTC.

Bitcoin prices are feeling the pull of gravity today, amid solid gains across many alternative cryptocurrencies.

There exists a substantial degree of uncertainty in the bitcoin space right now. Things have been pretty volatile over the last few days as far as the bitcoin price is concerned and exactly how the fundamentals of the space – scaling, transaction fees, that sort of thing – are going to play out going forward is the question everybody wants to know the answer to.

From a long-term holding perspective, this makes things pretty tough.

With that said, of course, we have maintained our intraday strategy from as far back as when price was trading in and around a couple of hundred dollars and just because there is correction risk right now doesn’t mean we are going to alter the way we approach things.

So, let’s keep our cool and push forward into the European morning 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 in the bitcoin price right now and where we are looking to get 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 primary 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 17803 and resistance to the upside at 18318. That’s a pretty wide range so we can be relatively liberal with our risk management placements.

In line with this, if we see a close above resistance, we will enter long towards an immediate upside target of 18400.

Conversely, a close below support will have us in short towards a downside target of 17720. A stop loss on both trades around $20 or so just the other side of the entry will ensure we are taken out of the positions in the event that things turn against us.

Charts courtesy of Trading View

The post Bitcoin Price Watch; Riding Out The Uncertainty appeared first on NEWSBTC.

Block No. 501451, which is planned to be produced roughly speaking on December 28, 2017, will be decisive for the old/new fork Segwit2X, and a Christmas present for the entire crypto-community. An experienced team of developers declares that it will resume activity based on the launch of the suspended project on its website.

“Commission and transaction speed within the Bitcoin network reached inconceivable values. In the last month, the average commission of the network was 15-20 US dollars, and the confirmation rate could reach several days. It is simply impossible to use it as a means of payment.

Our team will carry out the Bitcoin hard fork – Segwit2X, which was expected in mid-November. At the same time, its futures trading is conducted on some exchanges, including HitBTC.

We promise that all BTC holders will receive, not only B2X in the ratio of 1:1, but also as a reward for your commitment to progress, the proportional number of Bitcoin of Satoshi Nakamoto who mined it in the first year of the network’s existence,” commented Jaap Terlouw, the project CEO.

The new fork will appear as a result of the revival of Segwit2X, initiated by a group of professional developers. The idea is to resume and refine the suspended project, to create a really anonymous and instant Bitcoin. At the same time, the goal of this work is not the replacement of the original network, but the effective coexistence of two networks with different purposes.

General information about the new Bitcoin Segwit2X

• Estimated fork date: 12.28.2017
• Total issue: 21 million
• Protection against repeated transactions: Yes
• Block extraction speed: 2.5 minutes
• Mining: X11
• Block size: increased to 4 mb
• Recalculation of complexity: after each block
• Unique address format: Yes

In addition, the Roadmap project has the following positive changes:

• Offline codes
• Support for Lightning Network, instant transactions
• ZkSnark
• Smart contracts
• Anonymous transactions

Follow the news of the project on the website: http://b2x-segwit.io/

Telegram chat: https://t.me/Segwit2_X

The post Segwit2X, or the Old/New Bitcoin Hard Fork appeared first on NEWSBTC.

Kuwait’s Ministry of Finance has reportedly said it does not recognize bitcoin, and that financial institutions may not trade the cryptocurrency.

CNBC analyst and Fast Money trader Brian Kelly has officially added Litecoin to his portfolio of cryptocurrencies, given its recent surge in value, technological developments, and increasing adoption rate.

Litecoin Solidifies Itself as Leading Cryptocurrency

Created by Charlie Lee, the former Coinbase director of engineering, Litecoin has served the market as a complementary cryptocurrency to bitcoin. With lower fees and faster confirmation times, Litecoin operates better as a currency for smaller payments than bitcoin.

Recently, Steam, the US-based digital distribution platform, removed bitcoin from its platform and integrated Litecoin, due to the complaints from its users and customers about bitcoin’s increasing fees. As such, Steam added Litecoin, that have less than $0.5 transaction fees on average.

In consideration of Litecoin’s Segregated Witness (SegWit) integration, rgw willingness of the community to integrate second-layer solutions, adoption by Steam, and lower fees, Kelly stated that he has included Litecoin to his portfolio of cryptocurrencies.

“There are three reasons why [I bought Litecoin]. First of all, it has a technical lead over bitcoin. That’s not a knock on bitcoin but Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin, has been ahead of the curve on a lot of the additions and upgrades to the network. Litecoin has been able to add a lot of stuff bitcoin has not yet,” said Kelly.

He further emphasized that because of its 2.5 minute confirmation time, Litecoin is able to process payments at a faster rate than bitcoin, providing a more favorable and efficient payment method for merchants like Steam.

“Litecoin is now accepted at Steam. Steam is one of these online gaming communities that used to be able to accept bitcoin. But it was too slow. Now you can accept it at Steam.”

Brian Kelly added that in the short-term, he believes the price of Litecoin can surge to $500, placing the market valuation of the cryptocurrency at $27 billion, closer to that of Ripple’s $30 billion market cap.

Can Litecoin Surpass $500?

Currently, in the global cryptocurrency market, there exists many cryptocurrencies and tokens with no real world purpose. The majority of cryptocurrencies have struggled to demonstrate potential and commercial success.

However, leading cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and Monero have continuously been utilized as stores of value and currencies.

In the mid-term, as billions of dollars from the traditional finance sector flow into the bitcoin market through bitcoin futures on the Chicago Board Options Exchange (Cboe) and CME, an increasing number of institutional investors and retail traders will explore alternative cryptocurrencies in the market.

Cryptocurrencies like Litecoin that are widely recognized, acknowledged, and accepted as a currency will likely surge in value as a result. If more merchants and online platforms such as Steam continue to integrate Litecoin, and casual users in the cryptocurrency market begin using the cryptocurrency for smaller payments, Litecoin could compete against Bitcoin Cash in the short-term to evolve into an alternative to bitcoin.

The post Litecoin on the Rise, CNBC’s Brian Kelly Includes it in Portfolio appeared first on NEWSBTC.

Although the year 2017 has been pretty positive for the Bitcoin price in general, all positive momentum will come to an end eventually. In this particular case, the Bitcoin price is dropping pretty hard all of a sudden. There’s no real reason for this sudden change, mind you, but it is evident people are cashing out with the Christmas holidays almost upon us. No one knows for sure how bad things will get, but for now, it’s time to diversify into altcoins.

Bitcoin Price Gets a Decent Shake-up

It is always important to put things into their proper perspective. Any sort of Bitcoin price movement will eventually trigger a cascade of movement across all cryptocurrency markets in quick succession. Right now, we saw the Bitcoin price drop by around 3% in the past hour and every other market is immediately taking a big hit. It is unclear why that is happening, though, considering a drop in Bitcoin price is a strong signal to buy some altcoins in the process. Then again, cryptocurrency has never been a rational market, and that situation will not change anytime soon.

Even though the Bitcoin price is still holding its own quite well around the $18,000 level, it is not surprising to see this price drop occur right now. Christmas is less than a week away and people want some spare cash to buy last-minute presents. It is very likely we will see some small price movements in the coming days, although no major long-term shakeups are expected in the process. At the same time, this may also be the beginning of a decent Bitcoin price correction, which has been long overdue.

A 3% drop for Bitcoin mains a $600 difference at this point in time. It’s not the biggest change we have seen in the Bitcoin world throughout the years. Those who have been around for some time will remember the 90% retrace after the Mt. Gox debacle a few years ago. This small drop means absolutely nothing and it is quite disconcerting to see the altcoin markets respond in such a negative manner. Again, the lack of rationale in cryptocurrency combined with a growing number of panicky people will increase volatility over time.

Bitcoin still has a nice trading volume of nearly $16bn in the past 24 hours. Rest assured this number will rise a bit as a few people will panic sell before things level out again. More specifically, the Bitcoin price will eventually continue to bleed very slowly or go into sideways trading motion for the rest of the year. There is zero reason to expect a Bitcoin price of $20,000 before the year is over, even though the rest of 2017 has thrown a few curve balls in this regard

Bitfinex is still the largest exchange in terms of trading volume, although their lead over Bithumb has been shrinking ever so slightly. GDAX is still in third place, and we now see BTCC take up the fourth place. Quite an interesting development in the world of Bitcoin, to say the very least. BTCC successfully overtook both bitFlyer and HITBTC in this regard, which is a pretty tall order. Then again, there’s only $70m separating these three exchanges right now, which is virtually nothing in the Bitcoin world.

It will be interesting to see what the future holds for Bitcoin in this regard. A dip like this one is to be expected and there may be a few more of these temporary pullbacks in the coming days. For now, there is zero reason to sell altcoins in favor of Bitcoin, as a normal trader would do the exact opposite right now. Altcoins have proven to be far more profitable than Bitcoin in recent weeks, and it seems that situation will not change anytime soon either. An interesting week is ahead for all cryptocurrency enthusiasts, that much is rather evident.

The director of Denmark’s central bank has given a warning on bitcoin, describing it as “dangerous” and unregulated.

Spending Bitcoin has become somewhat of an expensive matter. Although it is still appealing to the masses, there are some issues as well. Service providers are forced to introduce some unpopular changes as well. BitPay is now charging an additional network cost for every invoice. According to the company, this is due to the company performing a UTXO sweep for payments. A very troublesome development, to say the least.

These are very trialing times for people invested in Bitcoin. Both users and service providers are facing some problems when using BTC as a currency. It’s slow, expensive, and the situation hasn’t improved all that much in recent months. Moreover, service providers such as BitPay now charge two separate fees to process transactions. This second charge is a network cost, which won’t get refunded either. Sweeping the UTXO for a payment is an expensive process these days and it’s only normal customers foot the bill.

An Extra Fee to use BitPay

Do keep in mind this charge is not the miner fee. Every BitPay transaction has a miner fee and a network charge on top of that. This makes the whole concept of spending Bitcoin directly incredibly expensive for a lot of people. Even if a payment needs to get refunded, the network charge will not be part of the returned money. It’s far from ideal, but the decision by the company was to be expected.

Reducing this cost is not all that easy. One option is to make Bitcoin purchases in larger groups to offset the cost. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work when extra payments need to be made. Paying a network cost twice is certainly possible, depending on how users go about things. Another option to bypass this problem is by using a payment-protocol compatible wallet. The BitPay app or CoPay should work just fine in this regard. An interesting decision by the company to go this route. Whether or not it will make them less appealing to both users and companies, remains to be seen.

It is not unlikely other service providers will use similar methods moving forward. Using Bitcoin directly has become expensive. Any service converting Bitcoin to fiat on the fly will eventually charge such fees as well. Until Bitcoin scales properly or the fees come down unexpectedly, this situation will only grow worse. Anyone completing payments through BitPay will notice the fees increase. Solving this problem will not be easy whatsoever. In fact, it may not even happen anytime soon either.

The post BitPay now Charges two Fees to Complete Bitcoin Transactions appeared first on NEWSBTC.