Day: December 25, 2017

BTC/USD

Bitcoin was reasonably quiet during the Christmas session, as most people were not focusing on the crypto currency space, but one thing that I’m starting to notice is that we are forming another descending triangle. Simply put, if we break down below the $13,000 level, I believe that this market goes down to $10,000 after that. I would be careful buying Bitcoin at this point, I think that the correction needs to go much deeper. At this point in time, it’s probably safer to trade Bitcoin from the short side, at least for the time being. However, break above $16,000 would change that.

BTC/JPY

Bitcoin is following the 20 SMA on the 4-hour chart perfectly as you can see. We are rolling over at the ¥1.7 million level, and I think we are going to test the ¥1.5 million level again, and then possibly break down below there. If we do, the ¥1.3 million level is the next area I would be looking for support at.

Thanks for watching, I’ll be back tomorrow.

The post Bitcoin Analysis December 26, 2017 appeared first on NEWSBTC.

3commas.io is a cryptocurrency tool that allows for Trailing Stop Loss and Trailing Profit Take. It allows traders to make the best on a trade without worrying about volatile traders ruining their experience. Custom portfolios are also available for analyzation and investment.

Disclosure: This is a Sponsored Article

3commas connects to your exchange’s API so that it only has access to that exchange’s trading information and not withdrawal information. Right now, 3commas is compatible with Poloniex, Bittrex, and Bitfinex exchanges. 3commas encourages smart trading which is the implementation of Trailing Stop Loss or Trailing Take Profits simultaneously or apart from each other.

Trailing Stop Loss is when you set a percentage stop loss on a coin amount so that when it stops climbing you are able to reap the maximum profits. For instance, you set a Trailing Stop Loss on Bitcoin at 10% on 1 BTC. Your Bitcoin would sell if it went down 10%. However if it went up to 15%, then the stop loss would take effect at 5% gain.

Trailing Take Profit happens when a trader wants to sell at the highest part of a trend. It sells at a percentage from its highest value. Let’s say you bought one EOS at $4, and you want to catch a peak from the day’s trading. You can set a trailing take profit of 10%. If it goes up to $11 and drops past 10% of that figure, your profit will be $9.90.

3commas also has a unique user based option for custom portfolios. Users build portfolios based on tokens and coins that they think will make a growing portfolio by using the ”Analyze New Portfolio“ option. These portfolios are publishable to a list of other portfolios that are composed of other ratios of coins.

Other users may choose to analyze or add these portfolios at will by clicking “Apply”. By joining the portfolio, you allocate an amount of your funds into the portfolio’s ratio. Traders can think of these portfolios as a type of ETF or fund. You may sell the fund, but not on a coin by coin basis.

3commas is currently developing more features for traders to use on their respective exchanges, and creating apps for iOS and desktop trades as well.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies’ recent meteoric rise (and subsequent retracement) has gotten the attention of many. People who had never heard of Bitcoin before or had previously disregarded it are interested and asking questions. Unfortunately for you, some of those people are likely going to be your family members at holiday gatherings, and most of them probably still have no idea what they are actually asking.

These are the questions you may face, and while this article is a little fun, it is important to remember that if someone is asking you about it – even if they don’t know what they are talking about – they may genuinely want to learn more. Be a cryptocurrency evangelist; better information makes for a better community.

1. Where can I buy cryptocurrency?

While this question may have been way less common before, you can almost guarantee that it is going to come up now. Aunts and uncles, cousins, and siblings all may have heard you talk about cryptocurrency at some point in the past, and now with its recent price action, they want in. When I get this question, I assess the technical literacy of the individual asking before I make a suggestion. If they are something of a Luddite, I usually suggest something rather easy like Coinbase. If they are a bit more capable, I’ll suggest something closer to GDAX.

Regardless of the suggestion I make, I always tell them to get a wallet of which they hold the private keys.

2. Is it illegal?

Depending on where you live, the answer to this question is most likely “no.” However, due to its spotted past and media campaigns to shine a lackluster light on it, cryptocurrency does still have a bit of a stigma associated with it. Babcia (the Polish word for “grandmother”) may not keep up with the most accurate or current news, and will probably be pleased to know that you’re not a criminal just for holding Bitcoin.

3. Can’t it be stolen easily?

These conversations will always come back to security, inevitably. In light of the man who threw away his hard drive worth millions of dollars, Mt. Gox, or hackers stealing hot wallet funds from various websites, someone is going to claim that this means the entire network is insecure and holding any Bitcoin is a disaster waiting to happen.

Luckily, explaining the distinction between public versus private keys as well as how practicing good information security can mitigate against all of these risks is not too hard, and there are boundless resources on the Internet to help you answer this question or point your relatives in the right direction.

4. Can I buy a cup of coffee with it?

This question can open an unnecessary can of worms. You can just kindly explain that the onus of what a merchant is willing to accept as payment is solely on the merchant. Job done.

5. Who made Bitcoin?

Obviously just tell them that Satoshi Nakamoto is anonymous, but that ultimately who created it does not matter. You could also point to the fact that its performance, despite having a known creator, is only a validation of its value.

6. How about a loan?

I mention this last one jokingly, but some members of your family may think that you are some crypto-billionaire now. Whether or not that is true depends on who you are, but the majority of us certainly are not. My best response to “how many Bitcoin do you have?” has been “not nearly enough.” Feel free to take that. 

I hope our readers have a nice, relaxing holiday and a happy new year.

It comes with little surprise that promoters of new altcoins and ICO tokens use every tool at their disposal to gain an advantage in the ever-crowded cryptocurrency market. While the positive marketing approaches are well known and widely talked about, like sponsorship deals with rappers, sport stars and other celebrities, the negative side of the business is no less important. This includes employing smear campaigns to hurt competitors and adversely affect the psychology of investors.

Also Read: Securities Lawyers Say Barry Silbert Tweets Are Red Flags for Regulators

Trading Psychology

Terms like fake news, FUD and FOMO are too freely and frequently thrown around in cryptocurrency forums, but some people have indeed successfully weaponized these tactics. Writing in Psychology Today, Bobby Azarian, Ph.D., a cognitive neuroscientist, explains how the natural cycle of fear and greed has been hijacked to promote certain interests.

Azarian writes: “During this cycle, spreaders of FOMO and FUD are engaged in psychological and information warfare as they compete for the attention of the curious investor, who is intrinsically vulnerable owing to being always on the lookout for insightful opinions that could inform better investment decisions. It’s a bit ironic that in the crypto-world, taking the time to hear the opinions of others can actually hurt more than it helps.”

No Holds Barred High Stakes Game

With a total market capitalization of over half a trillion dollars, and a daily trading volume higher than some national stock exchanges, cryptocurrency promoters are now playing in the big leagues. Additionally, as the market is unregulated and ethical standards have yet to be established, tactics that would get you banned or in jail in other markets are seen as fair game. Considering this, its up to investors to remember that it isn’t just normal haters, contrarians and trolls who might be spreading rumors but also business people with lots of money to spend on PR and big commercial interests at stake.

Besides competing for the same investors and resources, cryptocurrency promoters may have more reasons to hurt a rival. One simple to understand motive is wanting to make sure no other token passes yours by total value, capturing its place on Coinmarketcap. A more complex situation to follow is the interwoven community politics, wherein someone might attack a project not because it is a direct competitor but because a supporter of it is a rival in another field.

“While the FOMO-FUD cycle might be entertaining to watch, it is important to remember that this isn’t a game, even though it’s being played like one. These fear campaigns have real financial consequences for investors,” Azarian explains to the Psychology Today readers.

Triggering Our Fear Systems

Azarian zeroed-in on one recent example, the reporting on the IOTA Microsoft partnership, to make his case. He details in great length how the cycle unfolded across the internet, Reuters, and CNBC. He calls out in particular one anti-IOTA story by a “mainstream media fact checker” (conspiracy) website for being an “unabashed, grade-A, FUD fodder. The fact that the article appears to be well-investigated on the surface gave FUD spreaders the ultimate weapon to add to their arsenal.”

The psychology expert concludes that cryptocurrency traders must be skeptical not only of sensationalized statements, but also of skeptical statements themselves. “We must be aware of how easily we are manipulated when our fear systems are triggered, and adjust our investing behavior accordingly.”

Has any negative psychology tricks affected your trading? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section.

The post The Psychology of the Cryptocurrency FOMO-FUD Cycle Has Been Weaponized appeared first on Bitcoin News.

A Netherlands-based company has pioneered a way to harvest energy from body heat to power cryptocurrency-mining computers – but is it really worth it? #MINING

The cryptocurrency funfair has grown at a staggering rate throughout December and the year as a whole. People are not only looking to expand their crypto-portfolio but also bet on the various offerings. The crypto-market left its mark on 2017 with a combined market value that has soared to just under $500 billion from $18 billion at the start of the year. However, the cryptocurrency market lacks a level playing field for ordinary people and all market participants which form the basic functions of money, including acting as a medium of exchange and a store of value. Cryptocurrencies are not yet in a position to replace traditional money.

For this reason, there is a need to combine all isolated blockchain networks into a unified open network to kick off a revolution in commerce backed by blockchain technology. So, what is Open Trading Network? Open Trading Network (OTN) is the first 100% collateralized decentralized trustless network to support fully secure exchanges between the blockchain networks.

At the moment, there are a number of decentralized crypto exchanges available. What makes OTN stand out is that it was not created as a standalone technology but as an integrated part of IQOption’s (the online trading platform) functioning trading platform. OTN Exchange will act as a fast, centralized order matching engine that can sign token exchange orders in record time in the safest way possible. This will provide flexibility to meet all of the market’s needs and fast implementation of the ecosystem, due to a modular iterative approach to deployment.

Open Trading Network will create a public API for all their products tailor-made to contribute to the growth of the market. At the base of the crypto market growth stands four major types of players; Individuals, Businesses, Traders, and Regulators, who also form OTN’s target clients. OTN will focus on creating customer-oriented solutions to satisfy the need of each cryptocurrency player.

One such product, OTN Wallet is a universal cryptocurrency wallet which will support a maximum number of cryptocurrencies and provide secure operations for exchanging and purchasing tokenized assets in the most versatile and powerful way. The OTN wallet will have features that will support the storage of all assets, buying and selling of cryptocurrencies and tokens for fiat money, tokenization and detokenization of assets, peer-to-peer transfers and direct exchanges among others. This component of the system will be implemented without waiting for the Open Trading Network infrastructure to be fully functional.

All transaction data from the blockchain will be available through OTN Explorer, which will allow regulators to identify users and their transactions. The user can also store their assets on a fairly new product, OTN Depository (launched in October 2017) will store assets in its accounts using OTN as a security guarantee, with a separate application for managing and analyzing the depository and monitoring profits. In February 2018, Open Trading Network is expected to roll-out OTN Business, a product that will make it easy for users to perform widely-used operations such as issuing tokens and listing them on the exchanges instantly, and crowdfunding among other features, which will be available as ready-made smart contracts with a user-friendly interface.

The post OTN – Bringing Blockchains Together appeared first on NEWSBTC.

As BitPay implements and retracts an update to the minimum payment size on its platform over the span of just two days, users are frustrated over the lack of SegWit support.

This year has been nothing but monumental for Bitcoin and its brethren, the King of crypto has shown an 1800% gain since January. A rise from $950 to $20,000 is a remarkable feat rarely matched by any stock or commodity. However there is a downside with a parabolic rise on a trading chart, things that go up that fast will also crash that quickly as Bitcoin proved by shedding almost 40% in a few days last week. Volatility is too mild a word to use for something that swings by $8,000 in less than 48 hours.

While Bitcoin itself may not be the money of the future, it is on the right path with a decentralized market-driven approach to currency. The lack of mainstream regulation has not hampered the public hype and crypto-mania behind Bitcoin and its sibling altcoins, which have also shown remarkable increases in price this year.

To look at the downsides first, the price could collapse further than it has already done this week due to extreme volatility and exchanges not being able to cover themselves should everyone cash out at the same time. However the trend lines have been rising sharply all year and despite shaving over a third off its value twice in the past six months BTC looks set to continue back upwards.

Analyst John Levi from Bitcoin Arcade points out;

“It’s a revolutionary new technology that is already changing the way that money is perceived and used. For all of the reasons stated above, it’s important that you understand that this is a seismic shift that is poised to completely change everything… not just payments and remittances, but the entire concept of “money” as we know it.”

At the moment Bitcoin is used primarily to invest and trade, you can’t actually live off it. The extreme volatility of the price chart makes it a good platform for trading but completely impractical for day to day living. On the upside the distributed public ledger eliminates the need for middle men, ie banks, to control and profit from your money which makes it in theory the best way to perform international monetary transfers. Once markets have settled and stabilized one or more digital currencies will emerge as the defacto standard, at least temporarily, while the technology evolves and new players emerge.

When people can trade with each other directly without the need for exchanges then crypto will truly become decentralized. At the moment digital currencies are highly experimental and investing in them would be just like investing in a startup, which effectively is what Bitcoin was back in 2009. We’ve seen the Big Bang of cryptocurrencies in 2017, next year will be inflation and expansion so invest wisely and always do your own research. Happy holidays.

The post Why Bitcoin should be at the top of your Christmas list appeared first on NEWSBTC.