Day: January 15, 2018

China’s crypto mining pool ViaBTC increases its maintenance fee ratio for AntMiner S9 cloud mining contract, citing mining resource scarcity in China.

Key Highlights

• Ripple price is currently under a lot of pressure and is currently trading below $1.70 against the US Dollar.
• There is a short-term bearish trend line forming with resistance at $1.7050 on the hourly chart of the XRP/USD pair (data source from Kraken).
• The pair is currently correcting higher, but it faces a lot of barriers on the upside such as $1.70 and $1.80.

Ripple price is in a downtrend against the US Dollar and Bitcoin. XRP/USD is likely to remain in the bearish zone as long as it is below $1.90.

Ripple Price Trend

There was a lot of pressure on Ripple price as it failed to remain above the $2.00-2.10 support against the US Dollar. The price declined and it recently moved below the $1.80 support area. The decline was severe as the $1.70 support also failed to prevent declines. XRP kept declining and even traded as few points below the $1.50 level. It traded as low as 1.4839 and is currently correcting higher.

It has moved above the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the last decline from the $2.0796 high to $1.4839 low. The current upside wave is corrective and it faces a lot of hurdles below $2.00. There is also a short-term bearish trend line forming with resistance at $1.7050 on the hourly chart of the XRP/USD pair. The trend line resistance is near the 38.2% Fib retracement level of the last decline from the $2.0796 high to $1.4839 low. Therefore, it won’t be easy for buyers to break the $1.7000.1.7050 levels.

Above the mentioned $1.7050, the 100 hourly simple moving average is at $1.90. The stated $1.90 level coincides with the 61.8% Fib retracement level of the last decline from the $2.0796 high to $1.4839 low.

Looking at the technical indicators:

Hourly MACD – The MACD for XRP/USD is placed heavily in the bearish zone.

Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI for XRP/USD is currently around the oversold levels.

Major Support Level – $1.50

Major Resistance Level – $1.90

Charts courtesy – Trading View, Kraken

The post Ripple Price Technical Analysis – XRP/USD Under Immense Pressure appeared first on NewsBTC.

Key Highlights

• ETH price was under a lot of pressure and it declined below the $1300 and $1275 supports against the US Dollar.
• There are two bearish trend lines forming with resistances at $1276 and $1320 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD (data feed via SimpleFX).
• The pair is currently recovering, but it could face sellers near the $1276 and $1290 levels.

Ethereum price made a downside move against the US Dollar and Bitcoin. ETH/USD is now well below $1300 and is currently in a bearish zone.

Ethereum Price Resistances

Yesterday, we saw how there was an increase in the bearish sentiment from $1374 in ETH price against the US Dollar. The price started a new downside wave and moved below a couple of important support levels such as $1320 and $1300. Moreover, there was a break below a crucial support around the $1276 level and the price settled below the 100 hourly simple moving average.

The decline was major as the price traded towards the $1200 level. A low was formed at $1200.57 from where the price started an upside correction. It has moved above the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the last drop from the $1374.70 high to $1200.57 low. However, there are many resistances waiting on the upside around the $1276 and $1300 level. There are two bearish trend lines forming with resistances at $1276 and $1320 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD. The first trend line is also near the 50% Fib retracement level of the last drop from the $1374.70 high to $1200.57 low.

Moreover, the $1300 resistance is near the 100 hourly simple moving average. Therefore, any major upsides may probably find sellers staring $1276 up to $1320. On the downside, the recent low of $1200 is a crucial support.

Hourly MACD – The MACD is gaining momentum in the bearish zone.

Hourly RSI – The RSI is currently well below the 50 level.

Major Support Level – $1200

Major Resistance Level – $1300

Charts courtesy – SimpleFX

The post Ethereum Price Technical Analysis – ETH/USD Declined Below $1275 appeared first on NewsBTC.

What’s in store for blockchains in 2018? Infosys’s Peter Loop offers a diverse selection of forecasts for the year ahead.

Safe for IOTA bears ranging with an accumulation, most other alt coins are low in volatility.

LTC leads the pack and for some times now, price action has been so uneventful as the horizontal accumulation and pump continues.

Yesterday, we saw Lumens prices testing $0.70 but even though it looked promising, Lumens price action slid back below the middle BB.

Let’s have a look at other alt coin charts

I NEED A SIGN TO INITIATE NEM POSITIONS

Indeed, the bounce from around the 78.6% Fibonacci extension level rounded up a nice double-bottoms which we were anticipating.

Now, as per our trade plan, we cannot be sure of NEM bullish pressure if price fails to close above $1.5. You see, if they do then it will entail a break out and as usual, trading with the trend is the only thing that come our mind.

If there is no higher highs-already we have that bear candlestick, then chances of a range bound market within this tight $0.36 limit is possible.

Otherwise, I’m not recommending longs or shorts for swing traders. Man, I need a sign!!

LUMENS TEST $0.70 BEFORE SLIPPING BACK TOWARDS MIDDLE BB

Almost is the word. XLM buyers almost closed above $0.70…well, they did not and they are off the mark now.

In fact judging from price action, the dip below the middle BB is spectacular-and quite unbelievable for those who didn’t wait for a confirmation above our bull triggers.

All in all, we are right back where we were: Stuck in an uneventful consolidation with supports at $0.55.

IOTA ACCUMULATION CONTINUES

With IOTA you can either be making money or bleeding big time depending on your trading style.

The problem with trading range bound markets is that break outs can happen at any time and rather than sticking your neck to the chop board, a little bit of patience won’t do us no harm.

As it is, there is nothing we can do with ranging markets and the only anti-dote is time.

If we leave this accumulation to slow turn and break on its own, it can turn out to be lucrative. Yes, a lucrative break out it’s going to be.

DASH MIGHT CLOSE BELOW $950

After yesterday reaction at the main support trend line of the trend, I thought maybe DASH bulls might continue marching to glory but look what is happening.

Bears are thirsty and they want to take a bite off main support trend line and $950.

In line with yesterday’s forecast, my DASH analysis recommends restrain until when we have a close below or above main support or resistance.

I don’t know if we on the same page on this.  Let me know your thoughts.

LTC HORIZONTAL MARCH CONTINUES

As it was before. It’s the same old boring low range consolidation for LTC. Until after there is a spark, LTC trader should keep off this trade. The accumulation pump won’t spare anyone.

All charts courtesy of Trading View

The post MOST ALT COINS ARE IN ACCUMULATION MODE appeared first on NewsBTC.

Key Points

• Bitcoin cash price failed to stay above the $2400 support area and moved down against the US Dollar.
• There is a major bearish trend line forming with resistance at $2400 on the hourly chart of BCH/USD (data feed from Kraken).
• The pair is likely to continue its decline towards $2100 since it is now well below the 100 hourly simple moving average.

Bitcoin cash price is moving lower sharply from $2550 against the US Dollar. BCH/USD could extend declines and may even test the $2100 level.

Bitcoin Cash Price Resistance

Yesterday, we saw a recovery wave in bitcoin cash price around the $2500 level against the US Dollar. However, the price failed to stay above the $2500 support since the $2550 level acted as a major resistance. As a result, there was a downside reaction from $2550. The price declined and broke a few important support levels including $2460 and $2400.

There was a break below the 61.8% Fib retracement level of the last upside wave from the $1997 low to $2750 high. BCH is currently trading just above the $2200 level and it seems like it may extend declines. The next major support is around the $2100 level. An intermediate support is around the 76.4% Fib retracement level of the last upside wave from the $1997 low to $2750 high. Below the mentioned $2100, the price is likely to retest the $2000 support and the $1997 swing low.

On the upside, there is a major bearish trend line forming with resistance at $2400 on the hourly chart of BCH/USD. The trend line resistance and the $2350 hurdle are likely to prevent gains in the near term.

Looking at the technical indicators:

Hourly MACD – The MACD for BCH/USD is gaining pace in the bearish zone.

Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI for BCH/USD is currently heading towards the oversold levels.

Major Support Level – $2100

Major Resistance Level – $2400

Charts courtesy – Trading View, Kraken

The post Bitcoin Cash Price Technical Analysis – BCH/USD in Trouble appeared first on NewsBTC.

Bitcoin Price Key Highlights

• Bitcoin price is back to testing the support of its descending triangle pattern, which also happens to be the neckline of a complex head and shoulders formation.
• A break below this $13,000 area could lead to a drop of around $6,000 or the same height as the chart formations.
• A bounce, on the other hand, could keep the consolidation going.

Bitcoin price is making another attempt to break below the support at $13,000 and doing so would mark the start of a longer-term drop.

Technical Indicators Signals

The 100 SMA is below the longer-term 200 SMA to signal that the path of least resistance is to the downside. This means that the selloff is more likely to resume than to reverse. The 100 SMA also appears to be holding as dynamic resistance as well.

Stochastic is pointing down to show that sellers are regaining the upper hand. RSI is on the move south, so bitcoin price could follow suit. The next visible area of interest on the 4-hour time frame is around the $9,000 level.

Market Factors

More headlines on South Korea’s plans to stop bitcoin trading in the country are leading investors to liquidate their long positions in anticipation of lower volumes and activity down the line.

Some statements indicated that the government simply wants to remove anonymity in transactions, leading some to believe that bitcoin trading could carry on. A statement from Shinhan Bank, however, signaled that it does not intend to introduce an identity verification service for deposits and withdrawals from virtual bank accounts:

“We’ve developed a system to introduce identifying virtual account customers in accordance with the government’s efforts to curb the cryptocurrency craze. However, we decided to scrap the service enabling the trade of digital tokens which has become a serious social issue.”

So far, several politicians and citizens have signed petitions to demand that the government step back from adopting the measure.

The post Bitcoin Price Technical Analysis for 01/16/2018 – Complex Head and Shoulders Ready to Break? appeared first on NewsBTC.

A joint report by Center on Sanctions & Illicit Finance and Elliptic, a cryptocurrency forensics firm, has indicated that Bitcoin laundering for illicit drug activity is a highly centralized process. #NEWS

Part of the appeal of Bitcoin is its finite nature and the fact that there will only ever be 21 million of them. This notion has undoubtedly fueled its meteoric price rise of over 1700% in 2017 from around $800 this time last year to over $14,000 at the end of the year. Traders and speculators wanted a slice of the action in what has been the hottest market since the dot com boom in the nineties.

When the first Bitcoin was mined in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto there was a long path ahead but it is unlikely that whoever he is envisioned the explosive growth and almost rampant demand there would be for the digital asset in the latter half of 2017. As of January 13 80% of the crypto currency has now been created leaving only a fifth of the entire supply to be mined.

When the circulating supply ticker hit 16,800,000 less than 20% of all the Bitcoin’s ever created remained. The supply cap is hardcoded into the software and cannot be changed, only 4.2 million Bitcoins are left to come which could have a large influence on the demand and price of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency.

Some speculate that the code can be broken but many believe that Nakamoto cracked one of the hardest computational equations known to computer science; the Byzantine General’s Problem. By using a proof-of-work protocol attacking the network becomes costly and time consuming and mining the block increases in complexity with every new one that is added.

At the moment 12.5 Bitcoin’s are awarded to miners for every block added, and as written in the protocol the reward is halved every four years so in two years’ time they will only get 6.25 BTC. It continues to half until it reaches zero in the year 2140 when all of the Bitcoin’s will have been mined. Mining hardware and technology will need to improve to continue the operation in a profitable way.

One concern is that a few whales are hoarding the majority of Bitcoins making market manipulation a very real possibility. According to reports as much as 40% of the total current supply of Bitcoin is owned by just a thousand people. By collaborating they could easily time sales and manipulate price volatility. Supply and demand are the key factors in markets and this one is more exposed to them than most.

Bitcoin is currently trading at $13,250 down over 30% from its record high of just under $20,000 this time last month. Its total market capacity is $230 billion at the time of writing.

The post Only 20% of Bitcoin’s left to be mined appeared first on NewsBTC.

Following bitcoin’s incredible performance and increased media coverage during 2017, there is no doubt that bitcoin has witnessed increased user adoption. Estimates regarding the scale of bitcoin’s growth vary due to the anonymous nature of bitcoins transactions; however, the search engine traffic for terms such as ‘bitcoin’ are generally seen as a reliable indicator of the growth in bitcoin’s user adoption. The most recent figures made available by Google indicate an increase in searches for prominent keywords relating to bitcoin of many hundreds of percent when comparing data from 2016 and 2017, whilst bitcoin became the ninth most visited page on Wikipedia during last year – indicating a significant increase in bitcoin user adoption.

Also Read: Venezuela Urges 10 Other Countries to Adopt Its Oil-Backed Cryptocurrency

On Wikipedia, Bitcoin Was the Ninth Most Visited Page for 2017

According to Wikipedia’s annual report the 50 most visited pages on the website, bitcoin ranked ninth for 2017. The report describes bitcoin as “the much-hyped ‘future of money’”, adding that the world’s first cryptocurrency “has turned into the most speculative intangible asset of all time.” The report states that the page was visited 15,026,561 times during 2017.

Traffic for bitcoin’s Wikipedia page peaked on the 8th of December – when BTC experienced a dramatic retracement of approximately 20%, falling from the then all-time high of $17,171 USD on Bitfinex, before bouncing off the approximately $14,000 area. Despite bitcoin’s meteoric price performance during 2017, the Wikipedia report recognizes some of bitcoin’s shortcomings that emerged during the year – stating that bitcoin “prov[ed] totally unsuitable as a means of payment” due to the controversy surrounding the scaling issues that have plagued BTC throughout the year.

Google Searches for Bitcoin Reach Record Highs

The volume of Google searches conducted for prominent keywords pertaining to bitcoin has also produced dramatic growth – with the latest data from Google indicating that numerous major keyword groupings received between one million and ten million searches each month on average during 2017. The data indicates that monthly searches relating to the keywords ‘bitcoin price’ saw an increase of over 1,000% on average during January 2017 to December 2017 when compared with data from the previous year, whilst searches pertaining to ‘bitcoin chart’ increased by 934%, and searches for ‘bitcoin USD’ increased by more than 800%. Google estimates that each of the aforementioned keyword groupings received between 1 and 10 million searches on average each month during 2017 – a significant increase compared to the 100,000 and 1,000,000 monthly searches Google estimates were conducted each month during 2016.

A large number of dominant keyword groupings pertaining to bitcoin received between 100,000 and 1,000,000 searches monthly last year. Among those that experienced the highest growth when compared with 2016 were ‘current bitcoin’ – for which searches increased by 895.9%, ‘btc price’ – which increased by 828.5%, sell bitcoins – gaining in volume by 626.5%, bitcoin miner – up 590.6%, btc rate – up 510.4%, bitcoin calculator – up 471.2%, bitcoin rate – up 461.4%, buy bitcoin – up 273.5%, and bitcoin trading – up 170.9%. Searches for ‘earn bitcoin’ increased by 74.6%. Several notable keywords also grew to receive between 10,000 and 100,000 searches last year, including ‘bitcoin market’ – which increased in search volume by 900%, ‘btc chart’ – searches for which grew by 826.2%, ‘currency bitcoin’ – with searches increasing by 826.1%, ‘purchase bitcoin’ – which increased by 752.5%, and ‘bitcoin account’ – increasing by 291.2%.

Curiously, some of the top keyword groupings that produced the least growth during 2017 included ‘bitcoin mining’ – searches for which grew by 33.6%, ‘bitcoin exchange’ – which grew by 17.5%, and ‘bitcoin wallet’ – which saw a meagre increase in search traffic of only 0.9%.

Do you think that 2018 will yield further increases in search volume for keywords pertaining to bitcoin? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

Images courtesy of Shutterstock

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

The post Google Search Volume for Bitcoin Keywords Increased by as Much as 1000% During 2017 appeared first on Bitcoin News.