Day: April 7, 2018

Key Points

• Bitcoin price is slowly recovering and forming support around the $6,500 level against the US Dollar.
• There is a major bearish trend line forming with resistance at $7,500 on the 4-hours chart of the BTC/USD pair (data feed from Kraken).
• The pair has to move above the $7,400 and $7,500 resistance levels to gain upside momentum.

Bitcoin price is supported nicely above the $6,500 level against the US Dollar. BTC/USD must clear the $7,500 hurdle for more gains in the near term.

Bitcoin Price Resistance

After a major decline, bitcoin price formed a decent support above the $6,500 level against the US Dollar. The price started an upside move and traded above $7,000. However, the price struggled to gain momentum and declined once again back towards the $6,500 level. The mentioned support holds a lot of importance with multiple rejections around the $6,600 and $6,500 levels.

At the moment, the price is trading near the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the last drop from the $9,220 high to $6,448 low. However, there are many barriers on the upside near the $7,200 and $7,500 levels. An initial resistance is near the 38.2% Fib retracement level of the last drop from the $9,220 high to $6,448 low. The next one is around the $7,400 level and the 100 simple moving average (4-hours). There is also a major bearish trend line forming with resistance at $7,500 on the 4-hours chart of the BTC/USD pair.

The pair may start an upside move towards the $7,400 and $7,500 levels. However, a break above the $7,500 level would be very difficult. A break above $7,500 could open the doors for more gains. On the flip side, the $6,600 and $6,500 support levels hold a lot of significance.

Looking at the technical indicators:              

4-hours MACD – The MACD for BTC/USD is showing a few positive signs.

4-hours RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI is currently just above the 50 level.

Major Support Level – $6,600

Major Resistance Level – $7,500

Charts courtesy –Trading View

The post Bitcoin Price Weekly Analysis – BTC/USD’s Upsides Remain Capped appeared first on NewsBTC.

This week the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country’s central bank, has banned banks from dealing with cryptocurrency businesses. Indian financial institutions have three months to cease doing business with digital asset operations but some of them may stop facilitating INR settlements. News.Bitcoin.com spoke with Sumit Gupta the founder and CEO of a new Indian digital currency exchange called Coindcx. Gupta told us about his team launching a cryptocurrency trading platform in the midst of regulatory uncertainty.

Also read: Help Wanted! Japan Needs Crypto Engineers

Launching an Indian Cryptocurrency Exchange During Regulatory Uncertainty

Sumit Gupta is launching a cryptocurrency exchange called Coindcx that enables Indian residents to trade over 30 digital asset pairs legally in BTC/ETH markets with 0.1% trading fees. The founder explains that Coindcx wants to give India’s thriving blockchain community a chance to stay alive and give it the strength to keep pushing for progress. The launch is in the midst of the RBI publishing its first bi-monthly monetary policy on April 5th which forbid any entities regulated by it from providing services to entities who deal with cryptocurrencies. “In essence, this means Indian banks won’t be able to allow its customers to acquire bitcoin in exchange for INR,” Gupta explains to news.Bitcoin.com.

“You don’t have to get rid of your investment while the market is down, don’t sell at loss. Simply move your cryptos to Coindcx, where you’ll be able to enjoy faster deposits, lower trading fees, 30+ trading pairs, and the most intuitive platform, all without touching fiat currency (INR),” Gupta details. “Even though the government has given these financial institutions a timeline of three months to cease support, it seems like banks will stop giving services to these exchanges much sooner.”

So, in short, Indian Crypto Exchanges will have issues dealing with fiat pairs in India very soon.

Gupta explains that the central bank is planning to launch its own ‘digital rupee’ and jokingly says maybe the government will allow exchanges to deal in that asset. “We understand that RBI is bit hesitant in providing traditional banking and related services to cryptocurrency exchanges in India, however, this doesn’t convey any message on the legality of crypto assets of even cryptocurrency exchanges in India, and there is no official statement by Indian government about bitcoin or any mention of a ‘crypto ban.’”

With Coindcx even though our users will be trading in cryptocurrency pairs, they can still check equivalent coin prices, place buy or sell orders and even track your portfolio — all in Indian rupees (INR). At Coindcx, we are aiming to give our users as much comfort as possible, even with pure crypto pairs.

Following this topic, we asked Gupta why he thinks the RBI stopped banks from dealing with cryptocurrency exchanges. Gupta notes that the government wants to curb black money and levy tax on the transactions, they have to regulate all channels for fund flows. Shutting them down would ultimately defeat the purpose of regulation Gupta says.

“No one knows that yet, however, there is an independent committee by the Indian government that seems to be working on regulating cryptocurrencies in India, which might speed up now,” Gupta emphasizes. “This RBI’s decision might encourage hawala trading or illegal remittances and keep bitcoin/crypto trading out of the purview of income tax authorities which was difficult to do earlier — Exchanges asks for proper KYC for any customer to buy/sell crypto from their platform, now people will find alternative ways to do that — Some exchanges are even thinking to move out of the country (many have already planned),” he adds.

But at Coindcx, we’re aiming to launch with crypto-to-crypto trading pairs with a feel of INR trading and introduce fiat when government regulates it. Coindcx or other exchanges moving out of the country will bring India one step behind and might even put the whole blockchain revolution in India to hold, which is not good.

However, even though the regulatory crackdown is happening in India, Gupta believes cryptocurrency adoption in India will grow faster than most Asian countries.

“Indians, in general, have high affinity towards crypto investments, just look at the growth in awareness and money infused in cryptocurrency market in India in just last six months, and it’s growing day-by-day,” Gupta concludes.

In a democratic country like India, latest RBI’s decision hasn’t just ruled against cryptocurrencies but have put the whole blockchain revolution in India to hold — India encompasses one of the most talented technologists in the world — With the use of blockchain, we have an opportunity to bring this talent out to the world.

What do you think about Coincdx launching in the midst of regulatory uncertainty in India? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments below.

Disclaimer: Bitcoin.com does not endorse this cryptocurrency product/service. When using exchanges and trading platforms readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the mentioned company or any of its affiliates or services. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

Images via Shutterstock, Coincdx, and Sumit Gupta

Do you agree with us that Bitcoin is the best invention since sliced bread? Thought so. That’s why we are building this online universe revolving around anything and everything Bitcoin. We have a store. And a forum. And a casino, a pool and real-time price statistics.

The post Coindcx Launches Indian Crypto-to-Crypto Exchange Amid Regulations appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Today’s Bitcoin in Brief provides some leisurely Sunday reading for anyone who has a life to live outside of crypto. We curate the best stories from the past 24 hours and condense them into a daily digest so you can stay in the loop in less time than it takes to boil a kettle. In today’s episode: Twitter scams are back, monero goes fork crazy, and stablecoins go head-to-head.

Also read: Bitcoin in Brief Saturday: Forks and Fights

51 Flavors of Monero

Monero forked this week to move away from the Cryptonight algorithm that Bitmain’s ASIC Antminers can now pummel. Not everyone in the monero community was in favor of the hard fork though, and some miners have elected to stick with the original algorithm. As a result, no less than four monero forks were created in a single day: monero original, monero 0, and, just to confuse matters, two named monero classic. Throw in monero V and monero C and there’s now a flavor of monero for everyone.

Crypto Scammers Just Won’t Stop

Fake accounts perpetrating crypto scams have plagued Twitter this year. It looked like the platform had finally gotten to grips with the worst of them, but scammers are an enterprising bunch. A loophole means that verified accounts can change their name to mimic others, with the fraud exacerbated by the fact that the blue checkmark adds authenticity. One verified account has been posing as Bitfinex to con the gullible out of their ether.

A Stablecoin to DAI For

Stablecoin pairing is becoming a thing. Last month, Bittrex paired tether with trueusd, giving users a choice of dollar-pegged tokens. Surprisingly, Ethfinex has now done the same with tether and DAI, an ethereum-based stablecoin. The surprising part is the fact that Ethfinex’ parent exchange, Bitfinex, is the de facto owner of tether, and yet, in the Ethfinex blog, we read:

The requirements for a stablecoin…is today mainly being met by USD Tether — a centrally issued alternative collateralised by USD held in a bank account. DAI instead removes this centralised risk point, and is slowly becoming popular in the Ethereum community with decentralised exchanges as a primary trading pair.

Did Ethfinex just refer to its parent’s stablecoin as a “centralised risk point?” On Saturday, the exchange also listed 12 new ethereum tokens.

Biostar Launches the Mother of All Motherboards

The hardest part of GPU mining is finding a means of connecting all those high performance cards. Biostar’s new dedicated motherboard will enable miners to connect upto eight GPUs. It’s believed to retail for around $150 – around the same price as those GPUs will fetch after they’ve been overclocked and mined 24/7 for six months.

Circle Cleans Up Poloniex’ Mess

Circle has published an update on its “journey” six weeks into is Poloniex takeover. It’s a vague and wordy missive, but reading between the lines the tl;dr goes as follows: “We’ve inherited a total mess. Please bear with us while we clear the backlog of support tickets.” It will be interesting to see how the exchange evolves under Circle’s stewardship, but before the fun can begin in earnest, there’s spadework still to be done.

What other crypto stories caught your attention this weekend? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, and Twitter.

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

The post Bitcoin in Brief Sunday: Stablecoin v Stablecoin appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Key Points

• Bitcoin cash price declined this past week and tested the $600 support zone against the US Dollar.
• There is a monster bearish trend line forming with resistance at $680 on the 4-hours chart of the BCH/USD pair (data feed from SimpleFX).
• The pair may continue to correct a few points higher, but it could face sellers near $680-700 in the near term.

Bitcoin cash price remains in a bearish zone below $700 against the US Dollar. BCH/USD must stay above the $600 level to start a fresh recovery.

Bitcoin Cash Price Support

There were heavy losses in bitcoin cash price this past week from well above $700 against the US Dollar. The price declined and broke a few important supports such as $680 and $650. It traded close to the $600 support and formed a low at $599.5. Later, a minor upside move was initiated and the price moved above $620. There was also a break above the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the last decline from the $725 high to $599 low.

However, there are many barriers on the upside starting with the $670 level. There is also a monster bearish trend line forming with resistance at $680 on the 4-hours chart of the BCH/USD pair. An immediate resistance is near the 50% Fib retracement level of the last decline from the $725 high to $599 low at $660. A break and close above the $660 level would call for a test of the $680-700 resistance zone. A proper break above the $700 level could move the price in a bullish zone.

On the downside, the $600 level holds a lot of importance. If the price fails to hold the $600 level, there could be more losses.

Looking at the technical indicators:

4-hours MACD – The MACD for BCH/USD is slowly moving in the bullish zone.

4-hours RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI for BTC/USD is now just above the 50 level.

Major Support Level – $600

Major Resistance Level – $680

Charts courtesy – SimpleFX

The post Bitcoin Cash Price Weekly Analysis – Can BCH/USD Hold $600? appeared first on NewsBTC.

ASRock has entered the mining market with its H110 and H81 motherboards, both of which are viable mid- and low-end options for your mining rig. The company has recently revealed its Phantom Gaming series and confirmed to Coindesk four mining graphics processing unit (GPU) variations which are built on AMD’s 14nm FinFET architecture.

What does ASRock have to offer?

The release of its motherboard range offers increased stability and scalability for mining rigs. The H110 model offers a combined total of 13 PCIe slots to host your GPUs. Compared with conventional motherboards, this is a vast improvement as they often have limited slots available and are not always stable in multi-GPU support past 2x SLI. A first glance of the mining series leaked specs (below)  don’t reveal much of the edge these cards may have. The core clock speeds are consistent across the models and are similar if not lower than existing RX 570 models (1340 MHz). You cannot gauge overclock (OC) potential from specifications alone, as this will be determined by the production standard of the chipsets.

Performance and features

Graphics processors have varying build qualities which result in increased stability for higher overclocks. If memory manufacturer information is as readily available at the point of sale (as above), getting your hands on the perfect card may not be down to luck. Samsung is known in the mining community for producing more stable memory and would be the first choice due to its greater earning potential. Miners are specifically interested in overclocking potential, as it results in increased performance. Higher core clocks mean more hashing power to find more blocks within the blockchain. Memory-dependent algorithms like ones used for Ethereum mining do benefit from memory OCs. Notably, there is an 8GB variant (256 memory bus) but as far as performance goes for mining, cards with a lower memory bus will start to see a decline in performance. Once benchmarks are available, we can have a more accurate comparison of the effectiveness of the cooling and overall performance of the cards.

The GPU market

It will be interesting to see what the card has to offer in the existing competitive market. Will better prices be offered for mining variants? Will this sway miners to purchase this variation over gaming alternatives? Or will they opt for the ASIC alternative? ASRock seems to be looking to gain a segment in the expanding GPU market. With the card based on the popular mid-range 500 series, it will be a welcome addition and increase the variety in the market. With current GPU production limited by a lack of GDDR5 and HBM memory, new market additions will unfortunately not solve the GPU crisis.

Ethereum ASIC Miners Set To Reach Market This July

Ethereum Markets React to Rumored ASIC Miners

The post ASRock’s New Pickaxe appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

In a recent survey of 2,001 American adults to gain insight into what the nation thinks of cryptocurrency, surprisingly, only 7.95 percent of American adults report actually purchasing a cryptocurrency – the obverse is that 92.05 percent don’t own any. 

Bitcoin’s price is enjoying a healthy, $300 spike. After yesterday’s price of $6,600, bitcoin is now trading at a solid $6,900.

One reason for the jump may stem from new details regarding India’s stance on cryptocurrencies. Over the past few days, several sources have reported that India was entertaining a permanent ban on bitcoin and other digital currencies so it could focus on creating a national cryptocurrency for users to enjoy. This sent bitcoin into a long spiral, and the news was widely blamed for the currency’s drastic fall.

We have since learned that this report wasn’t entirely true – that India is not banning cryptocurrencies, but it is making them somewhat harder to use.

The issue arises from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which explained in a statement that it was cutting off all relations with digital asset companies, and that all other banks would do the same. Currently, all banks fall under RBI’s regulations, which means businesses that deal in cryptocurrencies can no longer rely on Indian banks to officiate or complete transactions. It’s an unfortunate move, but not the solid blockade so many sources originally claimed.

RBI is a governing bank body, but it is not a legislative body. For a permanent ban on crypto to occur in India, an order must come from either the state or central government, or from the country’s judicial branch. RBI does not fall into either of these areas, meaning only banks are prevented from dealing in crypto. Businesses and individuals can trade it or use it all they want – they just need to find other platforms to rely on when it comes to finalizing financial transfers and trades.

While this is harsh news, it is also good news in a way. It means that while certain boundaries and barricades have been set in place, the war on bitcoin has not reached full-scale levels. Cryptocurrency still has a solid presence in India – the country accounts for nearly 10 percent of the world’s crypto trades – and the government has not responded to a Supreme Court order requesting information on what it plans to do regarding crypto regulation in the future, so everyone can probably ease up a bit for the time being. Bitcoin and its crypto-cousins aren’t going anywhere – at least for now – and trading can continue as normal.

In addition to this, another source claims that cryptocurrency adoption amongst retailers in both the U.S. and Canada is growing steadily despite the ongoing price fluctuations and crypto’s volatility. The price swings of bitcoin and related altcoins make it very difficult for stores and seller outlets to accept them, but since the beginning of the year, we have seen many major chains, including Seattle-based coffee giant Starbucks, show signs of acceptance towards bitcoin, and granted these trends continue and cryptocurrency reaches new territory in its journey towards becoming a mainstream financial asset, we are likely to see the technology behind it improve, and the price incur further (and lasting) boosts.

At press time, bitcoin has grown by roughly four percent over the last 24 hours, and the cryptocurrency market has added nearly $20 billion to its overall total.

Bitcoin has come a long way since 2009, over ten years later the total amount transacted through the blockchain is over 6 trillion USD, with a daily capitalization of 10 Billion USD.

Metrics have been compiled from several sources and been taken straight to the blockchain hub that is Twitter. Commentator Josiah Hernandez stated “Anyone doubting bitcoin’s role as a medium of exchange is clearly not looking at the data,”

There has now been over $6 trillion USD in value sent using #bitcoin, with just under $10 billion being sent daily.

Anyone doubting bitcoin's role as a medium of exchange is clearly not looking at the data. pic.twitter.com/lr1AXJRbbv

— Josiah Hernandez (@chartingbitcoin) April 4, 2018

Bitcoin is still showing a steady increase in popularity. Bullish investor Trace Mayer said in a recent tweet; “The 200 day moving average of the estimated daily USD transaction value of Bitcoin transactions is about $2,000,000,000. Multiples of that happen off-chain. Day in & day out Bitcoin calmly chugs along. Bitcoin has never been more secure, liquid, trusted & strong.”

This Is Bitcoin

Current popular opinion on the original cryptocurrency is “the bubble has burst,” however people claiming this may not looking at the data, while industry-wide heavyweights are praising the coin for its economic model and the technical advantages it holds over paper cash money.

The trading pair BTC/USD has been stagnant at around 7000 USD for the past week, opinions differing, stating the bottom is here, or is there a further downside impending.

In recent news from Bitcoinist reported on April 2nd, 2018 that the market capitalization for bitcoin could dip sub 5000 USD before the market sees’s an upwards trend.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey remains bullish on Bitcoin claiming in the last months forecast it would become a global currency, not only for the internet but globally.

Bitcoin has already seen drastic technical improvements enhancing the network fees and fixing the scalability issues which have seen the processing times decreased.

The post Bitcoin’s 10 Billion Dollar Daily Market appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

Bring up the topic of blockchains and it won’t be long before the word “immutable” is dropped into the conversation. After all, a blockchain’s inability to be tampered with or modified is one of its biggest selling points. But, is it actually as immutable as they say it is? Once a transaction is recorded on a blockchain, does that mean it’s carved in stone?

“Yes”, “no”, and “sort of” seem to be the resounding responses. So why can’t people agree on blockchain technology’s most marketed feature?

“Firstly,” says TEDx speaker and founder of Mycryptopedia Bisade Asolo, “it would be useful if we first define the term immutable. Immutability can be defined as something that is unchangeable. When we apply this definition to the context of blockchain technology, immutability refers to the unalterable nature of all data that is included in a blockchain. For example, once a transaction and all its corresponding data has been recorded on a blockchain, it can no longer be changed.”

And since each blockchain is created by consensus between the chain’s participants, once a transaction has been subjected to sufficient validation checks, cryptography makes sure that it can never be reversed or tampered with – unlike ordinary databases that can be modified an unlimited number of times.

So, is a blockchain immutable, then? Yes. But there’s a caveat. A couple, actually.

A 51% Attack

“Despite often providing institutional-level security, blockchain networks, just like any other technology, are still at risk of being compromised, says EverMarkets CTO and co-founder Craig Austin. The consensus mechanism of a blockchain can in fact be overpowered and its history altered in something known as a 51% attack.

In a 51% attack, blockchains would lose their ability to be immutable, as a bad actor (we’re not talking about Adam Sandler or Arnold Schwarzenegger here) could mine enough blocks to possess more than 50% of a network’s mining hash rate. This would give them the consensus, and they could do pretty much as they pleased with the world of data within – from altering blocks to completely eradicating transactions.

The chance of this happening, however, is “very unlikely,” says Cal Cook, Consumer Finance Investigator at Consumersafety.org, “because there would be no economic incentive to do so. A malicious user who overpowers a public blockchain network would, in doing so, devalue the currency, so even if they “stole” some coins they would very likely end up with less money in terms of fiat dollars than they had before.”

Forking

Forking is another powerful way to rewrite history and challenge blockchains’ immutability. In fact, it’s already been done. “The best example of this,” says Alan Majer, CEO of Good Robot, “is when Ethereum hard forked its entire chain to rewrite history after the DAO ‘hack.’ The fork would keep the rest of the blockchain history intact but rewrite a single ‘tiny’ historical fact: it would take back the attacker’s funds and put them into a refund account, effectively making it look as if the attack on the DAO never even happened.”

Not everyone was in agreement with the practice of forking to rewrite a wrong, even if it did keep Ethereum afloat. Creating discord among purists who did not believe that history should be rewritten, a small minority continued to use the same chain and Ethereum Classic emerged, trading at a fraction of Ethereum’s price today. However, says Majer, “a hard fork (that people agree on) is one of the best ways to rewrite the ‘immutable’ transactions in a blockchain.”

Man-in-the-Middle Attacks

“Blockchain technology is basically a form of cryptography – it’s nothing but mathematics that is robust and proven. But the problem is not in the math; it’s us, humans,” says Evgeny Chereshnev, CEO and founder of Biolink.Tech. “Technology provides us with an unprecedented and truly decentralized consensus tool that in theory makes all commissions and exchange fees obsolete. But it turns out we are not ready… we just don’t know what to do with this freedom, so we go back to good old medieval mechanisms of supervised trade: cryptocurrency exchange [platforms] take commission fees and transaction fees that are not required by the network.” And these secondary platforms are ripe for MITM (man-in-the-middle) attacks.

So Blockchains aren’t Immutable at All, Then?

Um, well, not really. But you might want to consider this analogy. Pigs can’t fly. This is an absolute truth that we all know and agree on. “But,” says Loudon Owen, chair and CEO of DLT Labs, “given a phenomenally strong wind, pigs can fly.” He continues, “Nothing digital – including blockchain – is entirely immutable. But blockchain is a massive, distributed digital ledger which is as good as it gets for electronic storage.”

Prosecutors in Poland seize €400 mln in fraudulent funds, with reports circulating that Bitfinex is possibly involved. #NEWS