Day: May 15, 2018

A lot of things have changed in the world of cryptocurrency over the past 24 hours. Most of the losses have been recovered successfully, albeit some currencies do so in far more spectacular fashion compared to others. The Litecoin price, while often overlooked, has noted some strong gains over the past 24 hours. Thanks to this sudden price surge, the value of Litecoin is on the way to hit $150 again.

Litecoin Price Momentum Looks Healthy

Similar to most other cryptocurrencies on the market, the Litecoin price saw a rather surprising correction over the past few days. While it remains unclear why that is exactly the case, it is evident the dip has been bought up and the bullish momentum will continue unabated. As a result, we are now looking at a Litecoin price of $147.43 once again, which is a more than respectable value at this time.

With this 7.05% gain over the past 24 hours, a lot of Litecoin holders will be pleased with how things are going as of right now. It is not necessarily close to the all-time high Litecoin price of over $325, but the entire cryptocurrency market is still way down compared to what we saw during late 2017. There’s still plenty of momentum waiting to be recovered, but these small uptrends need to be taken in stride first and foremost.

As is usually the case when an altcoin’s value rises, there are some solid gains over Bitcoin as well. In the case of the Litecoin price, there is a 2.45% gain over Bitcoin, which is not necessarily all that impressive. Even so, it helps the Litecoin price move up the ranks and slowly rise to $150 again. Reaching that value may prove to be challenging, though, but one never knows what the future holds in this regard.

Thanks to $554.69m in 24-hour trading volume, the demand to buy and sell Litecoin is rather evident. For the time being, the bulls remain in control first and foremost, but there is still a lot of bearish pressure on the market overall. Any gains right now can turn into steep losses in a few hours from now. Even so, it seems today will be pretty positive for all cryptocurrencies if this trend keeps up.

Looking at the exchanges ranked by LTC trading volume OKEx has a firm grip on the market. Its USDT and BTC pairs are well ahead of GDAX’s USD pair. Bitfinex’s USD trading market and Binance’s BTC market are in the top five as well. All of this shows Litecoin has plenty of fiat currency support right now, but that is never a guarantee for success in this regard.

For the time being, it seems things look rather promising for the Litecoin price. Whether or not this positive outlook will remain in place for much longer, is a different matter altogether. Anything is possible in the cryptocurrency world these days, and there are no certainties anymore. Even so, the current Litecoin price seems to push toward $150, but anything beyond that will be difficult to predict.

The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) announced on Monday several initiatives that pursue ambitions of becoming a blockchain technology hub.

In time for NY Blockchain Week

With Blockchain Week now underway in New York, city leaders have announced details of their plans for the municipality. The most significant is the development of what is being called a Blockchain Center. This would be purpose-built to educate and raise awareness of the technology, while also providing a space for industry stakeholders to convene.

New York Sate’s BitLicense regulations have received much criticism on the grounds of contributing to a hostile policy stance that has been driving away startups. Should the center be assembled as planned, it would promote a positive regulatory environment for the state, addressing the issues caused by the BitLicense regulations.

In another part of the blockchain initiative, NYCEDC co-sponsored a hackathon in Times Square over the weekend. Participants competed to find blockchain-based solutions for tracking food supplies for farmers markets, similar to the trending real-world use of blockchain in the food supply chain.

The proposal from city leaders also presented plans to launch a competition towards the end of the year, with candidates supplying their own innovations regarding the use of blockchain technology within New York’s service sectors.

The NYCEDC is also a co-sponsor of New York Blockchain Week, alongside cryptocurrency news outlet CoinDesk. The events offered around the city include the Consensus Conference, with lectures held by prominent industry figures, and a free job fair on Wednesday at the Hilton, Midtown.

NYCEDC VP Karen Bhatia spoke out on her ambitions for the city, and the potential industries blockchain could prove a beneficiary of. “We saw an opportunity to be at the forefront of experimentation in blockchain as sustaining more of a foothold,” she said.

Addressing the issue of regulations holding back the development of the blockchain industry in the city, Bhatia anticipated several heated debates in the forthcoming week. As she sees it, this is an opportunity to ‘‘sit down and have a real discussion about how these regulations are affecting innovation and entrepreneurship in New York City“.

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Reuter’s news service has launched a cryptocurrency real-time data feed in conjunction with two of the worlds largest exchanges according to an announcement on their website.

Reuters to Provide Real-time Data on Cryptocurrency

Thomas Reuters posted a press release on their website to announce their real time virtual currency data feed the news service has dubbed Cryptocurrency Real Time Rates. The product provides real-time information across six currencies gleaned from major exchanges, including bitFlyer and BITpoint, in the cryptocurrency market.

According to the findings of Reuters own survey, 20% of the financial institutes they questioned indicated they will begin trading in cryptocurrencies in the coming year. The launch of the new service is a reaction to the expanding mainstream interest in trading cryptocurrency and Reuter’s commitment to the nascent space according to the press release.

The Reuters announcement comes only hours after the CME Group made their own press release announcing their partnership with cryptocurrency exchange Crypto Facilities to generate a daily price benchmark for Ethereum.

Michael Go, Head of FX Market Development – Asia Pacific at Thomson Reuters commented on the new product, saying;

“The immense growth in the cryptocurrency market in the last decade highlights the strong momentum around this new technology and tradable asset class. Thomson Reuters Cryptocurrency Real Time Rates enhances our rate offering and helps create a transparent and efficient global marketplace, vital to the future stability of cryptocurrency trading to support the investor.”

Reuters Partners With Japanese Cryptocurrency Exchanges

The press release also includes this quote from CEO and co-founder of bitFlyer, one of the participating exchanges, Yuzo Kano who said;

“As the world’s largest Cryptocurrency exchange, bitFlyer has made efforts to facilitate the development of cryptocurrency markets. We are the first company to obtain a license to trade cryptocurrencies in Japan, the US and Europe and we are delighted to be able to provide valuable data to customers worldwide through Thomson Reuters.”

Genki Oda, President, Representative Director at BITPoint Japan, said;

“Through Thomson Reuters, a global leader in financial news and data distribution, we are highly honored to deliver our cryptocurrency real-time data to investors worldwide. We are pleased to cooperate with Thomson Reuters in the further enhancement of its services and hope that our data will become a benchmark for the cryptocurrency industry as a global cryptocurrency trading exchange.”

The move and comments like Mr. Go’s have given rise to rumors that Reuters is testing the crypto waters for a move to include digital assets to its own trading platforms.  Thomas Reuters has been a leading source of news and information operating in 100 countries for over 100 years

Image from Shutterstock

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The Seminole County, Florida tax collector office headed by Joel Greenberg announced today that they would begin accepting cryptocurrency payments for their services. Specifically, they will be accepting Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash through BitPay. This is a major milestone for BitPay since it is their first partnership with a government agency.

Launched in 2009, Bitcoin (BTC) is the most popular and widely-used cryptocurrency in the world with a market cap of USD 150 billion and daily trading volume of several billion dollars. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) was created in August 2017 by forking Bitcoin; it has all the characteristics of Bitcoin besides a protocol change which allows more transactions and lowers fees via increasing block size to 8 MB. Since it has lower transaction fees than Bitcoin, it is cheaper to use BCH as an everyday currency, hence why it’s called Bitcoin Cash. BCH has a market cap of USD 25 billion and daily trading volume in excess of USD 1 billion per day, making it the most popular cryptocurrency behind Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple.

The tax collection office of Seminole County will be using BitPay, which provides technology that allows merchants to easily accept cryptocurrency and convert it to USD or other fiat currencies. BitPay protects merchants from price volatility by instantly converting cryptocurrency to fiat at the time a sale occurs. This is why the tax collector chief, Joel Greenberg, is able to say he does not perceive any risk to the county from price volatility by accepting cryptocurrencies.

Accepting cryptocurrency payments actually reduces payment risk, since cryptocurrency is irreversible, unlike credit/debit card payments which can be reversed in identity theft cases, resulting in hefty chargeback fees for the merchant. Payments with Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash are cryptographically secure, and transparent since all transactions are viewable in the block explorer.

The Seminole County tax collector office will be accepting cryptocurrency payments for a wide variety of services including tag, title, registration, driver’s licenses, birth certificates, hunting and fishing licenses, as well as ad valorem and non-ad valorem taxes.

The fact that cryptocurrency is being viewed and utilized as a safe alternative to cash and cards by a tax authority is a good sign that the government is becoming more open to cryptocurrency usage, and is another mile marker on cryptocurrency’s road to becoming a global currency.

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St. Louis Fed president praises crypto’s ability to “facilitate trade”, doesn’t deny the possibility of BTC threatening USD’s supremacy

First agreements will be announced in May 2018

Play2Live (P2L), the world’s first decentralized streaming platform for gamers and esports fans based upon blockchain technology, launches venture fund with a focus on seed investments in gaming and esports projects. The initial value of the fund is $2M. In future, the fund will expand its value attracting new partners.

Alexey Burdyko, CEO, and founder at Play2Live will become a managing partner of the fund. Burdyko is one of the industry leaders of the esports market in Eastern Europe and CIS. Play2Live raised $30M in total funds during a successful token sale event under his leadership.

The fund will be focused on projects from Eastern European countries and CIS. Each project will receive $50K to $150K amount of investments. The fund team has already planned to hold 48 hours hackathons in Minsk, Moscow, and Kazan, uniting developers, game dev specialists, machine learning, and blockchain pros. The prize fund for each hackathon will be $10K. During these hackathons, the fund will be looking for the projects in the field of computer vision in games, game characters intellectual behavior training, game strategy optimization, game data analysis and matches outcome prediction. The hackathons will be the first of their kind in Eastern Europe to merge blockchain technology and gaming industry. Alongside, in the coming months, the fund will announce the first deals.

Alexey Burdyko considers the core focus of the Play2Live fund is to support esports and gaming projects on pre-seed and seed stages. “It is extremely important for us to support fast-paced, rich in opportunities esports market. Every day we receive calls from projects preparing for the token sale, or various startups looking for financial investments. To help them in the most efficient way and to identify the most promising ones, we decided together with Play2Live partners and investors to launch a fund and start working right away. And of course, we will consider potential synergy with Play2Live. Our platform provides expanded ecosystem open for partnerships with promising young market players,” comments Alexey Burdyko.

The fund team will unite global gaming, esports and venture industries leaders. The fund will form an advanced advisory board that will consist of current large-scale esports companies’ representatives and gaming market professionals.

Esports and gaming markets are rapidly expanding. Gaming’s direct global audience is almost 400 million people worldwide. Prize funds of the largest esports tournaments estimate tens of millions of dollars. According to studies published by Newzoo, esports market capitalization increased by 41.3% in 2017 and estimated at almost $700M. According to other metrics, the estimated volume of investments in esports market will reach $1.5B by 2020. The cost of media rights for broadcasting esports events will increase seven times in the next two years. As of now, it is estimated at $50M, by 2020 this figure will increase up to $350M.

Alexey Burdyko noted that the number of projects in esports industry, including token sales, will grow accordingly with the industry. Though there are dozens of them now, in a year or two we can expect a real boom of gaming startups. “We would like to invite investors and other funds to collaborate with us, because the prospects in the industry are tremendous, and we understand it, as no one else. Our experience and connections will help all the partners to achieve success,” concluded Alexey.

____________________________________________________________________________

About Play2Live

Founded in 2017, Play2Live aims to merge blockchain technology with streaming services. Its mission is to create an ecosystem where every participant — the viewer, the streamer, and the esports tournament organizer — is part of a seamless system that favors interaction among viewers and the diversity of monetization schemes. Everybody can be part of the peer-to-peer interaction, and everybody, even the viewer is able to earn money

Play2Live uses a token called Level Up Coin (LUC) which acts as a sole internal mean of payment within the system. It can be easily converted to other currencies, or to fiat money through a special exchange service/API.

Play2Live achieved hard-cap of sales, raising $30M. During a pre-sale event that took place January 26th – February 6th, 2018 $18M was raised, remaining $12M were raised during the main sales event on February 26th – March 14th, 2018.   

Sign up for the MVP of the streaming platform here: https://p2l.tv/
Website: https://play2live.io/en/
Telegram: https://t.me/play2live
Twitter: https://twitter.com/play_2_live
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/play2live.io/

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Battle lines are being drawn across Asia with nations deciding whether to embrace blockchain and cryptocurrencies or suppress them. China and India have made their positions clear with a series of crackdowns on the industry while South Korea is finally taking a more positive outlook and may even allow initial coin offerings once again. Thailand, once seen as a hub of tech investment, is poised to douse the flames of growth for this embryonic industry.

Crippling Crypto Crackdown Impending

Thailand is currently in the grips of a military dictatorship that has little desire to relinquish power. Four years after seizing control the junta still rules with an iron fist and this latest clampdown seems to be fueled by ignorance of technology rather than other motives. On Monday this week the Royal Gazette initiated a new law to ban initial coin offerings, define digital assets, determine administration fees for token trading and, most perturbing, introduce heavy taxation on gains from crypto trading.

Industry leaders and innovators are deeply concerned that this latest clampdown will hamper start-ups and technological advancement within the Kingdom. According to local media the law has threatened lengthy jail terms for entities offering crypto trading that do not register with the SEC within 90 days.

Duenden Nikomborirak, of the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI), said the new tax measures were “not favorable for the Thai digital economy and tech start-ups.” She warned that the policy would drive Thai entrepreneurs and investors to Singapore, where there are no taxes on ICOs or trading. Managing director of CLSA Securities (Thailand), Prinn Panitchpakdi, added that the Finance Ministry’s tax measures would likely kill the Thai ICO market even before it had a chance to become established.

Thai blockchain and fintech startups are already getting hammered with three lots of taxes; 15% capital gains tax, 7% VAT, and a further 20% corporate income tax. This makes it virtually impossible to launch a new blockchain or crytpocurrency project within the country.

Govt U-Turn on Personal VAT

Capital gains taxes of 15% will soon be extended to the public that want to trade cryptocurrencies. The country’s largest exchange, BX Thailand, said that according to the decree, customers need to collect and allocate their income and capital gain tax and send this to the Revenue Department, the VAT will be collected on trades whether they gain or lose.

The latest news announced today is that the Revenue Department will waive the 7% VAT for people trading in cryptocurrencies on exchange markets approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). However individuals will still have to pay a 15% capital gains tax, also known as a withholding tax, on income earned in a transaction. This is still likely to drive many away to an emerging number of tax free, low commission exchanges in other Asian nations.

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Scientific advancements and the implementation of latest technology has changed the landscape of healthcare. While the concept of personalized medicine and other cutting-edge treatments turns into reality, there is a lot left to be desired when it comes to managing medical data and patient information.

The Healthcare Information Technology presently implemented across the world is broken, irrespective of whether they are used by the government or privately-run hospitals. According to reports, the existing health information technology infrastructure in US hospitals suffer a severe lag that puts it behind every other industry segment by at least a decade, both in terms of hardware and software architecture.

The Electronic Medical Records (EMR), a crucial element in healthcare technology stores personal health information and patient records. The use of outdated technology has put the private information of millions of patients in jeopardy. There have been numerous instances where hospitals and insurance systems have come under attack, crippling the entire system for days while compromising health records in the process. The latest such attack, etched in everyone’ minds is the WannaCry ransomware, that locked computers in more than 150 countries.

To make things worse, the vital healthcare data we pay hospitals and doctors to collect also presents a strong case of double spendings such as duplicate blood test and MRI scans, which end up sitting in silos and fragmented across disparate systems.

Within the next five to ten years, healthcare will be going through a major transformation, led by the consumer. Disruption is coming to healthcare one way or another. Combined with new care delivery services such as remote monitoring, telemedicine, doctor-on-demand, and population health, a new platform must be created to coordinate health information exchange in open, fluid, and secure manner anywhere in the world.

Time Has Come for the Healthcare Industry to Incorporate Blockchain Technology

Emrify is a healthcare industry innovator with products such as the Personal Health Record (PHR), Drug Facts and Clinical Trials mobile application with thousands of users. Emrify embraces emerging technology and is not shy about showcasing it. They are a frequent participant in health hackathons, with multiple wins under their belt. These events offer a platform for Emrify to showcase new solutions while maintaining a deep understanding of the challenges at hand.

Emrify has constantly been working to identify the cracks in the healthcare industry, to solve the problem of interoperability. The rise of blockchain technology represents a pivotal moment to fix healthcare once and for all. The decentralized model has come to be the focal point for every stakeholder in the entire continuum of health services, especially the unique properties of the Ethereum network which allows, for the first time, for data to be owned and controlled by an individual.

On the one hand, the consensus algorithm used in blockchain based platforms enable the decentralized mechanism to distribute power to the people. While on the other, the same technology can be used to secure identities for privacy and security. Both these qualities are instrumental for the better handling of patient information within the healthcare system.

Leveraging on the technology, Emrify is launching a decentralized Personal Health Record platform. Built over Ethereum blockchain and powered by its native token, the platform aims to collect and lock the healthcare data of users in a secure environment. Users on the platform enjoy complete ownership and control over their data, and they can decide whom they wish to share it with. At the same time, the crypto-economics model surrounding the platform is designed to incentivize data sharing for all parties.

Rising Value of Health Data

The Emrify Health Passport platform is powered by HIT tokens, which stands for Health Information Transfer) and acts as the mode of value exchange within the ecosystem. By strengthening the economy around healthcare data, the HIT tokens stand to create a healthy network effect, which helps in creating more value as the amount of data available for analysis continue to grow.

Healthcare data has over recent years gained the attention of various healthcare stakeholder including providers, insurance, employers, researchers, government, and pharmaceutical companies, given the growing popularity of wearable and increasingly affordable genome sequencing. In the past, companies like IMS Health has been getting rich off the medical data of the public by running a matching algorithm to sell to big pharmaceuticals. Currently, the industry’s major players include the likes of IBM Watson and Google Verily project Baseline, all of which are prime examples of rising value in health data. For the consumer, trust has been broken as they want to free the data and gain more control.

Blockchain Summit, Dubai Blockchain Award

The time has never been better for a PHR platform to connect all the players in the healthcare industry and move the whole segment towards a better future. Emrify will include economic incentives for everyone to grow the ecosystem from day one. For stakeholders, Emrify will provide a trusted place to collect healthcare data straight from the source.

The platform has the potential to alleviate some of the shortcomings in the existing system, like the $80 billion annual cost of insurance fraud by enhancing the claim verification mechanism. Similarly, it helps individuals protect their own data while choosing to share or sell it to others on their own terms.

Emrify recently participated in the Blockchain Summit, Dubai Blockchain Awards, where they presented a pitch on solutions for sharing emergency health information. Emrify is also entering into a partnership with Encrypgen, which provides next-generation blockchain security for the protection, sharing and re-marketing of genomic data.

More information about Emrify is available at – https://www.emrify.com/ .

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At New York’s Ethereal Summit on 11 and 12 May, hosted by Ethereum startup ConsenSys, attendees were treated to a documentary film showing the advantages of blockchain supply train tracking, reports Coindesk.

The film, entitled ‘Bait to Plate’, produced by Viant, an Ethereum-based supply chain management startup, charted the journey of a huge Yellowfin tuna caught in the waters off Fiji. The film followed the fish being caught, packaged and then shipped, and finally appearing on the plates of the lucky attendees at the conference.

The fish, served in Japanese style as sushi, served as a graphic example of how blockchain has improved supply train tracking since its inception and subsequent adoption by many companies around the world.

Viant co-founder Kishore Atreya illustrated the success of the tracking system, which answers one of  consumers’ main concerns regarding the origins of food products, “Those who ate the sushi knew exactly where their fish was coming from.”

Blockchain is increasingly being utilized for storing and tracking of data across a wider spectrum of sectors, including the food supply chain. A recent report by global market research company, Nielsen, has revealed that 75% of consumers cited the national origin of their food products as often more important than other factors, such as quality and price.

Another factor is health; tracking food products in this way, particularly meat, poultry, and fish, which have a very limited shelf life, can be difficult to control with absolute accuracy using conventional methods.

The Fiji example, according to Coindesk, is significant, as blockchain allows consumers to examine who produces the product. It’s been recorded that tuna has been fished in the south pacific using slave labor; a fact that most consumers would find objectionable given the information. Consequently, the transparency that DLT offers has the potential to become an effective deterrent to such activities.

Another Viant co-founder, Tyler Mulvihill, suggests, “One of most primal things is what we eat. But we become disconnected with that and blockchain is a great way of bringing that connection back.”

The process explained in the short film, demonstrated how the tuna was tagged with a frequency identifier tag with its own unique tracking number. The coordinates were then tagged on the Ethereum blockchain, showing that it was caught legally and in sustainable waters. Finally, the processing of the fish and who had handled it had been logged on the blockchain to its final arrival at the Ethereal Summit kitchens.

During the event, the sushi was served on a napkin featuring a QR code that could be scanned with a smartphone to reveal the precise details of the fish’s journey from Fiji to Queens.

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The CME has launched two new indexes on Monday to track the price of Ether the second largest cryptocurrency.

CME Launches Ethereum Index

According to a press release, The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME Group) partnered with UK based digital asset exchange Crypto Facilities have launched the CME CF Ether-Dollar Reference Rate and Real Time Index, according to an announcement on May 14.

The CME CF Ether-Dollar rates will “provide a standardized reference rate and spot price index” according to the press release “the oversight of the products is managed by an independent committee that sets forth a code of conduct and meets to review the practice standards.”

According to the CME;

“The products include a spot price index called the CME CF Ether Dollar Real Time Index, known as ETH_RTI_USD, and a reference rate called the CME CF Ether Dollar Reference Rate, known as ETH_RR_USD… ETH_RTI_USD is a real time index of the US dollar price of one Ether published once per second 24 hours a day 365 days per year. This index provides real time transparency to the US dollar price of Ether. ETH_RR_USD is a daily reference rate of the US dollar price of one Ether as of 4 p.m. London time…”

Posted prices are to be based on transaction data from Kraken and Bitstamp, both major cryptocurrency exchanges.

No Plans Announced for Ethereum Futures

CME reported it has no plans to include Ethereum futures though the structure would be similar to the one already in use for their Bitcoin futures. “The focus right now is on the index itself,” said Tim McCourt, managing director and global head of equity products and alternative investments at CME. He added;

“The Ether Reference Rate and Real Time Index are designed to meet the evolving needs of the marketplace. Providing price transparency and a credible price reference source is a key development for users of Ethereum.”

The CME launched its Bitcoin Index and followed it a year later with Bitcoin Futures in December 2017. The move was a beginning to the move of institutional investors into the cryptocurrency space that continues to develop today.

Brian Quintenz, a commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission told the Consensus cryptocurrency conference on Monday that Ethereum is “something that a few exchanges have expressed interest in listing derivatives on. The decision needs to be made carefully.”

Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization according to coinmarketcap.com. At the time of writing the Ethereum token ETH is trading up 4.6% on the day to $735.

Image from Shutterstock

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Key Points

• Bitcoin price is showing bullish signs above the $8,600 pivot level against the US Dollar.
• This week’s ascending channel with current support at $8,480 is intact on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair (data feed from Kraken).
• The pair is now trading nicely above the $8,500 support and the 100 hourly simple moving average.

Bitcoin price is following a bullish path above $8,600 against the US Dollar. BTC/USD has to move above $9,000 to accelerate gains in the near term.

Bitcoin Price Analysis

There was a slow and steady rise in bitcoin price above the $8,500 resistance against the US Dollar. The price traded higher and even broke the $8,600 resistance level to settle above the 100 hourly simple moving average. The upside move was positive, as the price traded close to the $8,900 resistance level. A high was formed at $8,899 before the price started a downside correction.

It moved down and traded below the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the last wave from the $8,305 low to $8,899 high. However, the price remains well supported on the downside above the $8,500 level. An immediate key support is at $8,600, which is the 50% Fib retracement level of the last wave from the $8,305 low to $8,899 high. Furthermore, the 100 hourly SMA is positioned near $8,550 to prevent declines in the near term. Additionally, this week’s ascending channel with current support at $8,480 is intact on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair.

Looking at the chart, the price is placed nicely above $8,500 and the 100 hourly SMA. Therefore, as long as the price is above $8,500, it could continue to move higher towards $9,000. A break above $9,000 will most likely confirm a solid bullish bias towards $10,000.

Looking at the technical indicators:              

Hourly MACD – The MACD for BTC/USD is slowly moving in the bearish zone.

Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI is currently moving lower towards the 50 level.

Major Support Level – $8,500

Major Resistance Level – $8,900

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HSBC and ING bank have recently reported that they have utilized blockchain technology using R3’s Corda blockchain platform.

The banking conglomerates used the tech to achieve a transaction that oversaw soybeans, shipped from Argentina to Malaysia via Singapore. Additionally, a letter of credit between the two banks was issued directly from the R3 Corda platform.

HSBC and ING commented that the transaction was a success, demonstrating that blockchain technology had been used in a commercial and operational setting.

The trade finance industry is worth around USD 9 trillion. Using any number of conventional monetary means of managing these transactions can take days, with multiple parties included. With blockchain technology on a single platform, the transaction took less than 24 hours to be completed.

Credit letters are one of the most commonly used methods for reducing the risk involved between importers and exporters. These letters help guarantee more than USD 2 trillion worth of transactions annually, and it is a lengthy and time-consuming paper trail that can take between five and ten days to complete.

Vivek Ramachandran, HSBC’s head of growth and innovation stated, “Trade finance transactions have been made simpler, faster, more transparent and more secure. The need for paper reconciliation is removed because all parties are linked to the platform and updates are instantaneous. The quick turnaround could mean unlocking liquidity for businesses.”

The transaction was received well by third parties involved. “Blockchain is a key technology we are exploring and using with our customers and, now, using for ourselves with the completion of this transfer on Corda,” explained Rani Misra, regional treasurer, APAC, Cargill.

Events have led R3, the company behind Corda along with 12 other supportive banks, to further the reach behind this technology, in a hope to expand the network as a utility for the trade finance sector and to waive all paper-based documentation.

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Key Highlights

• Ethereum classic price formed a support base at $16.40 and recovered against the US dollar.
• There was a break above a crucial bearish trend line with resistance at $18.50 on the hourly chart of the ETC/USD pair (Data feed via Kraken).
• The pair may continue to rise towards the $20.50 and $21.00 resistance levels in the near term.

Ethereum classic price is recovering nicely against the US Dollar and Bitcoin. ETC/USD may well accelerate higher above $21.00 if buyers gain control.

Ethereum Classic Price Resistance

After a major downside move, ETC price found support above the $16.00 level against the US dollar. The ETC/USD pair traded as low as $16.44 before starting an upside correction. It consolidated for some time above the $16.50 level before starting an upside move. ETC price climbed above the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the last decline from the $21.94 high to $16.44 low.

It opened the doors for more gains and the price moved above the $18.00 resistance. More importantly, there was a break above a crucial bearish trend line with resistance at $18.50 on the hourly chart of the ETC/USD pair. Finally, there was a close above the $19.00 resistance and the 100 hourly simple moving average. At the moment, the price is testing the 61.8% Fib retracement level of the last decline from the $21.94 high to $16.44 low. A successful breach of the $19.75 resistance could clear the path for a push above the $20.00 barrier.

The chart suggests that the price is forming a bullish structure above $18.00. It may continue to rise and any dips from the current levels are likely to find buyers near $18.00. Additionally, the 100 hourly SMA, which is currently near $18.00 may also act as a strong support.

Hourly MACD – The MACD for ETC/USD is moving nicely in the bullish zone.

Hourly RSI – The RSI for ETC/USD is gaining pace above the 60 level.

Major Support Level – $18.00

Major Resistance Level – $20.00

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