Day: May 27, 2018

Venezuelans are increasingly turning to Bitcoin mining in order to combat hyperinflation in the South American country, Bloomberg reports.

Caracas has recently become a crypto mining hub, says Daniel Cancel, a reporter and resident, in a report from the capital. Cancel talks of a friend living in the city buying a machine to mine crypto and telling his son to run it round the clock. The result; USD 6 a day. The reporter tells of another friend who had to move his machine due to noise complaints. The most successful, Cancel reports, is a friend that has invested with his family purchasing three machines and is now clearing USD 1,000 a month, which in Caracas is a “small fortune”, he says.

So why are residents of Caracas going to these lengths to provide themselves with any kind of an income?

Under its controversial president, Nicolas Maduro, the country continues to struggle with a hyperinflation rate estimated at 2,400% at the end of 2017, which has skyrocketed to 18,000% in 2018. The crumbling economy is now causing a humanitarian crisis with 600,000 Venezuelans fleeing to neighboring Columbia alone.

Venezuela’s crisis has steadily worsened as a result of lower oil prices, corruption, and a totally mismanaged socialist system, experiencing all but a total collapse of the economy, public services, security, and healthcare, writes the Independent.

Armed gangs and Colombian guerrilla roam the beleaguered nation’s borders. Pro-government militias are terrorizing urban areas, while police stand accused of extrajudicial killings in a country which has now the dubious notoriety of being home to 10 of the world’s most dangerous cities, according to Igarape Institute, a Brazilian think tank which studies violence.

Bitcoin is now recognized as the only way of getting around the country’s currency controls, and bitcoin mining offers Venezuelans a chance to pay for good imported from overseas. Although the process is not sanctioned for individuals other than going through ‘official’ methods, residents are able to sidestep the government controls to buy foodstuffs from Florida and Miami by trading Bitcoin for bolivars, the local hyperinflated currency.

Cancel suggests that even the USD 6 a day his friend was mining is half decent money in the depression hit country, commenting:

“One key to my mining pals’ success: electricity, while spotty, is basically free, the result of an odd combination of hyperinflation and government-mandated utility price freezes. (It’ll cost you 900,000 bolivars—or about USD 0.90 at the black-market rate—for a coffee, pastry, and juice at a cafe, but you can pay your monthly electricity, water, gas, internet and phone bills for about 300,000 bolivars.).”

Cancel maintains that for those residents who haven’t yet fled the borders to Columbia, its all about managing “somehow” to set up a steady flow of revenue in dollars or another foreign currency. “Human beings can adapt to anything” is a line he keeps hearing as his friends continue the daily struggle of life in Caracas.

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Things are looking very bright for Kepler Technologies. After raising an initial 2.7 million dollars in funding through its Community Building Stage, a special opportunity for the crypto community to participate in the early stages of pre-ICO, registration for Keplertek’s pre-Sale started over 48 hours ago. In this short amount of time, over 1.1 million of the 4.000.000 KEP tokens for sale have already been reserved, signaling very high demand for the remaining tokens. As of right now, it is still possible to get whitelisted and reserve tokens, with the actual sale starting on May 29th. The sale will last three weeks, it is however very possible that all tokens are sold considerably sooner – don’t miss out on this special opportunity and get involved right now!

The minimum investment during pre-sale is between 0.18 and 0.20 ETH, scaling depending on current market conditions, with no maximum investment amount being set – this means you can make full use of the gigantic 30% bonus on all purchases. Additionally, investors who place an order will receive an additional 5% bonus if they purchase the full amount of tokens they signed up for. The price of Ethereum at the moment tokens are reserved, will be the Ethereum price investors will pay during pre-sale. Kepler chose to hold the sale this way in order to ensure that everyone has the golden opportunity to participate in the creation of the future.

Not only is Kepler beginning to conjure up serious hype all around the crypto world, the team is also working very hard to attend leading Blockchain gatherings all over the world. After having participated in conferences in Dubai, Hong Kong, and Armenia, Kepler’s dedicated team traveled to central Europe for Blockchaineum, a one-day event in Budapest, Hungary. Mari Shubalidze, head of HR, and David Nozadze, head of marketing, held a stunning speech which further highlighted Kepler’s enormous potential in the future of start-ups. The next stop and your next chance to get to meet the people behind this project will be Blockshow Europe in Berlin, another very prestigious event. It has to be mentioned that all this is happening while over 50 hard-working and motivated team members are working around the clock in the company’s Tbilisi office, sometimes even sleeping there.

Leading experts all agree that Kepler has an amazing team and an idea that has the potential to influence the way we move forward as a society. It is currently the best-rated ICO around, with all conditions for a highly lucrative investment being met. The Robotics and AI industries are already incredibly profitable, Kepler’s unique approach to combine it all with the security of the blockchain truly has the chance to create a booming industry.

Keplertek invites investors from all around the world to participate in the pre-sale and use the chance to contribute to an advanced future!

For more information visit www.keplertek.org
Whitepaper: www.keplertek.org/Whitepaper.pdf
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Keplertek/
Twitter: www.twitter.com/keplertek?lang=en
Instagram: http://instagram.com/kepler.tek
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/keplertektechnologies/
Medium: www.medium.com/@KeplerTek
Telegram: https://t.me/KeplerTechnologies

The post Things Are Looking Very Bright for Kepler Technologies appeared first on NewsBTC.

Cryptocurrency influencer joins bulls with a $50,000 end of year valuation for Bitcoin based on failings in the fiat market.

Merten Says Bitcoin will go to $50,000 in 2018

Nicholas Merten, whose dedicated Youtube channel ‘data dash’ has nearly 300,000 followers, is an entrepreneur and investor in the crypto space with a wide-reaching influence who occupies a position somewhere between John McAfee and Tom Lee. When he tweets his opinions and predictions to his over 34,000 followers he can cause a change in trends.

His latest prediction that has Bitcoin at more than double it’s 2017 high by the end of the year relies on some major failings in the fiat market. In his Tweet Merten lists four factors he believes will push the price of Bitcoin up to highs never before seen.

My predictions for 2018:#Bitcoin will be $50K by the EOY. Why?

– Interest rates will continue to rise
– Deutsche Bank will go under by the 2018
– Equities and housing prices will take a massive hit
– With trillions of $'s that need to exit, the SEC will create a Bitcoin ETF

— Nicholas Merten (@Nicholas_Merten) May 27, 2018

Merten is a known crypto evangelist but even a few of his followers questioned his reasoning in the tweet. A follower who uses the handle Sammy Tommy pointed out that interest rates have no correlation with cryptocurrency prices and that though Deutsche Bank is restructuring, there is no way a bank of that size is going under by the end of the year.

When another follower asked for his prediction on the year-end crypto market cap Merten wrote that in his model it should go to $1 trillion. Among market predictors, Merten seems to occupy the middle ground between the antics of John McAfee who trades on his image of being a maverick in any space he occupies (Merten also shows himself on Twitter with guns) and the Tom Lees and Brian Kellys who bring a more traditional buttoned-down aspect to market predictions when they appear on shows like CNCB’s Fast Money.

Bulls Predicting Prices from $15,000 – $100,000

No matter if they are talking about the collapse of fiat banks or soberly discussing their charts and graphs all of these bulls are calling for a big number for Bitcoin in the fourth quarter. Despite Bitcoin falling below $8,000 again over the last week, Tom Lee sticks by his year-end prediction of $25,000 which relies on regulation clarity to open up the floodgates of institutional money.

Oddly John Mcafee, who has promised to eat his own manhood live if Bitcoin doesn’t reach $1 million in 2020, is calling for Bitcoin to reach $15,000 by June which he says will be on track to meet his million dollar prediction according to his magic algorithms.

Though $50,000 is at the high end of the prediction spectrum it’s only half of the high point, CEO of China’s first Bitcoin exchange, Bobby Lee, called for when he said Bitcoin will end the year at a $100,000 double that and reach a million which would mean Lambos for all and save John Mcafee from a very awkward meal.

Image from Shutterstock

The post Youtube Celeb Nicholas Merten Makes Big Bitcoin Prediction appeared first on NewsBTC.

It seems evident the year 2018 is almost becoming the year of the cryptocurrency “dumpening“. All markets continue to struggle for no apparent reason and the prices are going lower every single day. These past 24 hours have been no different, although it seems the Ethereum price is getting battered quite badly. These past 24 hours have successfully pushed the Ethereum price below $550 and the bottom isn’t in sight just yet.

Where is the Ethereum Price Heading Next?

For the time being, the cryptocurrency markets do not seem to make much sense. With the Bitcoin price in the dirt, all other cryptocurrencies are bound to follow. While there will be some pump-and-dump attempts of smaller and insignificant currencies, it seems the Ethereum price is going straight down. After a very rough week which only just ended, the new momentum only seems to be driving the value down even further.

More specifically, the Ethereum price has dropped below $550. It is the first time in over a week the Ethereum price goes this low. In fact, the value per Ether was just over $720 on May 22nd. A massive price dip has occurred earlier this morning, albeit no one knows for sure what has caused it exactly. Even so, recovering from this massive setback will prove to be very challenging, for rather obvious reasons.

With this latest 8.76% setback in USD value and another 7.86% decline in the ETH/BC ratio, things are not looking all that impressive for the Ethereum price. At this rate, it seems to be a matter of time until the Ethereum price drops below $500, which would spook a lot of holders, for rather obvious reasons. Panic selling has already begun to set in, which will continue to drive the Ethereum price down for the foreseeable future.

The Ethereum trading volume is still holding relatively strong at $2.221bn in the past 24 hours. Unfortunately, most of that trading volume is made up of people looking to dump their Ether holdings at bottom prices. At the same time, there will be some people buying the dip, as this creates an exciting opportunity to stock up on some cheap Ether.

Fiat currency markets are not hard to come by where Ether trading is concerned. Right now, only Bitfinex is in the top six, whereas the rest is made up of BTC and USDT trading pairs. OKEx, Huobi, and Binance are all in the top five as well. With just two exchanges generating over $100m in volume these past 24 hours, things are not necessarily looking all that great. Only time will tell if the Ethereum price can pick up the pace moving forward.

The way things look right now, there will be no positive momentum to be found for any of the top cryptocurrencies. This bad start tot he week will probably result in a downtrend for the remainder of this week, perhaps with the exception of the upcoming weekend. Even so, there is a fair of manipulation going on in the cryptocurrency world right now, and it seems the bears will remain in the driver’s seat for some time to come.

Key Highlights

• Ripple price failed to move above the $0.6250 resistance level and declined against the US dollar.
• There is a major bearish trend line formed with resistance at $0.6120 on the hourly chart of the XRP/USD pair (data source from Kraken).
• The pair is likely to decline further towards a major support level near $0.5780.

Ripple price is clearly under pressure against the US Dollar and Bitcoin. XRP/USD may well accelerate declines below $0.6000 in the near term.

Ripple Price Resistances

After forming a decent support base around $0.5750, Ripple price recovered against the US Dollar. However, the upside move was limited as the price struggled to break the $0.6200-0.6300 resistance zone. It also failed to settle above $0.6100 and the 100 hourly simple moving average. There was a downside reaction and the price settled below the 50% Fib retracement level of the last wave from the $0.5758 low to $0.6379 high.

The current price action is bearish below the $0.6150 level. On the upside, the 100 hourly simple moving average, which is currently at $0.6100 might continue to prevent gains. There is also a major bearish trend line formed with resistance at $0.6120 on the hourly chart of the XRP/USD pair. A proper break and close above the trend line resistance and $0.6200 is needed to decrease the current bearish pressure. Above $0.6200, the next major barrier for buyers is near $0.6500.

Looking at the chart, the price is about to break a key support at $0.6000. The next support is close to the 76.4% Fib retracement level of the last wave from the $0.5758 low to $0.6379 high at $0.5900. However, the most important support is around the last swing low at $0.5750, which must hold losses.

Looking at the technical indicators:

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

Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI for XRP/USD is moving lower towards the 30 level.

Major Support Level – $0.5750

Major Resistance Level – $0.6200

The post Ripple Price Analysis: XRP/USD Under Bearish Pressure appeared first on NewsBTC.

Xapo, the reputed startup holding USD 10 billion of Bitcoin for clients, is set to begin operations from the Rock of Gibraltar as the British overseas territory continues to attract Fintech business, reported Bloomberg.

Gibraltar aims to lure new and existing fintech companies to its shores, following in the footsteps of other European countries such as Malta and Switzerland, both of which have seen the arrival of major cryptocurrency players like Binance and Bitmain in recent months. The 2nd Gibraltar International FinTech Forum held earlier this year, with another ‘Gibfin’ forum to follow in September 2018, demonstrates the country’s serious intent when it comes to encouraging fintech companies to do business there.

Xapo’s CEO, Wences Casares, met with Gibraltar officials including the minister for commerce Albert Isola this week and the minister commented that currently there are 30 businesses on The Rock going through the regulatory licensing process. Gibraltar officials have also confirmed this month that eToro, the self-described world’s leading social trading network, is close to becoming another of The Rock’s recent fintech acquisitions.

The four-year-old company has built a network of underground vaults on five continents, including one in a decommissioned Swiss military bunker. The firm’s billionaire backers include LinkedIn Corp co-founder Reid Hoffman and former Wall Street trader Mike Novogratz, who is in the process of setting up his own cryptocurrency merchant bank.

It is said the process to retrieve owners’ Bitcoins can take about two days. Xapo first verifies the client’s identity before manually signing the transaction with private keys from multiple vault locations. Verification from three vaults is required before funds can be issued.

“We had a good session with Xapo about their plans to expand operations in Gibraltar,” Isola said by phone.

On 21 May, Gibraltar also listed its own first collectible crypto postage stamps. Available in a block of four, the stamps depict the Rock of Gibraltar with a two-pound face value. Each block comes with a QR code which when scanned will generate 200 QRG coins per block in MyEtherWallet.

World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov, who is also a well-known philatelist, suggests that the Gibraltar QRG coins will be “…a leading light in illuminating the transparency of such transactions and thereby increasing the trust and confidence of participants on both sides.”

According to the report, The goal of the QRG Coin is that philatelic markets and auction houses will be only the first of many collectibles markets to adopt the QRG coin as the medium for the transfer of value.

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EOS Price Key Highlights

• EOS will also have its MainNet launch on June 1 to make it independent of the Ethereum network.
• Price is trading in a descending channel on the 4-hour chart and a pullback to the top seems due.
• Strong bullish momentum could spur a break past the area of interest and retracement levels.

EOS could see a reversal from its downtrend if the MainNet launch goes well, although there are key resistance areas nearby.

Technical Indicators Signals

The 100 SMA is below the longer-term 200 SMA on the 4-hour time frame to signal that the path of least resistance is to the downside. This suggests that the selloff is more likely to resume than to reverse. Price is also currently testing the 100 SMA dynamic inflection point, and the gap between the moving averages is widening to reflect sustained bearish momentum.

RSI has yet to make it to the oversold level so there may be some bullish pressure left. If so, EOS could pull up higher to the 38.2% to 50% levels near the top of the channel and the former support zone. A larger correction could last until the 61.8% Fib closer to the 200 SMA dynamic resistance and 16.000 handle.

Stochastic already seems to be heading lower to signal that bears have taken the upper hand, possibly sending EOS to the swing low or the bottom of the channel closer to the 10.000 major psychological level.

EOS Chart from TradingView

Market Factors

EOS has its MainNet launch scheduled for June 1 that would eliminate its dependence on the Ethereum network. Exchanges have already started their coin swap procedures such as Binance, Bitfinex, and Bitthum.

KuCoin as officially announced that the team has completed the swap registration of the EOS MainNet Wallet and will also perform an automatic asset transfer for users, with guaranteed security deposit.

Apart from that, EOS will have four airdrops scheduled next month so it’s understandable why investors could keep positioning ahead of these.

The post EOS Price Watch: Watch Out for Its MainNet Launch appeared first on NewsBTC.

Key Highlights

• ETH price is holding the $550-555 support area and is currently consolidating against the US Dollar.
• There is a short-term connecting bearish trend line forming with resistance at $570 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD (data feed via Kraken).
• The pair is facing many important hurdles on the upside near $500, $605 and $612.

Ethereum price is consolidating losses against the US Dollar and Bitcoin. ETH/USD must settle above the 100 hourly simple moving average and $605 for more upsides.

Ethereum Price Upside Hurdles

There were mostly ranging moves above $555 in ETH price during the past few sessions against the US Dollar. The price tested the $550-555 support area on a couple of occasions, but sellers failed to break the stated zone. At the moment, it seems like the price is consolidating in a range above $555 and is preparing for the next move either above $590 or below $550.

The last swing low was $554.33 from where the price started an upside move. It traded above the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the last drop from the $607.24 high to $554.33 low. However, the upside move was capped by the $575 resistance. There is also a short-term connecting bearish trend line forming with resistance at $570 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD. Above the trend line resistance, the 50% Fib retracement level of the last drop from the $607.24 high to $554.33 low is near $580.

Looking at the chart, the price is facing many hurdles on the upside near $580, $590, 100 hourly SMA and then $612. A proper break and close above $612 could clear the path for buyers to gain traction. On the downside, the $555 and $550 support levels hold a lot of importance in the near term.

Hourly MACD – The MACD is slowly moving into the bullish zone.

Hourly RSI – The RSI is moving higher, but it is still below the 50 level.

Major Support Level – $555

Major Resistance Level – $580

The post Ethereum Price Analysis: Can ETH/USD Hold $555? appeared first on NewsBTC.

Bitcoin Price Key Highlights

• Bitcoin price appears to be finding support at the bottom of its symmetrical triangle.
• Bulls continue to defend this level but a short-term downtrend channel remains intact.
• A bounce off this area could lead to a test of the channel top, and an upside break could spur a move to the triangle top.

Bitcoin price continues to hover at the major support zone, and bulls would need more momentum to sustain a bounce.

Technical Indicators Signals

The 100 SMA remains below the longer-term 200 SMA on the 4-hour time frame to confirm that the path of least resistance is to the downside. This signals that the selloff is more likely to continue than to reverse.

This could also mean that a break of the triangle support around $7,350 is imminent. The 100 SMA lines up with the top of the short-term descending channel to add to its strength as resistance while the 200 SMA adds another dynamic resistance before the top of the triangle at $9,000.

RSI is pointing up to signal that bulls could still push higher, though. Stochastic is also turning higher to reflect a return in bullish momentum, which might be enough for a test of the near-term resistance at $8,000.

BTCUSD Chart from TradingView

Market Factors

Bitcoin and its peers have been on the back foot recently as the lack of positive updates and the liquidation of more bitcoin on Mt. Gox have spurred declines. This time, there is some degree of focus on regulation but developments in the industry could lead to positive sentiment.

For one, there’s the mainnet launch for both Tron and EOS that would make them independent of the Ethereum network. Although this probably won’t have a direct influence on bitcoin price, any improvement in investor outlook could still lift altcoins overall.

Besides, the dollar has the NFP report to contend with and weak results could further dampen tightening expectations. Apart from that, overall risk sentiment in the financial markets, particularly relating to trade talks and political uncertainties, could lead to some volatility.

The post Bitcoin (BTC) Price Watch: Make or Break Situation appeared first on NewsBTC.

FOMO Moments

The weekend has been very sideways for crypto markets which are already down again. Since last Monday they have fallen 16% shedding $65 billion in the process. There has been no positive momentum to indicate a rebound and bearish sentiment is still present. Bitcoin’s failure to make any gains has seen it fall back below $7,400 and drag everything else down with it. There is a broad mix of red and green on the boards today indicating little action in either direction over the past 24 hours. Looking at the top 25 only EOS has made small gains above the rest.

Coinmarketcap is currently showing a 5% gain on EOS which makes it the best performing altcoin in the top 25 during Asian trade this morning. Currently trading at $12.90 EOS is up from around $12.25 this time yesterday, over the weekend it has made a steady 7.5% while others have all lost however over the past seven days EOS has actually declined 8% from just over $14 this time last Monday. On the month it has fallen even further from over $19 this time last month resulting in a 34% loss. Against Bitcoin, which has had a bad weekend, EOS has gained 4% to 174800 satoshis. A gain of 6.7% has been measured trading against BTC over the past week from 164000 satoshis this time last Monday.

Mainnet launch is the topic of conversation for EOS and the only thing that is keeping it marginally above the other altcoins in terms of percentage gains or losses over the past few days. EOS will separate from the Ethereum network on June 1 and become its own vote-based nodal network. Many new projects working on EOS will be offering airdrops as an alternative way to get tokens out into the community while keeping a few back for themselves to fund the project. Binance has just added EOS/BNB and EOS/USDT trading pairs which will also help the upward momentum.

#Binance Adds EOS/BNB, EOS/USDT Trading Pairs and $EOS Mainnet Swap Updatehttps://t.co/eAFSH3m5hx pic.twitter.com/xdnN4TDHBQ

— Binance (@binance) May 28, 2018

Once again Southeast Asia has been dominating trade with OKEx, Bithumb, Binance, Huobi and Upbit taking most of it, with large amounts in KRW. Trade volume has fallen back a little over the past 24 hours by 10% to just over a billion dollars. Market cap is currently $11.4 billion which is almost double the next closest contender, Litecoin in 6^th spot.

Crypto market total capitalization is currently at $328 billion which is roughly the same level it was at this time yesterday. Trade volume is around $13 billion and the line has been flat since Wednesday last week. The bears seem to be in control at the moment but a recovery is still possible. All other altcoins have been pretty sideways for the past 24 hours, outside the top 25 Bytom has climbed 6% and Bitcoin Diamond has made a quick spurt.

More on EOS can be found here: https://eos.io/

FOMO Moments is a section that takes a daily look at the top 25 altcoins during the Asian trading session and analyses the best performing one, looking for trends and possible fundamentals.

The post Asian Altcoin Trading Roundup: Binance Adds Two More EOS Trading Pairs appeared first on NewsBTC.

IHS Markit is developing a blockchain-based system to handle cash payments in syndicated loans – and eventually, in a wider range of transactions.