Day: June 29, 2018

FOMO Moments

The big pump has happened, altcoins with double digit gains include Bitcoin Cash, Neo, Ethereum Classic, and Ontology

The bounce was expected however the magnitude of it is a very positive sign. Markets have been plummeting for weeks, and are still very low, however the rebound was far bigger than the previous one indicating that this could be the reversal everybody has been waiting for.

Bitcoin pumped $500 in about three hours which gives it a 9% gain on the day. Trading just below $5,900 this time yesterday it has now jumped back to the previous resistance level of just over $6,400. The rest of the altcoins naturally followed their master back up, with Ethereum jumping 7% to $450. Levels are still very low and may resume bearish momentum but the big pump is welcome news this Saturday morning.

The biggest movements at the moment can be seen in Bitcoin Cash rocketing 14% from $650 this time yesterday to $755 at the time of writing. Litecoin has bounced 10% back over $80 again, and Stellar has also seen a 10% gain to a touch under $0.20. Cardano, which has taken a bigger beating lately, is up 12.7% on the day to trade at $0.133.

Also getting abused lately has been Neo but it too has made a small recovery by 11.6% to just over $31 at the moment. Ethereum Classic is enjoying a 12.5% climb this morning to $16.30 and Ontology has risen over 14% to $5.44. Most of the other altcoins are up between 8-10% as they follow Bitcoin’s lead. In the top 30 0x is showing the biggest gains at the current time pumping 22.5% to trade at $0.73. In the total top 100 payments provider TenX has the largest gain on the day with a whopping 67% surge to $0.88.

It may be too early to get excited about this, which may turn out to be just another small correction before further losses. Total crypto market capitalization has jumped back over $250 billion with an 8% climb on the day. This equates to just over $19 billion going back into crypto markets in the past 6 hours to put them at the $255 billion level. Trade volume has climbed from $11 to $14 billion but is still relatively low. The markets are back at the same level they were this time last Saturday but over the past month are still down 23%.

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 A Big Bounce as $20 Billion Pours Back into Crypto Markets appeared first on NewsBTC.

New York-based Union Square Ventures is planning to invest in crypto and blockchain in the long-term, but will not start a separate fund

Austrian financial regulators have called upon the government to enact more strict regulations on ICOs and cryptocurrencies

39 financial firms and regulators worldwide have completed a KYC trial on R3’s Corda blockchain platform

On the 30th of June major networks Vechain and Ontology will shift from existing as sub-tokens, operating as smart-contracts on parent networks, to their own proprietary networks. 

A report from PwC states the volume of ICOs so far in 2018 is twice that of the entire year last year

During market lows, cryptocurrency enthusiasts have long urged each other to ‘hodl,’ which as many of us know is a word that came from typo for ‘hold,’ or ‘hold on for dear life.’ According to new data relating to Coinbase, faith in that principle may be waning.

To Hodl, or Not to Hodl

When the price of Bitcoin rallied more than 30% in April, some cryptocurrency investors decided it was time to get out, rather than ‘hodl’ for a market surge. Looking back, it’s been more than six months since Bitcoin reached all-time highs at roughly $20,000 in December. Since then, the subsequent 70% crash and sustained bear market in the cryptosphere has tested the patience of investors, especially those who bought in amid the frenzy towards the end of 2017.

According to new reports from Chime, a San Francisco-based bank startup that offers free credit and debit accounts, customers at the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S., Coinbase, withdrew more from the company than they deposited in April.

Since December, withdrawals from Coinbase have been increasing relative to deposits. However, April was the first and only month in which the money flowing out of Coinbase actually exceeded the money flowing in, Chime’s data shows.

During that month, investors took 37% more money out of Coinbase than they put in, withdrawing $1.37 for every dollar deposited. In relation, deposits to Coinbase outweighed redemptions in May, but it was only by a 10% margin, or $1.10 for every dollar withdrawn.

Worth pointing out is that Chime’s analysis is based on the behavior of roughly 500,000 active customers, most of whom are between ages 25 and 35.

The numbers, therefore, likely don’t fully reflect the activity of Coinbase’s more than 20 million users. The issue is that Coinbase also caters to institutional investors, a demographic that is likely not represented among Chime customers. Coinbase declined to comment with Fortune, who outlined the findings.

Despite this potential misrepresentation, the findings do show that there is some sort of trend. Some would say the data highlights a negative sentiment among this subset of investors.

What’s particularly strange is that in April cryptocurrency prices were actually rising, so it was not related to panic selling that can occur during a market plunge. This could be a sign that investors have turned pessimistic in their outlook for Bitcoin and their lack of confidence in the coin’s recovery.

The pattern also reflects a recent class of ‘rookie’ cryptocurrency investors who are out for quick profits, and who are not used to the volatility of cryptocurrencies.

“You have a kind of washing out of momentum investors…investors who were not really taking a longterm point of view,” said Chad Cascarilla, cofounder and CEO of Paxos, an institutional trading firm that also operates Bitcoin exchange itBit.

CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, seemed to acknowledge this pattern in a tweet last week. He said that the prolonged downturn had made some investors give up on cryptocurrencies, but added that that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, saying that the shift served to get  ‘rid of the people who are in it for the wrong reasons.’

Chime’s CEO, Chris Britt, also spoke on the findings. He noted that this money flow patterns simply illustrates that investors’ market timing is poor:

“Unfortunately, it’s human nature that investors often buy at the highest prices and sell at lower prices,” Britt said. “While we can’t predict the future value of Bitcoin, I suspect we may look back at the current prices a few years from now and see that these lower prices were a great time to buy.”

Featured image from Shutterstock.

The post April Saw Coinbase Customers Taking Out 37% More Money Than They Put In appeared first on NewsBTC.

On June 28, 2018, the US Supreme Court revealed it would not re-evaluate Ross Ulbricht’s court case and double life sentence tied to his charges of operating the Silk Road marketplace. Ulbricht’s legal team and family were hoping the recent Carpenter Vs. US Supreme Court case would spur court officials to reconsider Ulbricht’s conviction. However, Supreme Court officials didn’t see eye to eye with this reasoning and denied Ulbricht’s cert petition.

Also read: Troll Slayer: Derek Magill Defends Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash Against Defamation

SCOTUS Denies Ross Ulbricht’s Cert Petition

Just recently, news.Bitcoin.com reported on the Ross Ulbricht case and the convicted Silk Road operator’s cert petition filed with the Supreme Court this past May. According to Ulbricht’s lawyers, out of 200 cases that day, the court justices denied all of them except for the case Carpenter Vs. the US, and Ross Ulbricht’s petition. Lawyers had thought the implications of the Carpenter case, which applies to warrantless cellphone searches, would help Ross’s appeal. Six days ago, the American public learned that the Supreme Court sided with Carpenter’s arguments and ruled law enforcement cannot access cell phone information without a warrant.

One week later, the Supreme Court came to its decision concerning Ulbricht’s case and decided not to re-evaluate the hearing and sentencing. Of course, the Ulbricht family is not pleased with the decision and in a heartbreaking tweet the organization Freeross.org stated:  

SCOTUS denied Ross Ulbricht cert petition this morning after holding it pending Carpenter. This is a NO on internet privacy and Ross’s case. Devastating. #freeross.    

Furthermore, Lyn Ulbricht, the mother of Ross Ulbricht who has been championing for his freedom since the day he was arrested, made this statement:   

This is devastating news for Ross and our family.

The Surveillance State and Illusionary Freedoms

To many supporters, the denial was an injustice, especially after the Carpenter Vs. the US ruling. Many people believe, alongside Ulbricht’s family and attorneys, that Ulbricht’s fourth amendment and other amendment rights were taken from him. Moreover, a double life sentence for operating a website is considered extremely harsh as many other criminals have received less severe punishments for more heinous crimes.

“It is hard to imagine a better example of the consequences of runaway judicial fact-finding than this case,” explains Ulbricht’s cert petition.  

Petitioner, a young man with no criminal history, was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for drug crimes that do not ordinarily carry that sentence, based substantially on numerous factual findings made by the sentencing judge by a preponderance of the evidence.

Even though activists have lauded the SCOTUS decision towards Carpenter, with Ulbricht’s case there has been an extreme injustice in the eyes of many. It means that there may be laws against law enforcement committing illegal acts like warrantless searches. But unfortunately, when it comes to reality and cases like Ulbricht’s, it further solidifies the feeling that American freedoms are illusionary.

What do you think about the Supreme Court denying Ross Ulbricht’s petition after the Carpenter Vs. US decision? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comment section below.

Images via Shutterstock, and Pixabay.

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The post Supreme Court Will Not Reconsider Ross Ulbricht’s Life Sentence appeared first on Bitcoin News.

While fundamentals are supportive of Litecoin, the mere fact that Bitcoin is on a slide, adding on to their losses means there is more room for LTC downsides. The effect is can’t be clearer, so far it’s down six percent in the last 24 hours and likely to break below $70, our first bear target. For buyers to take charge, then we need to see bulls pushing prices above $110.

From the News

Line, a messaging platform and WhatsApp competitor is now setting its eyes on cryptocurrency. It’s not a surprise per say first because most of their clientele across Japan, Thailand and Taiwan are mostly millennials. The secondly, the cryptocurrency craze in South East Asia is irresistible necessitating them to set up an exchange, BitBox. Their initial coin list will be limited with ETH, BTC, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin available. However, they plan to add 30 more coins for their global clients exclusive of those from the US and Japan.

LINE's virtual currency exchange, BITBOX, to launch July 2018. Bookmark official site for the launch! https://t.co/4UquVRnPdF #LINECONFERENCE pic.twitter.com/kUKXbVDEsX

— BITBOX (@bitbox_official) June 28, 2018

Coins available for trading have undergone “thorough screening” and are certified reliable and safe for trading. Line, who shall be launching their platform in Singapore by July, is taking a cautious approach considering the after math of Coincheck, CoinRail and lately BitHumb. These events did trigger regulatory involvement in South Korea and Japan. It’s mostly because of these stringent measures that the Japan and US regulatory bodies have in place that made them bar their citizens from trading at BitBox. Otherwise, other global customers can freely set up accounts and trade for free in the first month. Thereafter, a 0.1 percent commission will apply.

While Line is diversifying, traders can now sign up with Belfrics, one of India’s fastest crypto exchanges and trade among others Litecoin. Belfrics are back in business after closing shop early this year after banks refused to offer services. In their bucket list is a grand plan of adding 20 more cryptocurrency now that they have a “dedicated app for live-order book trading of altcoins” and a secure mobile web wallet. Combined, both of these developments are good for crypto market and Litecoin in particular.

Litecoin (LTC) Technical Analysis

Weekly Chart

Litecoin Weekly Chart by Trading View

In our analysis, the $110 support and sell trigger mark anchors our analysis. Before that, if prices had found support at that level and  inched higher, then we would have had a nice triple bottoms. Contrary to this trade plan, prices did slide following week ending June 10 and shows no signs of slowing down as the month comes to an end. In my view-and while aligning this trade plan to the general trend, selling on pull backs in lower time frames is reasonable. Despite this, we expect to see a pullback in the beginning of July and in that case, we expect the region between $90 and $110 to cap Litecoin’s buy pressure.

Daily Chart

Litecoin Daily Chart by Trading View

Even though we were a little bit optimistic after June 27 bullish candlestick, the fact that LTC sellers swamped back reversing those gains on June 28 and 29 effectively cancels that buy trade plan. As such, my suggestion is to sell at current prices with stops at $90 and targets at $50.That in effect means trading with the general sell trend. Any breach above $90 and on the upper limit $110 cancels our bear stand.

Disclaimer: Views and opinions expressed are those of the author and aren’t investment advice. Trading of any form involves risk and so do your due diligence before making a trading decision.

The post “Litecoin Isn’t Decoupling From BTC As it Edges Towards $50”: Litecoin (LTC) Technical Analysis appeared first on NewsBTC.