Day: July 7, 2018

The weekend is off to an interesting start where the cryptocurrency industry is concerned. Considering how most currencies are still in the green as of right now, it is very likely there will be some further upward momentum moving forward. For the Ethereum price, the momentum might carry its value to $475 in the coming hours.

Ethereum Price Remains in the Green

There were many valid concerns as to whether or not the cryptocurrency values would suffer from bearish momentum this weekend. It appears those concerns are still justified, even though the world’s leading cryptocurrencies show plenty of positive momentum as of right now. In the case of the Ethereum price, the current situation looks relatively good, even though the day is far from over at this point.

Over the past 24 hours, there has been a 1.33% increase in the Ethereum price department. While this is not a massive increase by any means, it is evident the momentum will spill over to the coming hours and potentially days. Assuming that is the case, the weekend will undoubtedly get very interesting. Additionally, it may result in the Ethereum price reaching $475 once again after a fair few setbacks over the past few weeks.

There is also a small increase in the ETH/BTC ratio over the past 24 hours. Again, this is a very small change first and foremost, yet it will help the Ethereum price evolve as time progresses. With this small 0.38% increase in favor of ETH, a very interesting tone is set for the coming hours and days. This doesn’t necessarily mean there will be any further increase automatically, but it is evident the markets are not in the worst place right now.

One thing clearly working in favor of Ethereum is how its trading volume is picking up the pace. Over the past 24 hours, there has been over $1.359bn worth of Ether trades, which is a lot higher compared to what most people would have expected at this stage. Even so, there is still a demand for more Ethereum trading volume, as there is no outspoken bullish pressure as of yet.  

This increase in Ethereum trading volume is partially spiked by major activity on the OKEx platform first and foremost. Its lead over Bitfinex’s USD market and Binance’s BTC pair is quite big, although this is always subject to change first and foremost. BitForex inched up to fourth place, followed by Huobi. A very interesting mix of different exchanges and markets should keep the positive momentum going for quite some time now.

Over the coming hours, the Ethereum price will either top $475 or drop well below $465. It all depends on how bearish the Bitcoin market will get in the hours to come, even though the current situation doesn’t look terrible at this stage. Things are always subject to change in the cryptocurrency world, though, as these markets are notoriously volatile for rather obvious reasons.

The cryptocurrency market has dropped by over 70% since the start of the year, but the world’s largest crypto exchange is still expected to rake in a hefty profit.

Changpeng Zhao: Binance Has Ten Million Users

The first half of 2018 hasn’t been kind to the cryptocurrency market, with the collective value of all cryptocurrencies seeing a 70% decline. Some have even gone on to say that investors are leaving the industry en-masse, but for Binance, that does not seem to be the case.

Changpeng Zhao, CEO of the world’s largest exchange, told Bloomberg that he expects Binance to make a minimum of $500 million in profit in 2018 alone. With the best-case scenario resulting in a cool $1 billion in annual profits.

This isn’t a fruitless prediction, with the trading platform accruing $300 million in revenue in the past six months. This substantial revenue figure is a result of Binance’s rapidly budding user base, along with near-consistent volume levels.

According to Zhao, his company has now supported over ten million customers, generating an average of $1.5 billion in trade volume each and every day. To give the user base figure a bit of perspective, Binance only had two million users at the start of 2017.

These growing figures show how Binance has not only survived but thrived in an otherwise stormy cryptocurrency market.

Binance’s Expansion Plans

Many forget that the crypto exchange is only one year old, kickstarting its business through a $15 million ICO last July. The company’s youth only makes its staggering growth statistics even more impressive.

Binance has recently announced a series of expansion plans, in an attempt to further secure its spot as the premier cryptocurrency exchange.  In March, Binance thought it best to open up offices in Malta due to mounting regulatory pressure from Asian governments. Upon the firm’s announcement, Maltese governmental employees immediately issued statements on social media to welcome the exchange with wide open arms.

Welcome to #Malta @binance. We aim to be the global trailblazers in the regulation of blockchain-based businesses and the jurisdiction of quality and choice for world class fintech companies -JM @SilvioSchembri https://t.co/3qtAQjOpuQ

— Joseph Muscat (@JosephMuscat_JM) March 23, 2018

The exchange’s executives reasoned that operations in Malta would help the exchange secure the proper licensing for fiat to cryptocurrency transfers, which is a long time coming for the exchange.

The move to Malta has already been proven as a success, with Binance Uganda, the first fiat to crypto portal, opening late last month. The company has made it clear that this is just the beginning, reiterating its plans to secure banking licenses on a global scale.

BNB/BTC Performance

Binance has become a hot topic in cryptocurrency circles due to its rising success, with growth culminating in the near quadrupling of the satoshi value of the exchange’s in-house crypto BNB.

BNB’s performance surprised many, as it was one of the only cryptocurrencies to grow substantially against relative Bitcoin value in this bearish trend. This growth may indicate that investors see even more potential in the platform, which is now the 17th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

Many expect the continued success of the exchange, whether it be due to the strong leadership team or the ambitious plans Binance has set in place.

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Facebook has confirmed that they have created a new position, Director of Engineering Blockchain, and have appointed Evan Chang. This is the latest in a series of developments that show social media powerhouse Facebook is considering blockchain technology integration.

Evan Chang was the head of Programmable Languages & Runtimes at Facebook for the past 3 years and is a well-respected computer programmer. He has been an advisor to blockchain projects and startups including Zilliqa and ChainLink. He will be joining a team led by David Marcus that is exploring how to best leverage blockchain technology across Facebook’s platform that was announced in May 2018. David Marcus is the former head of the Facebook messenger app, and under his guidance, its user base exploded to over 1 billion people. He is also on the Board of Directors of Coinbase — one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges headquartered in the United States.

Facebook recently created yet another blockchain position, VP of Product Blockchain, and appointed Kevin Weil who was formerly Instagram’s VP of Product. As can be seen, Facebook is appointing high-level employees with powerful skillsets to blockchain positions, which indicates they are taking blockchain technology seriously. Seems like it is only a matter of time until Facebook puts blockchain technology into operational use.

Launched in 2004, Facebook is headquartered in the United States and is the world’s largest social media platform with 2.2 billion active users as of January 2018. Facebook’s income was USD 40 billion in 2017, and its stock has a market cap of USD 575 billion as of this writing on 6 July 2018. This is 5 times Bitcoin’s market cap of USD 114 billion. When Facebook inevitably implements blockchain technology it is expected to spread the new technology to more people than ever before.

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FOMO Moments

Crypto land is sideways but Tezos is out on top, Qtum and Binance Coin also doing well.

As we enter the weekend crypto markets are up a little and have held off further selling pressure. Total market capitalization is holding just below $270 billion and Bitcoin has been consolidating for a few days. At the moment it is trading 1.3% higher on the day at $6,660 while Ethereum is up 2% to a little over $470. The altcoins are a mixed bag but some are posting very strong gains at the moment and among them is Tezos which is leading the fomo charge this Saturday.

According to Coinmarketcap Tezos is up 35% on the day trading at $1.73 from $1.16 this time yesterday. Over the week the trade price has plunged over 60% from $4.4 this time last weekend and larger losses have occurred over the past month. Against Bitcoin XTZ has climbed 32% on the day to 26000 satoshis from 18000 sats this time yesterday. On the week though Tezos has lost 62% against Bitcoin falling from 70000 satoshis this time last Saturday.

Current momentum for Tezos is still coming from the long awaited betanet launch a few days ago. The team have been busy promoting the project and drumming up interest;

Watch @ArthurB provide a development update (the first since the betanet launch) and share some of his ideas for future protocol implementations. We would love to hear what the Tezos community is excited to build! https://t.co/UCQS96YUrG #tezos #tezosbetanet https://t.co/8RllWLE59s

— Tezos (@tez0s) July 5, 2018

As a result Tezos screamed into the top 25 on June 5 with a market cap of $1.2 billion. Since then it has fallen back to just over $1 billion which ranks it at 19^th.

Tezos is only traded on Gate.io and HitBTC which is quite remarkable given its progress since launch. There are 763 million XTZ supplied with 607 million circulating. Trade volume has declined over the past 24 hours from $13 million to just below $10 million.

Over the past day total crypto market capitalization has climbed 2.3% to $269 billion. Trade volume however has fallen from $16 billion to $12 billion indicating that further declines could be imminent. Other altcoins performing well at the moment include Binance Coin up 6%, Qtum climbing 8%, and Bitcoin Gold rising 6.5%. Loom Network, Pundi X and Polymath are all up double figures also.

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Europe’s largest trader of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) is moving into crypto in the face of criticism by Dutch Authorities, according to Bloomberg, opening the door for a Bitcoin ETF. This will lead the way for institutional money to turn the crypto market around and set new heights.

First European Bitcoin ETF Looking Likely

Even though Dutch Authorities expressed their disapproval over the move by Flow Traders NV, they are powerless to stop them. They are not able to prevent firms from trading regulated assets on a regulated exchange. The Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) also failed to understand that many traders consider cryptocurrencies as crypto assets regardless of their ability to function as currencies.

“We discourage activities in cryptos both by consumers and professional license holders. By virtue of its newness and the anonymity it potentially offers, it is very prone to abuse. Given its inability to serve the promised purpose as a currency, we don’t regard it to be an asset class,” said Nienke Torensma, a spokeswoman for the AFM, in a statement.

A key point raised at events during London Tech Week was that high-profile individuals, including regulators and investors, prefer using the term crypto assets. This reflects the view that currently, cryptocurrencies are not reliable stores of value and that many of them are not designed to function as currencies but more as commodities or assets. The G-20 also referred to them as such.

The move by FlowTraders will solidify the reputation in the financial world that crypto assets are ready to be traded and can offer traders substantial increases in gains due to higher volatility. Investment managers have said that institutional investors are waiting for one company to be the first to step into the market before they follow and this will lead to a snowball effect.

The Coinbase UK CEO Zeeshan Feroz told NewsBTC in an interview that they have had a huge interest in Coinbase Custody by institutional investors. Since the platform was launched, ten investors have already signed up to the service that has minimum deposit requirements of $10 million. This implies that $100 million is in their platform ready to move into the crypto market.

Previous estimates have put the price of Bitcoin between $26,000 and $44,000 once a Bitcoin ETF is introduced to the market. While it might appear that there is a lot of money in the market, a study by JPMorgan held that only $6 billion had entered the industry by February 2017 when the total market cap was $300 billion. Considering that there is a huge amount of money waiting on the sidelines in Tether, custody platforms have already begun and that a Bitcoin ETF is around the corner, these Bitcoin price estimates seem very moderate.

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