Mastodon

Lawyer: ShapeShift’s Membership Move Follows “Threats” From Regulators

News came yesterday that the Bitcoin exchange ShapeShift are introducing a new membership initiative — implying that users will have to provide more personal data in order to use the platform’s services. ShapeShift Announces Membership Program According to the company’s Tweet, which also contained a link to a more expansive definition of the new terms:

The post Lawyer: ShapeShift’s Membership Move Follows “Threats” From Regulators appeared first on NewsBTC.

News came yesterday that the Bitcoin exchange ShapeShift are introducing a new membership initiative — implying that users will have to provide more personal data in order to use the platform’s services.

ShapeShift Announces Membership Program

According to the company’s Tweet, which also contained a link to a more expansive definition of the new terms:

“ShapeShift has big news for our users! We are now offering a new membership program, which will provide users with more benefits & better user experience.”

As of now the registration is optional, but in the future it will become obligatory. The company positions the new initiative as a sort of loyalty program that will offer users additional benefits like favorable exchange rates and rewards for FOX token transactions.

ShapeShift’s CEO Erik Voorhees admits that the compulsory registration is a painful but necessary measure, dictated by the unclear regulatory landscape:

“Yes, that last detail sucks. We would prefer if the collection of personal information were not a mandatory element. We still firmly believe that individuals, regardless of their race, religion, or nationality, deserve the right to financial privacy, just as they deserve the right to privacy in their thoughts, in their relationships, and in their communications. Such privacy is a foundational element of civil and just society and should be defended by all good people. We remain committed to that cause, and it is best served if we are smart about our approach.”

Response in Crypto Community

In response to this news, Washington D.C.-based lawyer Jake Chervinsky stated that the moves have in fact been fueled by yet unidentified regulators, saying ShapeShifts’s decision to start collection user’s personal information is in response to threats perceived by financial authorities, and that, “in short, this is how regulators silently invade crypto.”

He begins by pointing to the fact that Voorhees is “a true bitcoiner who speaks passionately about financial privacy & separating money from state.” And adds that enforcement agencies rely heavily on financial surveillance, saying that the concept of anonymous cryptocurrency exchanges and transactions is a “nightmare for regulators & investigators.”

One of his Tweet’s read:

“Our financial system is expressly designed to give the government maximum insight into our financial behavior. To that end, most financial institutions have to perform customer due diligence and share information with regulators. We call this “know your customer” (KYC).”

He followed up by saying:

“Now, I’m *not* saying that I think ShapeShift qualifies as a money services business or that it’s legally obligated to perform KYC. But, I *am* guessing that FinCEN (or another agency) has threatened ShapeShift with an enforcement action if it doesn’t start to comply.”

In the end, Chervinsky reiterates that the announcement is not a sign that Voorhees has “sold out,” but instead places blame on regulatory authorities, saying that “[the government’s] fingerprints are all over this decision.” As of yet, no government agencies have made any official statements regarding ShapeShift’s moves.

That, Chervinsky says, “is just how regulation works.” A few hours ago Voorhees tweeted;

 

Image from Shutterstock

The post Lawyer: ShapeShift’s Membership Move Follows “Threats” From Regulators appeared first on NewsBTC.

ShapeShift Will No Longer Be Anonymous

The Founder and CEO of ShapeShift, Erik Voorhees, has announced that the exchange is launching a membership program and soon, anonymous trading will not be available. For years, ShapeShift has been an easy way for cryptocurrency users to convert cryptocurrency into other types of cryptocurrency. The process is efficient and completely anonymous, up to now …

The post ShapeShift Will No Longer Be Anonymous appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

The Founder and CEO of ShapeShift, Erik Voorhees, has announced that the exchange is launching a membership program and soon, anonymous trading will not be available.

For years, ShapeShift has been an easy way for cryptocurrency users to convert cryptocurrency into other types of cryptocurrency. The process is efficient and completely anonymous, up to now at least. The reason it was able to offer anonymous transactions is because it only offered crypto to crypto, with no fiat options.  Generally, in the past, customer information was only required for fiat to crypto transactions.

Cryptocurrency transactions are intrinsically immutable, meaning they can’t be reversed, so customer information is not needed by ShapeShift to prevent chargebacks. However, regulations on crypto exchanges have been increasing, and now apparently even crypto to crypto exchanges like ShapeShift have to collect know your customer (KYC) data to avoid getting in trouble with the government.

Collecting KYC data can help prevent money laundering, but simultaneously crypto users typically dislike their data being collected. This defeats one of the purposes of crypto, which is to be private and outside of government control. Many will feel that data collected on ShapeShift could be used later to open tax cases against customers.

It is likely that numerous crypto users will stop using ShapeShift due to this new KYC policy. Already BTCPay, a Bitcoin payment service, has said it is done using ShapeShift due to this policy change.

Aside from announcing the end of anonymity, ShapeShift has announced a membership program. It will be a tiered membership program where level 1 is free but for levels 2 through 5, increasing amounts of FOX coin must be held. FOX is a new Ethereum token that will be launched by ShapeShift soon.

 

Follow BitcoinNews.com on Twitter: @bitcoinnewscom

Telegram Alerts from BitcoinNews.com: https://t.me/bconews

Want to advertise or get published on BitcoinNews.com? – View our Media Kit PDF here.

Image Courtesy: Pixabay

The post ShapeShift Will No Longer Be Anonymous appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

Ripple Price Analysis: XRP/USD At Risk of More Losses

Key Highlights Ripple price declined sharply and broke the $0.3200 and $0.3000 support levels against the US dollar. This week’s followed key declining channel was breached with support near $0.3230 on the hourly chart of the XRP/USD pair (data source from Kraken). The pair even broke the $0.2800 support area and traded close to the

The post Ripple Price Analysis: XRP/USD At Risk of More Losses appeared first on NewsBTC.

Key Highlights

  • Ripple price declined sharply and broke the $0.3200 and $0.3000 support levels against the US dollar.
  • This week’s followed key declining channel was breached with support near $0.3230 on the hourly chart of the XRP/USD pair (data source from Kraken).
  • The pair even broke the $0.2800 support area and traded close to the $0.2600 level.

Ripple price declined heavily against the US Dollar and Bitcoin. XRP/USD is currently correcting higher, but upsides could be capped near $0.3000.

Ripple Price Decline

Recently, we were waiting for a downside correction towards the $0.3200 level in Ripple price against the US Dollar. The XRP/USD pair did trade lower and tested the $0.3200 support area. However, it seems like buyers failed to hold the $0.3200 support, resulting in more declines. There was a sharp downside move and the price dropped more than 15% below the $0.3000 level.

During the decline, this week’s followed key declining channel was breached with support near $0.3230 on the hourly chart of the XRP/USD pair. The pair even broke the $0.2800 support and settled below the 100 hourly simple moving average. It traded as low as $0.2672 and is currently correcting higher. It traded above the 23.6% fib retracement level of the last drop from the $0.3397 high to $0.2672 low. However, there are many hurdles on the upside near the $0.2900 and $0.3000 levels. Above $0.3000, the price could test the 50% fib retracement level of the last drop from the $0.3397 high to $0.2672 low at $0.3034.

Ripple Price Analysis XRP USD

Looking at the chart, ripple price is under a lot of pressure below $0.3000. Any recoveries from the current levels are likely to face sellers near $0.2900 and $0.3000. On the downside, the next major support is near the $0.2500 level.

Looking at the technical indicators:

Hourly MACD – The MACD for XRP/USD is currently reducing its bearish slope.

Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI for XRP/USD is well below the 40 level.

Major Support Level – $0.2500

Major Resistance Level – $0.3000

The post Ripple Price Analysis: XRP/USD At Risk of More Losses appeared first on NewsBTC.

Ethereum Price Analysis: ETH/USD Turned Super Bearish Below $240

Key Highlights ETH price declined heavily and broke the $260, $250 and $240 support levels against the US Dollar. This week’s followed crucial bearish trend line played well with resistance near $284 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD (data feed via Kraken). The pair traded close to the $200 level and it is currently correcting

The post Ethereum Price Analysis: ETH/USD Turned Super Bearish Below $240 appeared first on NewsBTC.

Key Highlights

  • ETH price declined heavily and broke the $260, $250 and $240 support levels against the US Dollar.
  • This week’s followed crucial bearish trend line played well with resistance near $284 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD (data feed via Kraken).
  • The pair traded close to the $200 level and it is currently correcting higher.

Ethereum price is under a lot of selling pressure against the US Dollar and bitcoin. ETH/USD may continue to slide towards the $200 level in the near term.

Ethereum Price Decline

There was yet another failure to break the $288-290 resistance zone in ETH price against the US Dollar. The ETH/USD pair reacted and declined sharply from the $288 swing high. The price tumbled and broke the $260, $250 and $240 support levels. The decline was very aggressive as the price even traded below the $225 level. Sellers pushed the price close to the $200 level and a new monthly low was formed at $209.

It seems like this week’s followed crucial bearish trend line played well with resistance near $284 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD. The pair is currently attempting a recovery from the $209 low, but it faces many hurdles on the upside. It is currently testing the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the last drop from the $291 high to $209 low. There is also a major bearish trend line on the same chart with resistance at $235. Above this, the price could test the 50% Fib retracement level of the last drop from the $291 high to $209 low at $250.

Ethereum Price Analysis ETH USD

Looking at the chart, ETH price is clearly under a lot of pressure below $240 and the 100 hourly simple moving average. It may recover in the short term, but it is likely to face sellers near $235 or $250.

Hourly MACD – The MACD is slowly reducing its bearish slope.

Hourly RSI – The RSI is currently well below the 30 level.

Major Support Level – $200

Major Resistance Level – $235

The post Ethereum Price Analysis: ETH/USD Turned Super Bearish Below $240 appeared first on NewsBTC.

Ethereum (ETH) Price Watch: Bears Back in the Game!

Ethereum Price Key Highlights Ethereum price tumbled below its symmetrical triangle consolidation previously highlighted. This signals that further losses are in the cards, possibly taking price down to the next long-term support around $150. Technical indicators also point to a continuation of the slide from here. Ethereum made a downside break from consolidation to confirm

The post Ethereum (ETH) Price Watch: Bears Back in the Game! appeared first on NewsBTC.

Ethereum Price Key Highlights

  • Ethereum price tumbled below its symmetrical triangle consolidation previously highlighted.
  • This signals that further losses are in the cards, possibly taking price down to the next long-term support around $150.
  • Technical indicators also point to a continuation of the slide from here.

Ethereum made a downside break from consolidation to confirm that bears are back to push price lower.

Technical Indicators Signals

The 100 SMA is below the longer-term 200 SMA to indicate that the path of least resistance is to the downside. In other words, the selloff is more likely to carry on than to reverse. The gap between the two has slightly narrowed, though, indicating a possible slowdown in selling pressure.

RSI is still heading south, though, so there may be some bearish momentum left. However, the oscillator is also dipping into oversold territory to reflect exhaustion. Turning back up could bring buyers in again.

Stochastic has more room to slide so sellers could stay in control for a bit longer before overdone conditions are seen. This might be enough to spur a test of the long-term floor or perhaps even a break lower.

ETH/USD Chart from TradingView

ETH/USD Chart from TradingView

Market Factors

Ethereum is officially trading at its lowest level in over a year as almost the entire cryptocurrency market is in the red. The decline is being blamed on Goldman Sachs’ decision to back out of its bitcoin trading desk plans, dampening the outlook for institutional interest. This also weighs on optimism for the bitcoin ETF applications awaiting the SEC ruling.

It doesn’t help that the anticipated launch of ethereum futures is also expected to weigh on prices, much like the launch of futures did for bitcoin. Furthermore, analysts’ forecasts have been less bullish on ethereum compared to other rivals like bitcoin and Monero, so traders might be moving funds there instead.

The post Ethereum (ETH) Price Watch: Bears Back in the Game! appeared first on NewsBTC.

Bitcoin Cash Price Analysis: BCH/USD Turned Sell on Rallies

Key Points Bitcoin cash price failed to clear the $650 resistance and dropped sharply against the US Dollar. There is a key bearish trend line forming with resistance at $525 on the hourly chart of the BCH/USD pair (data feed from Kraken). The pair is down more than $100 from highs and it turned sell

The post Bitcoin Cash Price Analysis: BCH/USD Turned Sell on Rallies appeared first on NewsBTC.

Key Points

  • Bitcoin cash price failed to clear the $650 resistance and dropped sharply against the US Dollar.
  • There is a key bearish trend line forming with resistance at $525 on the hourly chart of the BCH/USD pair (data feed from Kraken).
  • The pair is down more than $100 from highs and it turned sell on rallies near $525 and $550.

Bitcoin cash price dropped significantly below $550 against the US Dollar. BCH/USD is recovering, but it could face a lot of sellers near $525 and $550.

Bitcoin Cash Price Decline

Yesterday, we discussed an important resistance near $645 and $650 in bitcoin cash price against the US Dollar. The BCH/USD pair started a sharp downside move and declined more than $100 below $550. There was even a break below the $500 level and the price settled below the 100 hourly simple moving average. A low was formed near $485 and the price is currently correcting higher.

On the upside, an initial resistance is near the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the last decline from the $648 high to $485 low. There is also a key bearish trend line forming with resistance at $525 on the hourly chart of the BCH/USD pair. If the price breaks the trend line, it could trade towards the $550 resistance area. Above this, the next hurdle for buyers is near $565. It represents the 50% Fib retracement level of the last decline from the $648 high to $485 low. On the other hand, if the price fails to move above $525 and $550, it could drop again below $500.

Bitcoin Cash Price Analysis BCH USD

Looking at the chart, BCH price is under a lot of pressure and any recoveries are likely to be capped near $525, $530 or $550.

Looking at the technical indicators:

Hourly MACD – The MACD for BCH/USD is slowly recovering from the bearish zone.

Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI for BCH/USD is currently well below the 40 level.

Major Support Level – $500

Major Resistance Level – $525

The post Bitcoin Cash Price Analysis: BCH/USD Turned Sell on Rallies appeared first on NewsBTC.

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Watch: Sharp Tumble on Resistance Test, Goldman Sachs Update

Bitcoin Price Key Highlights Bitcoin price slumped below its short-term rising wedge after also hitting the resistance on a larger wedge formation. Price could set its sights on the long-term support around $5,800 to $6,000 from here. Technical indicators are still reflecting the presence of bullish pressure, though. Bitcoin price made a downside break from

The post Bitcoin (BTC) Price Watch: Sharp Tumble on Resistance Test, Goldman Sachs Update appeared first on NewsBTC.

Bitcoin Price Key Highlights

  • Bitcoin price slumped below its short-term rising wedge after also hitting the resistance on a larger wedge formation.
  • Price could set its sights on the long-term support around $5,800 to $6,000 from here.
  • Technical indicators are still reflecting the presence of bullish pressure, though.

Bitcoin price made a downside break from a short-term consolidation pattern and is setting its sights back on the long-term floor.

Technical Indicators Signals

The 100 SMA recently crossed above the longer-term 200 SMA to indicate that the path of least resistance is to the upside. This means that the uptrend is more likely to resume than to reverse. However, price has fallen below these moving average dynamic inflection points to signal a pickup in selling pressure.

RSI is pointing down to confirm that selling pressure is in play, but the oscillator has already hit oversold territory to signal exhaustion. It has yet to turn higher in order to indicate a return in bullish momentum.

Similarly stochastic is heading south so bitcoin price could follow suit, but it might also be indicating a bounce as it tests oversold levels. In that case, bitcoin could pull back to the nearby areas of interest at the moving averages or the broken wedge bottom.

BTCUSD Chart from TradingView

BTCUSD Chart from TradingView

Market Factors

The sharp drop is being pinned on reports that Goldman Sachs is backing out of its plans to create a bitcoin trading desk, leading many to doubt that other financial institutions could explore the same route. This also casts doubts on the SEC ruling for bitcoin ETF applications awaiting a decision by the end of the month.

Apart from that, reports that ShapeShift has added registration requirements appears to have accelerated the slide. This could wind up discouraging retail traders looking to make quick profits off the market and is leading some to worry that regulation could be kicking in.

The post Bitcoin (BTC) Price Watch: Sharp Tumble on Resistance Test, Goldman Sachs Update appeared first on NewsBTC.

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Watch: Sharp Tumble on Resistance Test, Goldman Sachs Update – newsBTC

newsBTCBitcoin (BTC) Price Watch: Sharp Tumble on Resistance Test, Goldman Sachs UpdatenewsBTCSimilarly stochastic is heading south so bitcoin price could follow suit, but it might also be indicating a bounce as it tests oversold levels. In that case, …


newsBTC

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Watch: Sharp Tumble on Resistance Test, Goldman Sachs Update
newsBTC
Similarly stochastic is heading south so bitcoin price could follow suit, but it might also be indicating a bounce as it tests oversold levels. In that case, bitcoin could pull back to the nearby areas of interest at the moving averages or the broken
Bitcoin prices sink 10% as cryptocurrencies suffer another sudden dropLivemint
Goldman Sachs Pivots From Bitcoin Trading Desk to Custody ServiceBitcoinist
Goldman Sachs is ditching near-term plans to open a bitcoin trading desk, instead focusing on a key business for …Business Insider
TNW –CNBC –Reuters
all 211 news articles »

Lightning Network Capacity Exceeds 100 Bitcoins

The capacity of the Bitcoin Lightning Network has grown to more than BTC 100 for the first time, with more than 12,000 active channels and 3,300 nodes. To put this in perspective, in January 2018, there were fewer than 100 Lightning Network channels, and in May there were over 6,600. Clearly, the network is rapidly …

The post Lightning Network Capacity Exceeds 100 Bitcoins appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

The capacity of the Bitcoin Lightning Network has grown to more than BTC 100 for the first time, with more than 12,000 active channels and 3,300 nodes.

To put this in perspective, in January 2018, there were fewer than 100 Lightning Network channels, and in May there were over 6,600. Clearly, the network is rapidly growing, a positive sign that it will eventually fulfill its goal of being a scalability solution for Bitcoin.

The Lightning Network is a layer 2 scalability solution for Bitcoin. It process Bitcoin transactions off chain, allowing for infinite transactions, versus the only 5-10 transactions per second possible on the Bitcoin blockchain. The Lightning Network achieves this by locking up Bitcoins in a smart contract when the channel is first opened, and then the Bitcoins locked up in the contract are disbursed when the channel is closed. This means each channel produces two on chain transactions, while there may be thousands or millions of transactions off-chain that occur in between.

Transactions sent with the Lightning Network have drastically reduced fees versus on chain transactions, since no mining resources are needed to send transactions on it. In general, all Lightning Network transactions cost far less than USD 0.01 in fees, and this is very important for scalability. For example, when more than 5-10 transactions per second are being submitted to the Bitcoin network on chain, it causes transaction fees to rapidly rise. This was seen at one point during 2018 when the fee for each Bitcoin transaction exceeded USD 50. Once Lightning Network is functioning properly this sort of problem will be a thing of the past, and Bitcoin will be able to scale to the size of Visa (thousands of transactions per second) and beyond.

It will take some time for all the bugs to be worked out of Lightning Network but eventually, it seems that it will offer the scalability that Bitcoin needs. It will be very important to track the evolution of Lightning Network’s capacity and channel numbers over time. These stats have to increase by several orders of magnitude for Lightning Network to become a true Bitcoin scalability solution.

 

Follow BitcoinNews.com on Twitter: @bitcoinnewscom

Telegram Alerts from BitcoinNews.com: https://t.me/bconews

Want to advertise or get published on BitcoinNews.com? – View our Media Kit PDF here.

Image Courtesy: Pixabay

The post Lightning Network Capacity Exceeds 100 Bitcoins appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Price Analysis: Still Bitcoin Cash is a Better Investment

Yesterday’s BTC mini crash is surely a blow to altcoins. In a 24 hour span, BCH recorded a 16 percent lose breaking below $600, crashing stops and confirming the bear break out pattern set by Aug 8 bears. That’s aside from signaling the completion of a retest phase and a probable ignition of the trend

The post Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Price Analysis: Still Bitcoin Cash is a Better Investment appeared first on NewsBTC.

Yesterday’s BTC mini crash is surely a blow to altcoins. In a 24 hour span, BCH recorded a 16 percent lose breaking below $600, crashing stops and confirming the bear break out pattern set by Aug 8 bears. That’s aside from signaling the completion of a retest phase and a probable ignition of the trend resumption stage that could drive prices towards $300. All in all, on chain developments and BTC whale shorts aren’t supportive of BCH.

From the Market

The cryptocurrency bug is spreading and as a solution that is specifically designed to replace government issued currencies, it is slowly but surely sinking their roots deeper in economies whose citizens have to contend with life-savings wiping hyper-inflation. Most of these economies are facing tough sanctions from Uncle Sam pushing innocent citizens to the edge. It’s in this desperation that they find cryptocurrencies as Bitcoin Cash a safe haven.

Bitcoin Cash fits the bill perfectly and going by arguments between the two rivaling groups—nChain and Bitcoin ABC, both want to fulfill Satoshi’s objectives. This means their overall goal is to steer BCH into the medium of exchange route and not a store of value like BTC. This inevitably means making hard choices.

Some of them include implementations of infinite block size increment and reactivation of several operation codes to make the network scalable and settle transaction fast—partly why there is zero config argument in place. Though it is getting personal, after Craig Wright—who is regarded as faketoshi—blocked Roger Ver in Twitter, it shows how there is decentralization of development power in the network.

Statistics shows that BCH enjoy widespread use in Venezuela, Iran and Cyprus– where Roger earlier mentioned how thousands of merchants plan to support BCH in by November of this year. His video comments were days after the pro-Satoshi protocol introduced the first Bitcoin Cash support network in the country. This on top of Roger Ver re-assertions that BCH is better investment than BTC.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Technical Analysis

Weekly Chart

There was a glimpse of bulls in an already bearish market after last week’s. After printing a nice three bar bullish reversal pattern, the morning star, at around our main support trend line at $600, many were expecting a confirmation of that bullish move.

Further steeling this projection is week ending Aug 19 high volume doji candlestick and the consequent higher highs one week later. However, looking at the chart, it appears that Bitcoin Cash bulls don’t stand a chance perfectly fitting in a contrarian move that would see prices dip rather than rise towards our main support and bear target level at $600. So far, bears have fully recovered last week’s gains triggering stops in the process.

Daily Chart

Of interest in our Bitcoin Cash analysis is not yesterday’s flash loss that saw BCH lose 16 percent in a matter of hours after retesting $600. It’s Aug 8 bear candlestick and from our BCH trade plan iterations, our conservative longs largely depended on strong close above $600. After Sep 1 bullish engulfing candlestick, our longs were triggered only to be hit yesterday.

Nevertheless, the overall trend and volumes behind yesterday’s move makes this counter trend move worthy now that sellers are back after a brief correction in a deep eight month move. We propose selling at spot rates with stops at $600 and targets at $300 now that the third phase of a bear break out candlestick is live.

Disclaimer: This is not investment advice and views represent that of the author. Do your own research before making an investment decision.

The post Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Price Analysis: Still Bitcoin Cash is a Better Investment appeared first on NewsBTC.