An altcoins correlation to Bitcoin, the worlds largest cryptocurrency, can be both a boon or a bane. While the case of 12 March was a definite bane for the larger crypto-market, Bitcoins recent surge past the $7k-mark was definitely a boon for the markets many altcoins, including the likes of Ethereum, Chainlink, and Basic Attention Token.

Ethereum [ETH]

Ethereum, the worlds largest altcoin, was one of the key beneficiaries of the aforementioned price surge, with ETH close to the much-anticipated $190 mark, at the time of writing. However, it should be noted that ETHs gains werent limited to just the past few days, with the token having recorded 22.5% in gains over the last 10 days.

And while ETH was still a long way from its highs in mid-February, the YTD returns of the worlds second-largest cryptocurrency were back on the positive side.

The markets bullish health was highlighted by the cryptos technical indicators. While the Parabolic SARs dotted markers were observed to be below the price candles on the charts, the Chaikin Money Flow suggested rising capital inflows into the ETH market.

While ecosystem developments have been slow to come by off-late, Ethereum was in the news after a court in China recently ruled that Ethereum is protected by law as legal property with economic value, something that comes as good news after Weiss Crypto Ratings announced that 10th ranked Tezos was powered by better technology than the likes of Bitcoin or Ethereum.

Chainlink [LINK]

Chainlink, the 11th ranked cryptocurrency on CoinMarketCaps charts, was one of the best performing cryptos of 2019. However, it would seem that LINK has carried forward its 2019 performance into the new year too.

At the time of writing, LINK had recorded gains of over 12% over the past 5 days, with the tokens press time price of $3.87 touching its mid-February levels. In fact, unlike other alts in the market, LINK was very close to touching its 2020 high, a level last set right before the crash in March.

This was evidenced by the tokens indicators. While the expanding Bollinger Bands accounted for the tokens price volatility, the MACD line was well above the signal line and pointed to a bullish market.

On the development front, Chainlink has been busy too with its association with a new project called the Baseline Protocol. Such announcements have been crucial to LINK outperforming many, including Bitcoin, over the past month.

Basic Attention Token [BAT]

The BAT projects native token has been slow to recover its losses following the market crash of 12-13th March. In fact, despite over a month having gone by, BATs press time price of $0.17 was still closer to its support level, than its resistance at $0.32.

However, like other alts, BAT too piggybacked on Bitcoins price surge, with the token having recorded 8.49% in gains over the past 5 days.

Interestingly, the slight improvement in price-performance had little impact on the tokens technical as while the Awesome Oscillator continued to demonstrate minimal momentum in the market, the Relative Strength Index had stabilized between the oversold and overbought zones, following a brief uptick.

See the article here:
Chainlink, Ethereum lead altcoin recovery effort as BAT stalls - AMBCrypto English

During the crypto hype cycle and asset bubble that formed in late 2017, everyone jumped on the cryptocurrency bandwagon and scrambled to launch altcoins designed to power a specific industry or category.

To celebrate the current 420-day holiday taking place across the globe, were looking back at a small subset of altcoins that went completely up in smoke when the bubble eventually popped.

Theres an altcoin token out there for just about everything imaginable. Theres a TrumpCoin and a PutinCoin even a Putin Classic. There was a Diet Bitcoin, launched by Pablo Escobars brother.

Everyone has heard of DogeCoin, and theres even a token straight-up called Useless Ethereum Token, complete with full disclosure that the coins are completely useless tokens. The token sale sold out completely.

For a short duration during peak crypto hype bubble, more altcoins were created with more serious tones, aimed at powering a specific industry, such as dentistry with DentaCoin, or the pornography industry with SpankChain, WankCoin, or the Vice Industry Token.

RELATED READING | TRUMP PUMP! POTCOIN SURGES 20% AS UNOFFICIAL NORTH KOREA SUMMIT SPONSOR

During the same timeframe, across North America, more and more US states and Canadian provinces began legalizing recreational marijuana, causing a massive surge in interest and growth in the sector.

Pot stocks caught fire, and projects were launched for crypto tokens that would eventually underpin these industries as the backbone. PotCoin, CannabisCoin, HempCoin, DopeCoin, and others were all created out of thin air and launched for investors to take a position in.

PotCoin was among the first cannabis-industry focused tokens to experience success. During the bubble, the crypto asset went on a roll from $0.001 per token to over $0.40 at the all-time high. Investors in the cannabis crypto were feeling just as high, for one reason or another.

Since that high was set, the altcoin went completely up in smoke. And so did other marijuana-focused altcoins.

PotCoin, CananbisCoin, HempCoin, DopeCoin, Cannation, Paragon, BlazerCoin, and all of the other pot-related crypto coins, have all fallen over 90% or more from their all-time highs. Some have lost as much as 99.9% of their valuations, leaving investors burnt out.

RELATED READING | BITCOIN TOO SLOW FOR CANNABIS INDUSTRY UNTIL BLOCK SIZE CHANGES

Markets are cyclical, and while its possible that these altcoins eventually make a comeback, time has shown that many industries dont need a crypto token, and has since revealed that any projects designed to serve such purposes werent well thought through business proposals, and are completely unnecessary.

Most will never recover anywhere close to their all-time high prices, even though the marijuana industry is thriving and growing rapidly thanks to widespread legalization across the world, and an expanding acceptance as a recreational drug and medical treatment alternative.

Read the rest here:
420 Day in Crypto: Remembering the Class of Altcoins That Went Up in Smoke - Bitcoinist

Bitcoin halving is considered to be a potential catalyst for an increasing Bitcoin price. However, this years halving event cannot be compared to past halvings as the market has matured more significantly according to some experts such as Binance founder Changpeng Zhao. What is certain is that the reward per block mined will be reduced from 12.5 to 6.25 Bitcoin, which means that Bitcoin miners can expect significant sales losses.

If the Bitcoin price rises, driven by the halving, then altcoins such as XRP and Litecoin could also benefit in the long term. A recently published study by Binance shows that the correlation between Bitcoin and the Altcoin market remains strong. Ether (ETH), Dash, Ripple (XRP), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Monero (XMR) and EOS show the highest correlation with a rate between 74% and 82%.

The Ethereum price, with 82%, shows the highest correlation with Bitcoin within the last 3 months. Furthermore, Bitcoin is tradable against almost all altcoins, so that there is a further dependency, although the available trading pairs with Fiat currencies and other altcoins continue to increase. Bitcoins market capitalization is more than half of the total crypto market (64.1%), so price movements of Bitcoin have always had a significant impact on the altcoin market.

Pierce Crosby, Managing Director of Trading View, describes that Bitcoin and the altcoin market have always been strongly correlated:

Everything correlates to Bitcoin, much like in the U.S. equity market, everything correlates to the U.S. dollar. Bitcoin is the largest store of wealth for the asset class, so everything is basically pegged against its overall performance.

Van de Poppe, a full-time trader on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, explains that Bitcoin and Ethereum, as well as all Ethereum-based cryptocurrencies, have the highest correlation with Bitcoin:

The reason is quite simple; the king of movers are Ethereum and Bitcoin and still, the majority of the ICOs are based on Ethereum. So when Ethereum moves, they usually follow. The same goes for the IEOs. If Binance Coin trends up, they usually follow.

Nevertheless, there are times when BTC and ETH show a rather lower correlation, as ThreeArrows CEO Su Zhu described in a recent tweet.

The financial economist and well-known Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff says that the halving of Bitcoin is bullish for the price, but some speculators may use the time of the upswing to realize profits and thus build up selling pressure:

As its universally regarded as being bullish, lots of speculators have already bought. This risks a huge sell the fact, as those hoping to cash in, cash out.

Ripple CTO David Schwartz replied that he disagrees completely, as it makes no sense that the bearish selling pressure is not yet priced in:

Youre saying the halvings bullish affect on supply is priced in but the bearish sell pressure after it isnt? The reverse seems much more plausible to me, and yet still pretty implausible.

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Last Updated on 15 April, 2020

Originally posted here:
Bitcoin Halving: Can Ripple (XRP), Litecoin and other altcoins benefit? - Crypto News Flash

Lets talk about the way the mainstream media talk about digital assets. A recent article we saw from a Forbes contributor about the Chainlink token highlighted some of the problems that have led the public to misunderstand Bitcoin, and naive investors to lose their savings.

The problems arent just with the way media articles presents information, but also with the infrastructure that supports it. There are exchanges who trade tokens alongside Bitcoin and other native blockchain assets, and data sites that list and compare them as if theyre the same thing.

The article was titled This Bitcoin Challenger Is Suddenly Soaring And Fast Approaching Its All-Time High Price. However this isnt a unique example; there have been thousands of articles like this over the years.

You can probably see a few problems in the headline already. First, theres yet another reference to a Bitcoin challenger (of which there have been thousands now). Then theres the focus on price, and an implied call to jump in before its too late. But first, lets clear up the tokens/assets issue.

Bitcoin, altcoins and tokens

Bitcoin, altcoins and tokens are all digital assets, but there are big differences in what they are, what theyre intended for, and what they do. Theres nothing inherently wrong with tokens, but not knowing the difference is one of the reasons digital assets have gained such a bad reputation in investor circles.

The digital asset space includes Bitcoin, altcoins, and tokens. Bitcoin is the first and only legitimate asset hereits the only one capable of scaling to meet the entire worlds demands. And when we say Bitcoin, we mean BSV.

An altcoin is a digital asset that is not Bitcoin, but is still the native asset on its blockchain. Even these assets differ: only those based on proof-of-work (POW) transaction processing contain the necessary economic incentives in their protocols to function effectively. Those based on proof-of-stake (POS) or hybrid POW/POS processing algorithms have warped incentives and are open to manipulation.

Tokens are another thing entirely. They exist as smart contracts on another blockchainfor example, ERC20 standard tokens on Ethereum, EOS or similar. Their ownership can be transferred or traded like any asset, and the records of such recorded on a blockchain, but their nature makes them fundamentally different to Bitcoin and altcoins. If the base blockchain fails for some reason, so do all the contracts and tokens that live on it.

Then there are assets that are native on their protocols, but use a different non-blockchain-based system entirely. The best known examples of this are Ripple XRP and Stellar Lumens.

Chainlinks tradeable asset is called Link, and its a token based on an Ethereum contract. So its clear that Link, whatever its utility, is no Bitcoin challenger as it depends on Ethereum to exist. Tether (USDT), the popular stablecoin nominally (but not actually) backed by actual USD reserves, is actually a number of different tokens living on multiple blockchains.

(Some) tokens are OK

As mentioned above, theres nothing inherently wrong with the concept of tokens. The problems arise when theyre presented as something equal to Bitcoin or other native blockchain assets, and/or traded as speculative assets regardless of their actual utility.

The Forbes article mentions: Chainlinks recent gains have also been attributed to the worlds largest bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange by volume, Binance. Binance, and other similar exchanges, became popular by listing hundreds, if not thousands of tokens alongside Bitcoin. Market data sites usually compare their prices, market caps and trading volumes as one big list without any explanation of the difference. These practices have led to speculative bubbles, price pumps and money-losing drops like the ICO frenzy of 2017-18.

For the record, were not suggesting Chainlink itself is a bad idea, or that the Link token has no value or utility. Its a decentralized oracle network that facilitates connectivity through the use of external adapters, which connect oracles to any API endpoint. This would allow smart contracts of any kind to hook into data sources, extending their functionality.

In fact, developers at Google Cloud have built trial demonstrations with Chainlink, using its nodes to listen for API calls, execute the job requested, and make payments to the source. Google Cloud Developer Advocate Allen Day wrote that Chainlink could be used in prediction markets, hedging against blockchain platform risk, and enabling commit/reveals across Ethereum using submarine sends.

It could be a pretty useful and feasible projectif it lived in Bitcoin BSV. Unless its capable of migrating at some stage, it could face future issues with Ethereums scalability and the uncertainty surrounding its protocol.

Dont worry about all that, just pump the price

The Forbes article we saw, written by a crypto and blockchain contributor, devotes only two lines to what Chainlink actually doesand only mentions the Google trials briefly in its final sentence.

The rest of the article is devoted to the Link tokens price, percentage gains, and comparisons to BTCs price performance in the past few months. Its a strange parallel to draw, given the two assets are completely different things, but its clear where the authors priorities lie and what hed like readers to do.

Poor communication of the differences in digital asset type, structure, purpose, and utility has caused all of them to be mislabeled cryptocurrencies. It has led many an uninformed investor to leap blindly into the ocean of unregulated exchanges, with a false belief that a Bitcoin challenger is ready to roll, and that buying in is the path to quick riches.

Usually it isntwithout that knowledge, its more like an invitation to stay holding an expensive yet worthless bag long after all the speculators have moved on to the next target. Unfortunately, mainstream media sites use their famous brands to draw traffic and dollars, feeding the speculation beast another meal.

Exchanges and data sites could help by listing public proof-of-work assets separately to proof-of-stake ones, and tokens on their own platform. But since their income depends on not highlighting these differences, we wont hold our breath waiting for current offerings to do that.

Only Bitcoin BSV can provide the scalability and stability future utility tokens will need to serve enterprise-class applications. The tokens themselves need to be useful, and trading should be only for usage, not price pumping. And if they havent already learned the hard way, readers would be better served if they paid attention to trusted news written by experienced blockchain reporters. These articles will at least examine the technology and wont try to sell anything.

New to Bitcoin? Check out CoinGeeksBitcoin for Beginnerssection, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about Bitcoinas originally envisioned by Satoshi Nakamotoand blockchain.

Original post:
Why tokens are not the same thing as Bitcoin - CoinGeek

Source: Coinnarketcap

As dogecoin was suffering price consolidation since the past week, on the 7day-weekly chart it started with the price level of $0.0018 and had a top price level of $0.0020. This price level is proving to provide key resistance to Shiba Inu. However, the market forces provided dogecoin a needed positive boost for breaking the resistance level of $0.0020.

The current price is at the level of $0.002034 with the market capitalization of $250,486,942 and volume traded of $163,545,377. The current circulating supply is 124,654,460,995 DOGE.

The short-term prediction for dogecoin isbullish.The only barrier for the altcoin will be the resistance level of $0.0023. It showed its potential at the starting of February when it crossed the resistance level of $0.0030 and touched its year-high of $0.0035.

Source: Tradingview

Thedogecoin price chartreflects on the bearish momentum build by Shiba Inu from the starting of March. The downtrend was very significant for the altcoin which can be easily noticed in the graph.

DOGE is facing price consolidation between the price range of $0.0015 and $0.0020. The significant uptrend in yesterdays market was able to break the price bracket as the cryptoasset climbed to the price level of $0.0022.

The technical indicators and oscillators somewhat favor the bulls. The MACD levels have again reached the bullish zone after downtrending to the bearish zone. This is certainly a good indication for dogecoin holders

The 24hour- RSI is also showing positive nature and is about to reach a bullish level of 60. This also favors the bulls.

The CCI managed to have positive divergence avoiding the oversold region, which indicates that theres still some buying left for the altcoin in the market and theres time for profit booking stage among the investors.

Resistance Level: $0.0023 and $0.0025Support Level: $0.0015 and $0.0014

See the original post here:
Dogecoin Price Sustaining On $0.0020 Level With Overall Bullish Market - The Coin Republic