Category Archives: Altcoin

Altcoin Dominance Rising: Ethereum Leads, XRP and Litecoin Lag – Crypto Briefing

Altcoin dominance broke above a significant resistance level, suggesting a further advance. The upswing could indicate the beginning of a new altseason.

At the peak of the 2017-18 bull market, altcoins were able to dominate over 67% of the entire cryptocurrency market capitalization. However, the last two years have throttled altcoin market share.

In early September 2019, altcoin dominance hit a low of 29%. Since then, an ascending triangle started forming on its 1-day chart. The altcoin price action shows a horizontal line across the swing highs and a rising trendline around the swing lows.

Earlier this month, altcoin dominance broke out of this continuation pattern, signaling the beginning of a new altseason. By measuring the height of the triangle, at its thickest point, and adding it to the breakout point, this technical formation estimates a 16% target to the upside. If validated, altcoins could soon capture 40% share of the entire cryptocurrency market.

A look at Bitcoins dominance chart suggests that such a bullish scenario for altcoins is more likely.

Bitcoin dominance has been contained within an ascending parallel channel since the beginning of 2018. Since then, every time it hits the top of the channel, it retraces to the middle or the bottom. Conversely, when it reaches the lower boundary of the channel, it surges to the middle or the upper boundary.

After moving within this pattern for over two years, Bitcoin dominance broke the lower boundary of the channel in late January 2020. According to 45-years trading veteran Peter Brandt, there is a tendency when you draw a parallel line equal to the distance of the height of the channel.

Under this premise, Bitcoin dominance could run into significant support just under 59%. This is also where the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement level sits at.

Altcoins capturing greater market share could also be why multiple bearish signals have been invalidated, allowing the market to continue rising.

In a recent article, Crypto Briefing explained that Ethereum was bound for a correction based on several technical patterns. The TD sequential indicator, for instance, was presenting a sell signal in the form of a green nine on ETHs 1-day. The bearish formation estimated a one to four candlestick correction before the continuation of the bullish trend.

Along the same lines, a bearish divergence between the price of Ether and the Relative Strength Index (RSI) added credence to the pessimistic outlook. However, demand for this cryptocurrency increased, pushing its price up and invalidating the bearish signs along the way.

Now, Michal van de Poppe, a full time trader based in Amsterdam, believes that Ethereum is currently creating a higher high, just like Bitcoin did with the $14,000 move. The analyst maintains that if ETH is able to turn the $220 resistance level into support it could aim for $360 as [the] next major resistance.

Whether or not we clear it in one go (or consolidate for a few weeks) doesnt matter that much, I think were breaking it pretty soon. Going towards $360 would be the next test. Clearing $360 and we aim $500 and $600, said Van de Poppe.

Nevertheless, van de Poppe added that failing to flip the $220 resistance level could trigger a correction. If this happens, he expects a retest of the $193 support level. Following the recent upswing, a correction could be essential to maintain a healthy uptrend before its continuation, explained van de Poppe.

While Ethereum continues climbing higher, XRP and Litecoin have not enjoyed the same type of bullish momentum. In fact, XRP went up just 8% and Litecoin increased 11% since Feb. 5. During that time span, Ether surged just under 20%.

Now, XRP seems to be preparing for a retracement to the middle or the lower boundary of the ascending channel where it has been contained since mid-December 2019. Meanwhile, LTC is consolidating as the moving average convergence divergence, or MACD, is starting to turn bearish on its 12-hour chart.

It is uncertain whether Ethereum will continue surging without a retracement over the next few days. What it is known is that the altcoins dominance chart looks bullish and the Bitcoin dominance chart looks bearish. This could imply an invalidation of the bearish signals seen on XRP and LTC.

However, the Crypto Fear and Greed Index (CFGI) continues sensing high levels of greed among market participants, which is a negative sign. Recently, the CFGI hit a value of 61, which represents greed. The last time this fundamental index was this high was in August 2019, when it was at 66. During that time, the altcoins dominance fell 18%.

Time will tell whether altcoins will continue to enjoy the bullish impulse they have seen since mid-December 2019. Based on the recent price action, it appears that any retracement from now on could serve as an opportunity to let sideliners back into the market. A new inflow of capital would likely push the altcoins higher to finally reach a 40% market share.

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Altcoin Dominance Rising: Ethereum Leads, XRP and Litecoin Lag - Crypto Briefing

Crypto Market Has All Signs of an Explosive Altcoin Season Brewing – newsBTC

Altcoins are not dead.

The alternative crypto markets explosive $56 billion-rise this year has left skeptics confused. Native tokens of controversial blockchain projects like Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV have swelled by 130 and 280 percent, respectively. An under-developed Ethereum has notched up 95 percent.

Meanwhile, XRP, whose long-term holders accused its issuing company Ripple of crashing the token, is trading 54 percent higher. EOS, facing criticism for having excessive control over its so-called decentralized blockchain, is also up by more than 100 percent.

Crypto Market Cap (Excluding Bitcoin) | Source: TradingView.com

In total, there are more than 5,000 crypto tokens that have suddenly woken up to deliver twofold and in some cases, threefold gains.

At the same time, the original cryptocurrency bitcoin appears dwarfed. The Satoshi Nakamotos brainchild is up by just 46 percent despite its growing prominence as a safe-haven asset on Wall Street.

So it appears, altcoins are attracting capital from two markets: one denominated in bitcoin, and the other in the US dollar.

All the leading cryptos have logged extensive gains against bitcoin lately thanks to liquidity offered by hundreds of big and small crypto exchanges around the world. Apparently, that has inflated altcoins prices in dollar markets, making it even more attractive for institutional investors or venture capitalists that are willing to increase their risk appetite.

The reason is Coronavirus. The epidemic in China has taken more than 1,000 lives and has infected more than 40,000 people across the world. It has also left a dent on global equity markets, leading investors to search for havens elsewhere.

As a result, gold is maintaining gains even against a stronger US dollar, equities helped by easing policies are moving up, and bitcoin an offbeat asset in the eyes of many Wall Street veterans is also going up.

Mati Greenspan, the founder of Quantum Economics, said in an interview with BlockTV that investors are seeking to invest in riskier assets that can yield more returns in a shorter span of time. That is the same reason why Bitcoin, whose volatility lately neared to its historic low, is underperforming against rival cryptos.

The evidence of that is the altcoin season, said Mr. Greenspan. Altcoins are outperforming bitcoin consistently on a day-to-day basis pretty much since the beginning of this year [] It means investors are looking to take risks, which is pretty much different from safe-haven trading.

Noted analyst GalaxyBTC today said that a bitcoin correction next could cause a hysterical price pump across the altcoin market.

His comments followed bitcoins move towards $10,500 this Wednesday which has made the cryptocurrency most overbought since December 2017. Full-time crypto trader CryptoHamster additionally noted that there is no clean high on short-term bitcoin charts, adding that the cryptocurrency could correct.

Without a continuation of the growth, some bearish divergencies could have a chance to be formed. If it happens, a new [bitcoin] correction would start very likely, he tweeted.

That has left altcoins waiting for their next explosive move upward.

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Crypto Market Has All Signs of an Explosive Altcoin Season Brewing - newsBTC

Ethereum Price (ETH) Has Surged 92% in 2020 With Targets Set on $300 – Cointelegraph

For the second time in two weeks, Ether price (ETH) has notched a new 2020 high. This time the surge from $217.83 to $253.79 occurred as Bitcoins (BTC) price reversed course from $9,700s and rallied to a new high at $10,346.83.

As Bitcoin rallied on Feb. 12, many altcoins pulled back in their BTC pairs but Ether succeeded in holding on to its gains and currently registers a 14.3% gain.

Crypto market daily price chart. Source: Coin360

Generally, investors are feeling bullish about the crypto markets future prospects. But while Bitcoin appears set for continuation higher, news that the scammers behind the PlusToken crypto Ponzi scheme transferred 12,423 BTC to new wallet address is sure to raise an eyebrow with some investors.

PeckShield Inc. co-founder and VP of research, Chiachih Wu said that the coins were likely deposited to a series of cold wallet addresses and Twitter user Sue Zhu explained that:

Plus Token coins are on the move again, but more importantly, are now being split into smaller amounts vs the single output transfers from a few hours ago.

While investors should try and not be too heavily impacted by random news from Twitter, in 2019 the PlusToken scammers regularly liquidated massive amounts of Bitcoin and Ether on spot exchanges, causing the price to drop significantly.

2020 crypto market price chart. Source: Coin360

All FUD aside, the market is in a strong bullish trend with large and small-cap cryptocurrencies producing impressive gains. Since the start of 2020, Bitcoins value has risen by 47.86%, Ether gained 92.39% and XRP has rebounded with a 53.29% gain.

Ether price as % of Bitcoin price chart. Source: Skew Analytics

Data from Skew Markets also shows that Ethers price as a percentage of Bitcoin price recently rising to 2.3%, a high not seen since July 2019 when the percentage was around 2.5% and ETH traded for $364.

Lets take a look at the charts to see what might be next for Ether.

The bulls continue to press Ether price higher allow the altcoin to reach the first take profit (TP) level at $240, which was the target focused on in the previous analysis.

Traders are now focused on setting a higher high above $270 but the volume gap on the volume profile visible range (VPVR) shows that its entirely possible for Ether to rally to $280 on a high volume spike. Despite this possibility, a TP target has been set at $270.

ETH USD daily chart. Source: TradingView

Traders will notice an impending golden cross between the 200-day and 50-day moving average on the daily time frame. Typically the 50-MA converging with the 200-MA is interpreted as a strong buy signal by investors.

In the event that Ether is able to continue to $270, TP is at $300 which is right below a high volume node on the VPVR.

Currently, the relative strength index (RSI) is rising to 84 which is in the overbought zone and the moving average convergence divergence, or MACD, continues to rise higher as the histogram shows an increase in momentum.

On the shorter timeframe, we can see that purchasing volume continues to increase and the set up for Ether remains bullish.

ETH USD 6-hour chart. Source: TradingView

At some point traders will take profit, leading larger-cap cryptos like Bitcoin and Ether to lose some momentum over the short-term. Such a pause would likely lead Ether price to revisit the 23.6% Fibonacci retracement at $227. This point aligns with the support at $230, the Bollinger Band indicators moving average and a high volume node on the VPVR.

Below this level, there appears to be strong support at $226 and $222. If the price drops below the lower Bollinger Band arm ($210.66) then a drop to the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement at $191.77 could occur but given the technical strength of Bitcoin and Ethers recent moves, this seems an unlikely scenario.

ETHBTC daily chart. Source: TradingView

The ETH/BTC pair has also been on a tear lately, with the 50 and 200-MA on the verge of a golden cross and the price looks ready to extend to 0.02530 satoshis.

Similar to the ETH/USD pair, a pullback in Ether price would prompt traders to anticipate a bounce at the 23.6% Fibonacci retracement 0.02241 satoshis and below this the VPVR show strong interest and support at 0.02162 satoshis.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.

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Ethereum Price (ETH) Has Surged 92% in 2020 With Targets Set on $300 - Cointelegraph

Altcoins Continue to Roar Higher as Bitcoin Consolidates Above $10,000 – Blockonomi

Over the past day, Bitcoin has found itself stagnating, posting a mere 1% gain in the past 24 hours per data from CoinMarketCap.

This isnt bearish BTC is now consolidating above the key $10,000 price point, confirming it as a support and base for the next move higher.

As Bitcoin has started consolidating, altcoins all digital assets that arent BTC exploded higher, rallying far higher than they were last week on the back of buying pressure from FOMOing investors.

Just look to the chart below, which has highlighted altcoins in deep green, showing that they have performed extremely well over the past seven days; for instance, XRP is up 16.5%, LINK is up 38%, Tezos XTZ is up 44%, and so on and so forth.

All this has culminated in a trend of Bitcoin seeing its crypto market primacy starting to slip: Since topping at 73% last year, Bitcoin dominance the percentage of the cryptocurrency market made up of BTC has collapsed to 61.8% as of the time of writing this.

A majority of these relative altcoin gains have taken place in the past two weeks, with dominance falling from 66.5% to 61.8% in the past 15 days.

It isnt clear what exactly is pushing altcoins so far higher at the moment, save for technical developments in the blockchains of these cryptocurrencies, though there is a historical trend of non-BTC cryptocurrencies outpacing market leaders early into bull cycles.

As seen in the chart above, Ethereum is standing far above the rest of the major altcoins, for it has posted a 28.25% gain in the past seven days alone and an over 130% performance since the $118 price seen in mid-December.

Why? Well, it seems to come down to a confluence of technical and fundamental factors.

On the side of technical analysis, the cryptocurrency has recently begun to print a flurry of positive signals.

As observed in arecent tweetfrom well-followed cryptocurrency trader Galaxy, theMoving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD)for Ethereums one-month chart has flipped from a bear to bull trend for the first time in two years, for the first time since October 2017.

The last time this indicator was seen, the cryptocurrency rallied from $300 to a high of $1,440 a surge of just under 400% in under six months time.

Other positive technical signals recently seen on the Ethereum chart include the bypassing of a key downtrend, an uptick in buying pressure, and prices breaking key horizontal resistances in and around $220.

Ethereum has also been subject to a flurry of positive news over the past few weeks.

JP Morgan & Chase is purportedly looking to merge its blockchain unit called Quorum with ConsenSys, the New York-based Ethereum-centric development studio that is behind projects like Infura and MetaMask. Trader Satoshi Flipper said the following on the potential business deal, expressing how bullish it is:

So why is this so bullish for Ethereum? Because cash is king and JPMorgan has much of it. With the pending release of 2.0, JPMorgan could desire an increased presence in the enterprise blockchain arena.

Also, the blockchain has moved closer to its 2.0 (Serenity) upgrade due to recent technological breakthroughs and Ethereum-based decentralized finance (DeFi) recently reached the milestone of $1 billion in locked value.

While altcoins have performed amazingly well over the past few days, prominent market commentators have called the long-term viability of these assets over recent weeks.

Per previous reports from Blockonomi, Galaxy Digitals Mike Novogratz said in a recent interview with Bloomberg that he is relatively skeptical about altcoins compared to his view on Bitcoin. He attributed this position to his view that as more institutional accounts get educated, Bitcoin will gain more of the spotlight:

That said, I see more and more large accounts getting educated and set up to be accumulators of BTC, and believe on a risk-adjusted basis its the best place to bet on crypto.

He added that Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency with a viable and distinct use case at the moment.

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Altcoins Continue to Roar Higher as Bitcoin Consolidates Above $10,000 - Blockonomi

Altcoin Explorer: Kyber Network, the On-Chain Liquidity Protocol Leading the DeFi Sector – BTCMANAGER

Kyber Network is an on-chain liquidity protocol that powers decentralized applications, from exchanges and funds to lending protocols and payments wallets. In recent months Kyber has experienced tremendous growth due to the development of decentralized finance and has managed to establish itself as one of the reference protocols for this new sector.

Kyber Network is one of the popular ICOs launched in the second half of 2017 that aims to become the most popular way to exchange crypto token assets on Ethereum. Although it has gained notoriety as a decentralized exchange, Kyber Network does not fall exactly into this category as its operation is completely different from that of a DEX. Kyber is a liquidity ecosystem, where platforms, individuals, exchanges, or dApps can plug into and immediately have liquidity. It is not a DEX in the traditional sense.

Kybers innovation is to have completely removed the exchanges order book and replaced it with liquid reserves which house a certain amount of digital assets for the purposes of maintaining exchange liquidity. The project was launched with the aim to solve all the problems related to centralized exchanges including hacks, ownership of the asset, and expensive trading fees.

Being a decentralized protocol, it can be easily integrated with any application and can be used to create decentralized applications such as instant token swap services, ERC-20 payment gateways, exchanges, trading integrations, decentralized finance (DeFi) dApps, and more. Exchanges that take place via the Kyber Network protocol are performed on-chain via Ethereums smart contract technology.

The peculiarity consists in the elimination of the order books in favor of highly liquid reserves. Kyber Network supports several wallet import methods including the popular hardware wallets Ledger and Trezor, the Metamask browser or its own private key. Once the wallet is connected users can choose a token they wish to exchange and, as there is no order book, they will also know the conversion rate before sending the transaction and receiving the corresponding amount. After confirming the operation, the transaction is broadcasted and all details are verifiable through a blockchain explorer. When the transaction is completed, users will see the updated balance.

This process is possible thanks to the following components:

KNC is the native token of the Kyber Network Protocol and stands for Kyber Network Crystal. It is an ERC20 token and it is used to fuel the activity within the network. Its main function is to be used by reserve managers to pay a commission for each transaction they perform (the fee is equivalent to 0.25%). The tokens are also used as a reward for third parties that generate trading volume.

Furthermore, reserve pools wishing to participate in the exchange market are required to stake an amount of KNC tokens in a smart contract and meet specific liquidity requirements defined by the network. In each trade a small amount of KNC will be transferred from the staked amount, acting as a fee for reserves that use the network. Subsequently, the tokens collected by Kyber will be redistributed to reward all those who offer services within the network. If more tokens than needed are collected, the excess tokens will be burned.

A coin burn is when you take cryptocurrency, coins, or tokens and destroy them which is very similar to a buy-back operation in the traditional stock market. The main difference is that in the crypto market a burning operation its a function that can be programmed right into the smart contract making it a recurring event. This mechanism is designed to reduce the total KNC supply over time and possibly increase its price.

As we can see from the image the burning process is steadily increasing and has reached about 4 million units so far. This figure is in line with the market sentiment that is increasingly moving towards decentralized alternatives.

Kyber Network is one of the few projects that have met and achieved the milestones announced within the communicated timeframes. The development of the project, therefore, continues steadily and can be seen from the metrics indicated on the Kyber Network Tracker.

The year 2018 was the year in which Kyber Network prepared the basis for the construction of its liquidity protocol. In particular, the major milestone reached during the bear market was the launch of KyberSwap, a fast, simple, and secure token swap platform developed by Kybers team and at the moment one of the most popular Ethereum DApps to swap ERC20 tokens such as WBTC (Wrapped Bitcoin), ETH, DAI, TUSD, etc. Together with this, its important to remember the launch of Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), a fully backed Bitcoin ERC20 token on Ethereum. The initiative aims to bridge Bitcoin liquidity and the decentralized ecosystem on Ethereum, enhancing all decentralized applications.

2019 was the year in which the project had the opportunity to expand to become one of the most solid ecosystems in the world of decentralized exchanges and decentralized finance.

Among the 2019 milestones to remember we find a volume of over 400 million dollars generated through Kyber Network and over 500 thousand trades executed.

In addition, Kyber was the decentralized protocol with multiple integrations of the year 2019. Kyber protocol has been integrated into more than 85 applications, including Trust Wallet, MyEtherWallet, Fulcrum, 1Inch, Enjin Wallet, DeFi Saver, Nuo and many more. Kyber has also devoted a big part of its energies to creating a very large community in a short period of time. It is interesting to see how Kyber developed a developer portal to facilitate the creation of decentralized applications that leverage its liquidity protocol, something that is quite unique in the blockchain space.

This devotion to the technical part can also be seen by the various hackathons that Kyber organized during the course of 2019 also allocating huge cash prizes for the participants. In particular, one of the most engaging events was the #KyberDeFi Virtual Hackathon that offered $ 42,500 in bounty prizes and attracted over 300 participants, with 78 submissions, 41 finalists, and 18 Bounty Winners.

Kyber is also investing in educating student developers from Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial, LSE, UCL, and KCL. In addition, Kyber Network has been able to build a strong and supportive non-technical community, which is evidenced by its large social media followings (more than 135 thousand!).

This year instead, Kyber will focus on improving its components including the protocol as well as expanding value creation options for KNC holders, and putting them at the heart of Kybers governance through the KyberDAO. The launch of the latter would mean a very important step for Kyber Network which would then turn into a completely decentralized structure.

The Katalyst update will be one of the main objectives of the year that has just begun and will have consequences for KNC holders, reserve managers, and dApp integrators. For the first category, Kyber will introduce a new staking mechanism to the token model which allows KNC holders to receive part of the network fees by staking KNC and participating in the KyberDAO. Reserve managers will instead receive a reward based on how much trades and volume they facilitate for the network.

In addition, the fee system will be simplified thus reducing the barrier to creating and running a reserve. The fees will be automatically collected in every trade and burnt or used for rewards and incentives, removing the need to always maintain a KNC balance for reserves that want to integrate with Kyber. Lastly, dApp integrators will have the possibility to decide their own business model set up their own spread. All these changes have the objective of encouraging the participation of the actors of the network thus making it truly decentralized.

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Altcoin Explorer: Kyber Network, the On-Chain Liquidity Protocol Leading the DeFi Sector - BTCMANAGER

The Insolar (INS) Dilemma – Finance and Funding – Altcoin Buzz

Public and private blockchain solutions company, Insolar has been criticized due to its mainnet launch, and the INS to XNS swap. In this post, well delve into blockchain forensics and show why the current community sentiment may be justified.

Insolar blockchain platform purports itself as having unlimited scalability, best in class data protection. As well as, preconfigured networks and infrastructure geared at reducing development time, interoperability and many other features.

Insolars team also boasts of a wide array of previous experience in several Fortune 500 companies. They include Google, IBM, Goldman Sachs and more.

Without going into too many details, advertising your prior team experience remains one of the clearest and oldest hype tactics in the book. An equally important consideration to note remains the fact that Insolar raised $45 million from the public during the ICO mania, December 2017. A time where falsifying your current and past clients became profound as evidenced by Substratums Pre-ICO website.

Insolar (INS) platform scheduled a mainnet launch on the 3rd of February, 2020 at 12 pm UTC. The initial publication slated the publication for the 29th of January, 2020. The development involves swapping INS (ERC-20) tokens for XNS (Insolar Native Coin).

Accordingly, a Reddit user named u/Svagrovsky voiced his opinion on the project, sharing his pain about the news.

He said: I have now sold all of my INS. If I swapped from INS to XNS, the XNS would be subject to vesting. Vesting will unlock your (public) tokens gradually in 5 years. I want to have my coins/tokens fully at my disposal and tradable, not partially in a couple of days, not fully in 5 years. With the new proposition, only 1/4 of all XNS tokens get planned as available for the public.

Total Supply (of tokens) is due to grow enormously: while current Circulating Supply = 32.5m out of 50m Total Supply. Thus, users will get 10x the number of INS in XNS so this would translate to 325m: 500m. But they plan to print 2 billion XNS (base scenario) or even up to 10 billion (the max capped level). Thus, meaning dilution aka inflation aka loss of value of the coins nota bene, with a limited number of coins among public i.e. limited liquidity aka market depth, the inflation will be even more elastic i.e. have even more drastic impact.

Essentially, Insolar plans to dilute the current value of their ERC-20 token INS in exchange for a new coin (XNS) in a 1:10 ratio. Since INSs total token supply is 50M INS, the swap represents a 10x in the number of coins for current INS holders. Also, as pointed out by u/Svagrovsky, this number potentially rises to 10 billion XNS with the number of coins they plan to print.

Besides, for a company that raised roughly $45M in the form of an ICO in 2017, such a dilution on token holders, and ICO participants rightfully strike a cord. This leads us to some interesting information regarding Insolars reserve fund.

Comparing the ICO distribution with the proposal aside from the vesting issue, and dilution issue; the original ICO terms indicated that 20% of the 50 million INS gets kept for a reserve fund.

However, the new proposal allocates 500 million on items thatll possibly be paid for with the reserve fund while still giving the reserve fund a 1:10 swap ratio.

Notably, the new Insolar (INS) proposal doesnt even mention the reserve fund, yet makes clear the swap covers the entire 50 million (20% of which is the reserve fund). Thus, seeming like theyre hiding that part, a sleight of hand.

This leads us to:

Insolar Reserve Fund 20% of total INS supply

The above screenshot followed by the token address shows empirical evidence that the Insolar teams reserve fund has indeed already been sold. Also, theres no mention of the reserve fund in the recent swap publication, painting a clear picture. For those who think the tokens may have been moved, check each transaction as each 2M INS transfer reportedly leads to a wallet. This then leads to 4 separate transactions to Binance.

Insolar Founders Reward 15% of total INS supply

Also, as seen from the screenshot above of tokens from the founders reward wallet. Theres a movement of another 15% of the total INS supply.

Theres a lot of questions for the Insolar team to answer. With the community already angered at the dilution of their tokens with the upcoming INS/XNS swap, they need to be addressed.

Source: Twitter: @OfficialCryptoV

Telegram: CryptoVigilante

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The Insolar (INS) Dilemma - Finance and Funding - Altcoin Buzz

North Korea is Mining Even More Monero – Cryptocurrency Regulation – Altcoin Buzz

North Korea has in recent times intensified its Monero mining operations.

This is according to a report by the US cyberspace security firm Recorded Future. Disclosing that a large amount of Monero mining emanated from North Korea IP ranges. The report also revealed that these IP ranges have increased by at least 10 percent since May 2019. This sudden increase in Monero mining has made it noted as the easiest digital asset to mine, exceeding even Bitcoin.

According to the report, Monero is a great choice for mining because it doesnt require special mining machines. Completely eliminating the need to import mining equipment. Mining can easily be carried out on conventional computers and at lower costs.

According to Recorded Future, North Korea has used Monero as far back as 2017. When those involved in the WannaCry attack swapped stolen Bitcoin for Monero. This recent uptick in Monero mining can only mean the country is looking for ways to evade US and UN sanctions. For North Korea, a cryptocurrency is a precious tool and a source of easy income. It can however also be a means for moving and using illicitly obtained funds the report expands.

According to a UN report, an arm of the North Korean army is currently tasked with mining cryptocurrency.

Monero is an open-source, fungible and privacy-centered cryptocurrency. Making it nearly impossible for anyone to observe the parties involved in the transfer or receipt of the token. Due to its private nature, it can easily be used for illegal transactions. Actually, it holds a special appeal to hackers and all sorts of nefarious individuals. With reports that over 5% of all Monero was mined by a crypto-malware.

Monero has faced a lot of backlash and delistings due to its privacy-centered nature. It, however, remains unperturbed and claims it would continue to uphold crypto privacy.

Former founder of Ethereum, Virgil Griffith has recently been arrested and charged with conspiring with the country to evade US sanctions. Following a visit to North Korea for a conference.

Well, North Korea is not the only country looking to bypass US sanctions. Iran has also proposed the launch of special crypto for Muslim nations.

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North Korea is Mining Even More Monero - Cryptocurrency Regulation - Altcoin Buzz

Bitcoin Dominance Could Cause Catastrophic Ending to Current Altcoin Season – newsBTC

Bitcoin is the first-ever cryptocurrency that all other altcoins were designed after, with many providing additional benefits above and beyond what the original crypto has to offer.

Altcoins have recently been vastly outperforming Bitcoin in what crypto analysts refer to as an alt season, but it all may come to a surprise end leading to additional collapse if the strong signal Bitcoin dominance is showing confirms.

Because Bitcoin was the first crypto asset to ever be released, it has first-mover advantage and all that comes in tow.

Bitcoin has the most brand recognition, it has the largest market cap, and it is the most widely used cryptocurrency in terms of on-chain transactions.

Related Reading | Alt Season Cancelled: XRP, Ethereum, and Litecoin All Trigger Sell Signal

Oftentimes, its Bitcoin that dictates the greater trend across the crypto market, including each peak and trough in between, while altcoins like Ethereum, Litecoin, and XRP play follow the leader.

Occasionally, altcoins will begin to outperform Bitcoin for an extended period of time in what crypto analysts have dubbed an alt season. Since the start of 2020, altcoins have been surging, helping to carry Bitcoin higher from local lows.

The surge in altcoins and a lagging Bitcoin, has caused Bitcoin dominance to drop from highs around 72% to as low as 64% in recent weeks.

But BTC dominance a metric that weighs Bitcoin against the rest of the altcoins in the crypto market has formed a falling wedge suggesting that altcoins will experience a deadly drop in the days ahead against Bitcoin. Whether this suggests Bitcoin will explode through $10,000 leaving altcoins in its dust, or if the two crypto classes drop together with altcoins falling even harder that could cause the rise in BTC dominance remains to be seen.

The falling wedge typically a bullish structure is also accompanied by a massive bullish divergence on the MACD. Divergences occur when an indicators values move opposite from the price action and can be a powerful signal of whats to come.

Breaking up from the falling wedge could cause a revisit to highs around 70% dominance. But zooming out, even a rise in BTC dominance may be short-lived before a massive breakdown of dominance happens.

When zooming out on the same Bitcoin dominance chart from daily to weekly timeframes, a very different picture is painted.

BTC dominance can be seen resting on a massive, tw0-year-long trendline dating back to the crypto bubble. During this time, altcoins had exploded following Bitcoin reaching an all-time high. But the bubble popped, and altcoin prices fell by as much as 99% in many cases to their lows.

BTC dominance breaking below the line could cause an all-out alt season that would shock the crypto market.

On the higher timeframe chart, BTC dominance can also be seen with a massive bearish divergence. Its difficult to say if the bear div was foretelling the recent move down from highs to the diagonal trendline, or if its signaling a substantial fall in Bitcoin dominance following a breakdown of the multi-year trendline.

Related Reading | Bitcoin Bull Market Failure: Why A Year-Long Trendline Could Signal Doom

Lastly, despite the bearish signals, the upward slanting diagonal trendline and the dashed horizontal line appear to be forming an ascending triangle a powerfully bullish chart pattern that typically breaks upward.

Should Bitcoin dominance break upward from the ascending triangle rather than breaking down from the diagonal trendline, it could spell the end of all altcoins outside of the top ten.

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Bitcoin Dominance Could Cause Catastrophic Ending to Current Altcoin Season - newsBTC

Why these 3 altcoins are outperforming the rest this year – Micky News

Total crypto market capitalization is at its highest level since September 2019. A further $9 billion has flowed in overnight taking the figure to just below $280 billion.

Bitcoin has been making slow but steady gains as it inches towards the psychological $10k barrier but altcoins are having a bit of a resurgence at the moment with some performing much stronger than others.

These three altcoins are the top twentys top performers with triple digit gains so far in 2020 according to coinmarketcap.com.

Love it or hate it, Bitcoin SV is one of the years top performing crypto assets so far. With a price just below $100 on New Years day, the Craig Wright spawned BTC offshoot has gained a whopping 200% to current levels.

From close to falling out of the top ten, it is now the fifth largest cryptocurrency by market cap which is currently around $5.5 billion.

BSV hit an all-time high this year of over $400 before retreating to current prices around $300 which is still triple what it was at the beginning of the year.

FOMO over Wrights alleged Tulip Fund has driven momentum for this one along with the Genesis hard fork earlier this month.

This altcoin has also had a monumental year with a gain of 163% to date. ETC was priced at a lowly $4.50 at the beginning of the year and has since surged to just below $12.

An 18 month high was hit just a few days ago when Ethereum Classic surged to top $13. It has also moved up the market cap chart at is currently at 14th with just shy of $1.4 billion.

Network fundamentals are improving with all-time high hash rates and a successful Agartha hard fork. Additionally, Grayscale Investments has committed to funding the development of ETC for two more years.

The privacy-centric Dash is the third altcoin to notch up a triple-digit gain so far this year.

Priced at just $41 on New Years Day, Dash has surged a whopping 195% to current levels around $120. Prices are at a seven month high at the moment as this crypto asset keeps attracting investment.

Dash market cap has topped $1 billion again and it has moved up to 16th spot in the charts.

As reported by Micky earlier this month, Dash momentum has largely been driven by greater adoption in Latin America. A number of network improvements and wallet deployments have also improved the digital cash platform.

The other two top twenty altcoins with three-figure gains this year are Bitcoin Cash at 117%, and IOTA gaining 107%.

These will be the ones to watch as 2020 plays out.

Read more here:
Why these 3 altcoins are outperforming the rest this year - Micky News

Ripples XRP Emerges Victorious in Altcoin Twitter Ring Fight Against IOTA, Cardano, and Tron – ZyCrypto

Ripples XRP was overwhelmingly voted for by majority of respondents in a recent Twitter poll. This was after DYOR podcast host, Tom Buonincontri, asked his Twitter followers to choose one altcoin amongst; IOTA, ADA, XRP, and TRX that they would stick with forever.

After the final vote count, IOTA had the least number of enthusiasts counting to 15.4% of the total votes. The third runners up position was taken by Trons TRX with a score of 17.9%. The second spot was taken by Cardanos ADA with a record of 23% of the total counted votes.

The results generated a heated debate in the comment section with mixed reactions on the choices provided. On one comment, a follower said he would exit the crypto ecosystem if it only consisted of the given list.

Without a detailed report on why the respondents picked their choices, we are only left to speculate and analyze the results. Majorly, it is likely that the voters used different criteria to pick their crypto of choice.

Some based on the future scalability of the altcoin by leaning on the more affordable ones with a promising future. This might give a clear insight into why XRP won the fierce Twitter ring fight.

XRP holders and investors seem to be the majority, as it is supported by the current market valuation. At press time, the XRP market cap stood at $12.134 billion with the 24-hour trading volume at $2.38 billion. As its volume keeps growing by the day, the recent XRP bull rally could be a mere shadow to what is awaiting in the coming weeks.

With Ripple possibly looking to go public through an IPO in the course of the year, public confidence on the coin is expected to scale up before the big event. Analysts have been giving reasons to believe Ripples XRP is bettering the king coin, Bitcoin, and the broader crypto market in 2020. In addition to that, Ripples CEO Brad Garlinghouse has been very vocal in defending the coins eligibility in the crypto space.

The crypto market offers a wide variety of digital assets to choose and invest from, getting a finite answer as to why the respondents were inclined to specific coins might be difficult.

With each altcoin in the list provided by Tom offering a different kind of taste to its users, it trickles down to the marking craft, user-friendliness of the coin, and definitely the coins future scalability.

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Originally posted here:
Ripples XRP Emerges Victorious in Altcoin Twitter Ring Fight Against IOTA, Cardano, and Tron - ZyCrypto