XRP hasnt done too hot over the past few months, both in terms of its performance against the U.S. dollar and against Bitcoin. Even over the past year, the third-largest altcoin has collapsed by 50%, underperforming the leading cryptocurrency by a massive margin.

Despite this, analysts are starting to believe that the altcoin is showing signs of a bullish reversal and correction higher.

Trader CryptoWolf recently remarked that XRP is showing signs that it is in the midst of a massive falling wedge, which was formed months and months ago. (Falling wedges, for those unaware, are bullish charting pattern marked by falling and tightening prices, then a strong breakout to the upside that reverses some of the losses made while the asset was trading in the wedge.)

He noted that a possible outcome for XRP, with this falling wedge in mind, would be for the asset to begin to build breakout momentum heading into 2020, then potentially jump 60% back to $0.30 by the middle of next year.

It isnt only CryptoWolf who believes that XRP may be on the verge of surging higher.

Analyst Michael Van De Poppe, a contributor to CoinTelegraph and a trader at the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, recently suggested that he believes XRP may be on the verge of posting 175% gains in the coming months.

The analyst posted the chart seen below, in which he notes that he believes XRPs current price action is very similar to the bottoming pattern seen in December of 2015 and January of 2016, which was followed by a massive spike to pre-crash levels.

He said should the current trend play out as it did in the previous cycle, meaning XRP will need to hold the $0.14-$0.17 range, it could surge as high as $0.473 175% higher than current prices by the middle of 2020.

Some are skeptical of this optimism, though.

Tone Vays, a former Wall Street analyst who turned to Bitcoin years ago, recently told BlockTV in an interview that he thinks the Ripple token itself has absolutely no place. It is now, more than ever before, just a security of the Ripple corporation Everything about XRP is bad.

Thats not to mention that the XRP price charts, some say, look horrible. A trader going by Moerecently noted that their use of the Richard Wyckoff schematics, used to determine market cycles, clearly shows that the distribution phase of the long-term XRP price trajectory is coming to an end,implying a strong long-term markdown will come next.

More here:
Heres Why XRP Price Could Soon Burst 60% Higher - Ethereum World News

This is a special article about privacy blockchains brought to us by David Freuden, a blockchain advisor at Monsterplay.

While encryption is the best way to protect your privacy, you should be the one making the first move.Only through the lens of data ownership can we begin to answer the question of: Who/What will protect my privacy? It wont be legislation, as governments themselves are often those who are seeking more information on their citizens. This may be taking place either directly or indirectly via coercion, legislation or subpoenas directed at the ever-growing number of corporations that collect, store and share your personal information.

The new field of blockchain-enabled encryption offers significant opportunities to improve privacy and the controls around it. However, it is important to understand that not all blockchains are privacy-conscious, and fewer still are those that are privacy-centric.

Looking at blockchain through the lens of privacy, two categories are to be discussed.Transparency and Privacy.

Transparency: Bitcoin & Ethereum hide no information. This is good for blockchain analysis and honesty, but it is bad for user protection and privacy. Block Explorers, an open-source web tool, allows anyone to view information about blocks, addresses, and transactions on these blockchains.

It is relatively easy usingsolely blockchain analysis and the addresses of known public entities (businesses, organizations) to discern what address a person may be associated with, and where the funds are coming from/going to. Worse yet, when you pay someone from an address owned by you, reverse lookups are possible using a blockchain explorer. This means anyone you send bitcoin to can then look-up your address and, in turn, know precisely the amount of bitcoin stored at that address.

Privacy:Monero & Zcash. These use different approaches in comparison with Bitcoin and Ethereum, but it is worth noting that they both need a certain degree of transparency. This transparency is necessary for the logistics of:

a) Ensuring that transaction gets from A-B (and related auditing by third parties);

b)Preventing double-spends and counterfeiting.

The privacy-focused blockchains, regardless of approach, are bound together by a common value:Privacy should be a choice. All projects actively pursuing a means to keep information private view Bitcoins transparency as problematic. In a way, this is the closest realization to a tangible use case that exists in crypto, apart from the concept of a decentralized ledger.

Opt-In Privacy:For example,Zcash, where all transactions are transparent by default. This results in (as of Nov 19th, 2019) roughly 87% of the Zcash networks daily transaction volume being completely transparent. As a result, analysts can easily deduce the latter 13%. You can see this on the Zcash explorer.

With the Opt-In approach, transparency is the default. Privacy is an elected option.

Opt-Out Privacy:For example, Monero, where all transactions are opaque by default.

This results in the network being opaque to onlookers with the exception of users choosing to share their information. Users may choose to do this for various reasons such as the need for a third-party audit. To do this on Moneros network, users would provide a recipients address and a transaction-specific private key to that third party. These actions will make that transactions data visible to the party that receives access to this info.

With the Opt-Out approach, privacy is the default. Transparency is an elected option.

Blockchain projects taking different approaches toward the solution of establishing of choice-centeredprivacy is critical. Not just with blockchain but for privacy globally. The topic of individual privacy continues to make headlines around the world and is already influencing governments to enforce new legislation that is designed to protect privacy, such as the GPDR that was introduced in May 2018. As blockchain continues to grow and be adopted around the world its important that this new technology provides improvements in privacy and control of privacy.

As noted in my article Privacy Matters: How to Protect Information in a World of Data Brokerage,one of the most recent advances in technology that offers a significant advancement in privacy and security is blockchain.

The two examples mentioned previously, Zcash and Monero, are the two most well-known privacy coins in the market. Their end goal is the same, but they use different mechanisms and approaches.

Zcash (ZEC)is a fork of the Bitcoin protocol and attains privacy via the use of zk-SNARKS, a zero-knowledge privacy protocol.

Monero (XMR)is a fork of Bytecoin, which has a completely different underlying protocol that Bitcoin called CryptoNote. Monero maintains the privacy of its senders, its transactions, and its receivers via ring signatures, ring confidential transactions, and stealth addresses respectively.

There are many other privacy-centric blockchains, most of which are forks from either Zcash or Monero. Developers may choose to fork because they believe there are significant improvements or advantages that can be offered to users. Forking into a new project from an existing protocol enables new projects to keep the best of what exists and add new features and functionality. As a result, the most innovative projects are often more agile as a project than the blockchain titans they are forked from. Having a smaller user-base and ecosystem, they are able to react more quickly to issues and make changes.

Komodo [KMD]: Komodo was launched prior to ZEC, after Zcash source code had been made public. Komodo has rolled out the Antara Framework for launching new blockchains and a full-featured test environment for blockchain development (KMD Labs). They also pioneered a mechanism called Delayed Proof of Work (DPOW) that secures smaller chains with the security of bitcoin. Komodo has launched its public beta version of its AtomicDEX, making it available for both Android and iOS users.

Komodo enables projects to build their own chains, dubbed Smart Chains. These smart chains have the option to include a privacy module, alongside a host of other features, but this is entirely optional.

It is important to note that whilst Komodo is a fork of Zcash, and offers optional privacy features, it is not itself a privacy blockchain.

Visit Komodowebsite

Hush [HUSH]: Hush recently migrated their codebase from ZEC-forked code, to a codebase derived directly from KMDs prior work. Hush has created Hushlist, a means for users to communicate using zero-knowledge technology, similar to mailing lists. Journalists, whistleblowers, or anyone needing to communicate with many others, in a privacy-sensitive way can use it. According to Hushs lead developer, Duke Leto: Hush was the first Zcash Protocol coin to remove the 1.6GB download requirement prior to syncing, which in addition to it having the smallest on-disk chain size of ~1GB, makes [it] the most bandwidth-efficient fork.

Visit Hushwebsite

PirateChain:PirateChain boasts the largestanonymity setof any functioning network, and are currently the only ZEC-derived codebase that takes on privacy from an Opt-Out perspective (i.e. by default users must opt-out by sharing a viewkey). PirateChain is also a member of the KMD ecosystem.

Visit PirateChainwebsite

Swap [XWP]: Swap is also derived from Monero and inherits privacy from RingCT and the CryptoNote protocol. Swaps most innovative contribution is its implementation of a completely different mining algorithm, Cuckaroo29s. Cuckoo cycle (PoW algorithm) is only 42 lines of code in its complete specification. This means that external parties can more easily audit Swaps code. It also means that block verification is much faster than those based on the CryptoNight PoW algorithm. Visit Swap website

Other Forks:Even Monero developers acknowledge the advantages of smaller, light-weight forks in making innovative changes. The internal group of XMRs main contributors develop most of the Monero Forks. Many of these function as testing beds for prospective features on Monero. Projects in this subgroup include Masari,Aeon, andWowneroto name only a few.

Blur [Blur]: is a fork from Moneros codebase. As a result, both chains choose Opt-Out privacy by default. Blur provides a refreshingly different perspective on the issue of specialized mining hardware than the typically-seen ASIC-resistance ideal. ASIC-resistance is something that has attractedcriticism from entities like Coinbase, recently.

Blur plans to feature a multi-PoW ecosystem, incorporating multiple self-similar proof-of-work blockchains. The idea is to create separate faction-based chains for specialized hardware. The respective devices mine them in a more advantageous way. Targeting key differences in chip design, and using independent chains to isolate hardware with incentives, The Blur Network plans to provide an inclusive ecosystem for all mining hardware, in a more logically competitive manner.

According to Biz, lead developer of Blur, What we see going on within privacy coins is an illogical battle between hardware and developers. We see developers overly focused on building ever-higher fences, that only they were tall enough to see over. This does not solve the problem. It creates it. So, we are designing a new solution; one that includes not only specialized mining hardware, but a means to keep CPU mining logical, for a longer period of time.

In addition, BLUR will become the first-ever cross-chain communication between the worlds of BTC, ZEC, and XMR.

Visit Blurs website.

The 2019 Netflix document,The Great Hack, shone a very bright light on how little privacy and control we have over our personal information.

In this documentary, it showed how Cambridge Analytica got their data from the Facebook developers, who created a survey app, This Is Your Digital Life, harvested data not just on the (270,000) Facebook users of the app, but on the87 million U.S. Facebook users who were friends of friends. They were able to do this through default permissionsthat few users knew about. At the time, users needed to opt-out by going deep into privacy settings and clicking a button that said, Dont let developers share my friends data.

In our technology-enabled world, privacy, and the right to privacy will continue to gain momentum as a human-rights issue. The combination of privacy-focused technology, government regulation and legislation, expensive but necessary court cases and consumer action will create the catalyst of change.

There is no doubt that the ongoing development and advancement of privacy-focused and centric blockchains will play an integral role in solving the technical aspects of this issue.

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Privacy-Focused and Privacy Centric Blockchains - Altcoin Buzz

2019 has proved to be a roller-coaster year for the cryptocurrency market.

Bitcoin started the year at lows of around $3,150 before threatening to break its all-time high in the summer, surging all the way up to $14,000.

However, as can be expected with the volatility of the crypto markets, the worlds largest cryptocurrency is now around 45% down from that summer high and is currently trading at $7,500 at the time of writing.

But which altcoins grew the most against Bitcoin during 2019?

In this article, Ill take a look at the top three altcoins that have performed the most impressively over the course of the year.

Before I dive a bit deeper into each altcoin individually, let me take a moment to compare the gains among the top five coins vs Bitcoin.

Much to my surprise, the top altcoin of 2019 is Ocean Protocol (OCEAN). The OCEAN token grew a whopping 404% against Bitcoin over the year.

Next up is Chainlink (LINK) with an impressive 256% gain, followed closely by Egretia (EGT), Tezos (XTZ), and Ripio Credit Network (RCN).

Lets take a closer look at the biggest movers individually: Ocean Protocol, Chainlink, and Tezos.

Above we can see the chart for OCEAN vs Bitcoin, courtesy of TradingView.

What the chart shows is a fairly straightforward positive trend line since the summer. From mid-August 2019 to December 2019, Ocean Protocol grew over 400%.

Moreover, looking at the EMAs, price is still performing quite well. It is currently sitting at 621 sats and is looking to break 700 sats soon.

Ocean Protocol claims it is kickstarting a data economy by breaking down data silos and equalising access to data for all.

OCEAN provides an ecosystem for the data economy and associated services, with a tokenised service layer that securely exposes data, storage, and algorithms for consumption.

However, since its inception, the OCEAN token is down quite a lot from its original IEO price.

I personally believe the rally this year has been led by early investors who got a 22.5% discount rate from the IEO price. As such, I cannot vouch for the fundamentals of the project since it has only recently started trading to the public.

Depending on the behaviour of OCEAN whales (institutional investors who bought in during the pre-seed stage), the token could continue to increase in price.

However, since so much of the supply is locked away with big players, I do expect a major dump to take place sometime in the near future -much like what happened with Matic and other IEOs.

Story continues

Here we can see the chart for Chainlink vs Bitcoin, courtesy of TradingView.

Fundamentally, the Chainlink network provides reliable tamper-proof inputs and outputs for complex smart contracts on any blockchain.

LINK is currently trading above 25,500 sats. Until fairly recently, LINK was the top performing altcoin of the year. However, a substantial dump in November took the altcoin below its 20-day and 50-day EMAs.

At the moment, its looking grim for Chainlink as price is almost touching the 200-day EMA, near 24,000 sats.

Despite this latest downtrend, LINK is still up over 230% against Bitcoin since the start of the year. At its peak, Chainlink was up over 330% versus Bitcoin.

However, LINK hasnt been able to hold its gains and the volume profile shows the coin could be in dire straits. If LINK is unable to hold support near 24,000 sats, it could drop further down towards the next levels of support at 20,000 and 12,000 sats.

Its important to underline though that Chainlink dumped over 50% between July and September before making its way to new all-time highs.

This means we could see LINK drop below 18,000 sats before pumping again.

If buyers remain in control, I expect LINK to pump sometime during Q1 2020. The altcoin historically reaches new all-time highs every 115 to 130 days, so we could see a new high during February or March 2020.

On the other hand, if price drops down further below 12,000 sats and is incapable of pushing towards the 200-day EMA, I would switch my position and avoid LINK.

Next we can see the chart for Tezos vs Bitcoin, once more courtesy of TradingView.

That November pump looks quite impressive, doesnt it? Thats because Tezos mainnet was released around that time.

Fundamentally, Tezos is an open-source platform for assets and applications backed by a global community of validators, researchers, and builders.

At the moment, XTZ is trading at around 22,800 sats. The altcoin has grown over 170% against Bitcoin since early November.

From March 2019 to the end of April 2019, XTZ grew over 150% versus BTC. However, the pump convinced investors who had been holding Tezos since 2017 to start selling.

Tezos dropped below all its EMAs, and the ensuing death cross saw XTZ touch a low of 8,000 sats. Essentially, the altcoin fell close to 70% in just over 60 days.

From July to November, there was a strong consolidation period while sellers remained in control. XTZs year was saved by the November pump and Tezos once again finds itself above all its EMAs.

However, the volume profile doesnt show a major support interval until the 12,000 sats range, meaning we could see substantial drops even during bullish rallies.

My current analysis is that if XTZ isnt capable of breaking the 26,000 sats level and drops below its 20-day and 50-day EMAs, Im expecting Tezos to consolidate between 10,000 and 12,000 sats for quite some time.

Nevertheless, it seems a great time to wait for XTZ to cool down before making any serious moves.

Safe trades!

The post 2019 in review: Which altcoins performed the best vs Bitcoin? appeared first on Coin Rivet.

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2019 in review: Which altcoins performed the best vs Bitcoin? - Yahoo Finance

Only 10 years ago, no one knew what a blockchain was. Today, there are hundreds of well-established and emerging cryptocurrencies using blockchain technology to supplant traditional fiat money and change the way we live.

Litecoin (LTC) has drawn a lot of investor interest after hitting the headlines in December 2017. Then, the cryptocurrency reached its record high of $375, an 8,200 per cent increase year-on-year, hitting a total LTC market cap of $19.5 billion.

However, following the latest crypto market news where prices have fallen across the board, many now wonder: will Litecoin go up once again? Can it fully recover and set some new records after the bumpy ride of the second half of 2019?

While this year is about to come to an end, closing the first decade of cryptos existence, analysts are split in their Litecoin price predictions. Some experts say that its current all-time high could be just a drop in the bucket and predict the coin to hit an overwhelming $595 by 2030. Others take a bearish stance, believing that another crypto winter is yet to come, with Litecoin future price dropping as low as $1.5 by the end of 2024.

So, if you are wondering, should I invest in Litecoin or not? we have you covered. In this article, we try to find the truth by taking a closer look at what factors influence this cryptocurrency, reviewing its recent performance, analysing the latest developments and checking out the Litecoin price prediction for 2020 and beyond.

Before we delve deep into the Litecoin price predictions, lets do a quick review on what LTC is.

On October 7, 2011, Litecoin (LTC) was created by Charlie Lee, an ex-Google employee and former Engineering Director at Coinbase. Designed as a peer-to-peer network with the same-name native cryptocurrency, it was launched to complement Bitcoin by solving issues like concentrated mining pools and transaction timings, as well as to make the crypto world more accessible.

Truth be told, these two do share a lot in common. However, there are still some substantial advantages that Litecoin boasts of. These include, among others, improved capacity, faster block generation and higher supply limits.

On the other hand, as Litecoins purpose initially was to be silver to Bitcoin gold, some sceptics call into question whether it will ever be able to become anything more than its main rival. While Litecoin technically has a superior algorithm, it may be rather irrelevant since Bitcoins popularity has cemented it as the gold standard for old and new crypto traders. Moreover, the next-gen altcoins are emerging almost daily, taking the industry's competition to a whole other level.

After its launch, Litecoin was fast to get the attention of the small yet growing crypto community of the time. Nonetheless, its value had remained rather low around $3 for quite a long time. It was only in November 2013 when the market finally saw the first significant price movements. On November 28, LTC value almost doubled within one day and reached the price of $50 per coin.

However, such a substantial jump was short-lived. In April 2014, Litecoin dropped to $10 and further to a little over $1 in February 2015. The crypto was then traded in the range of $1-$4 for the next two years.

In March 2017, Litecoin announced the launch date of their Segregated Witness (SegWit) protocol upgrade. The statement had a positive impact on the coins rate, with its value rising to $16. In May, the protocol changes were finally implemented, making LTC the first of the top five cryptocurrencies to adopt SegWit and pushing its price to $30.

Meanwhile, the dev team implemented the Lightning Network, attracting a lot of attention from the crypto enthusiasts. By September, LTC reached $70. With the whole market being bullish, sending Bitcoin and altcoins to set new price records, Litecoin hit its all-time high of $375 in mid-December.

For the most part of 2018, Litecoin was in a bearish trend. Despite its well-established position in the industry, the coin was affected by the overall descending dynamic of the market. The downward Litecoin trend only changed a couple of times: in February and April. All-in-all, the coins price decreased almost five times over the course of the year.

At the end of 2018, things started getting better, and Litecoin managed to stabilise, finally gaining an upside momentum.

At the beginning of 2019, Litecoin continued its price growth. During the first half of the year, LTC price increased four times from $31.02 to $138.4. The reason for such a significant price hike was the upcoming Litecoin halving, which happened on August 5.

However, the event was followed by the much-expected correction, with the price of Litecoin dropping as low as $68 by mid-September. Throughout the rest of the year, the coin remained in the downward trend. At the time of writing, on December 20, LTC traded at $40.

Back in the days, Litecoin was at the forefront of modern and relevant technologies. Its early implementation of SegWit protocol and Atomic swaps has revolutionised the sphere of the cryptocurrency payments.

However, Litecoin has been recently struggling with many difficulties. Now that Bitcoin also introduced SegWit, the altcoin lacks one of its crucial competitive advantages.

Joe DiPasquale, CEO of cryptocurrency hedge fund manager BitBull Capital, said: Litecoin's price action has historically followed Bitcoin's, but currently it is facing negativity on multiple fronts. In the absence of new capital flow, transaction volumes have remained tame and the August halving has failed to push the price higher.

He also added: In fact, miners have begun to abandon the network after the reward-reduction, which is why the hashrate is falling and concerns are being raised about the network's security.

Marouane Garcon, managing director of crypto-to-crypto derivatives platform Amulet, also weighed in, saying that Litecoin's recent price decline has more to do with the concerns about development and how they are going to be funded going forward.

Earlier this year, Charlie Lee reportedly told Franklyn Richards, director of Litecoin Foundation, that no one is interested in working on Litecoin protocol development work. After this information was disclosed, peoples perspective of Litecoin changed, continued Garcon. Litecoin has not been the same since that announcement, he added.

It threw everyone into a panic. If no one is willing to work on Litecoin and develop it then why should anyone invest in it?

Based on the latest study conducted by Sylvain Saurel, the potential of Litecoin is very limited. He explained that the coin peaked in 2017 as it was riding on Bitcoins wave of success, taking advantage of the increasing number of interested investors. Although Litecoin remains in the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap, this number is still too far from its record high of $19 billion.

Saurel claims: Litecoin will certainly remain in the top 10 of cryptocurrencies for some time to come, but its future is clearly not alongside Bitcoin that could revolutionise the monetary and financial system in the future.

Simple and intuitive platform

Litecoin has reported a decrease in its hashrate since mid-2019, reaching its lowest levels since 2018.

At the time of writing, its hashrate was 147.4 TH/s. If the fall is prolonged, it could negatively affect the future performance of Litecoin.

However, it is important to note that the network is now working on some major changes. According to the latest news, the Litecoin Foundation is currently cooperating with Steve Burkett, a developer of the Grin project, to implement MimbleWible in the Litecoin protocol. Once realised, Litecoin could move away from Bitcoin, creating a unique selling point. On the other hand, innovation will reduce fungibility, possibly making Litecoin susceptible to being blocked from important exchanges.

All in all, Litecoin has a great advantage to make improvements to itself much faster than Bitcoin does. However, with the rapid development of new crypto projects that have base codes that are already more fit for micro-transactions and scaling, has Litecoin missed its chance to stay on top?

It is no secret that the crypto market moves at a rapid pace, making it rather difficult to predict its future. We have made our own investigation to compile a list of the latest Litecoin forecasts from various sources.

Based on technical analysis, TradingBeasts.com, a popular crypto forecast website, predicted that by the end of next year, LTC price will be around $46.23; and only a bit higher in 2021 up to $67.23. By December 2022, Litecoin is expected to grow to an average of $82.68.

A more optimistic LTC price forecast is provided by Cryptoground.com. Based on an internal deep learning algorithm, it states that LTC will reach $88.30 in one year, rising almost 109.81 per cent. It is expected that the growth will continue, with the coin trading at $347.8 by the end of 2024.

According to the information provided by CoinFan.com, another famous online forecasting service, Litecoin future predictions look rather promising, with LTC prognosed to end 2020 at $276.4. Their long-term forecast suggests the coin will hit $506.8 by May 2025.

George Tung, a cryptocurrency analyst, has the most positive Litecoin projections, saying its price might rise as high as $1,500 towards the end of 2020.

Looking forward, DigitalCoinPrice.com states that Litecoin will have moderate price growth. The positive trend is expected to prevail, with the coin trading at $72 in December 2026.

Regarding the Litecoin price prediction 2030, the coin is expected to end the following decade at $251.44, according to CoinPriceForecast.com.

However, not everyone has taken a bullish stance. Walletinvestor.com, known for their pragmatic forecasts, refers to LTC as a bad, high-risk one-year investment option. According to their Litecoin predictions, the coin is expected to lose in value significantly, with its price falling to $4.5 by August 2020. However, it is expected to recover by fall and end next year at $36.8.

In five years, Wallet Investor estimates the coin to drop as low as $0.77 by the end of 2024.

The crypto market has experienced several ups and downs over this year. While all the talks revolve around digital money, there are still many questions to answer.

Will Litecoin rise and live up to the expectations of analysts? As you can understand, there is no definite answer to this question. It is very difficult to predict what the price of Litecoin could be in a few hours; and even harder to give long-term estimates. However, according to the forecasts mentioned above, LTC is mainly prognosed to move in a positive direction.

Is Litecoin a good investment for the long term? Well, many crypto enthusiasts believe that the project has the technological strengths that could help it to become even more popular in the crypto world.

When choosing what cryptocurrency to invest in, it is always crucial to consider the latest technical analysis, expert opinion and market trends. For that, we recommend you do as much research as possible.

If you think you are not ready to make long-term investment commitments, but still want to try to profit from the market volatility, you can do so through contracts for difference (CFD).

You can learn more about CFD trading with free online courses and find out how to trade Litecoin CFDs by reading our comprehensive guide. Always stay on top of the Litecoin latest news with Capital.com.

So, what do you think about the future of this digital coin? Will Litecoin go down or soar to hit new record highs? Do you have an LTC price prediction of your own?

Follow our live LTC/USD chart and make your own bets!

Ready to get started?

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Litecoin price prediction 2020: can it become the best-performing altcoin of the coming decade? - Capital.com