Category Archives: Bitcoin
Jack Dorseys ditched Twitter for bitcoin. Has the social media bubble burst? – The Guardian
Jack Dorsey is resigning from Twitter to spend more time with his other company, Square. In some ways, the choice between Twitter and Square is a straight choice between political clout and profit. Square, a payments platform co-founded by Dorsey in 2009, is worth almost three times Twitters current value at about $97bn (73bn). But Square will never be credited with the equivalent of the Twitter revolution, or make headlines by banning a former president.
Venture capital is pouring money into cryptocurrencies and payment platforms. Twitter, by contrast, having only started to become profitable since 2018, has always been more notable for its political impact than its commercial pull. However, Twitter, like the wider social industry of which it is a part, may be experiencing the limits of its growth. In terms of commercial reach, Twitter is no competition for industry giants such as Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram and TikTok, which each have well over a billion users. But even Facebook and Instagram are slowing down.
Generation Z is turning off the major platforms. Downloads of Facebook and Instagram have been declining, according to a Bank of America report published in 2019. Both Twitter and Facebook have been losing ground with businesses due to this demographic shift in demand. By capitalising on the rise of video-sharing, TikTok has captured a much younger audience than Facebook or Twitter. Some businesses are also abandoning social media entirely, from fashion house Bottega Veneta, to Tesla, Lush and JD Wetherspoon.
It makes sense that investors are looking for the next big thing from tech, and that social media bosses would be searching for ways to profit from the cryptocurrency bubble. Before he left, Dorsey had been trying to expand Twitter into offering crypto-based payments and non-fungible token services. His replacement as CEO, Parag Agrawal, was tasked with developing Twitters crypto strategy, and it seems likely that Twitter will continue to plough that field.
Twitter is not the only social media firm attempting to exploit such opportunities. Facebooks parent company, Meta, has been trying to launch a cryptocurrency that could be sent worldwide via Facebook products, so far to no avail. This move makes more sense for a platform like Facebook, given that it has always offered a patchwork of services, such as video, photo, fan pages, gaming, buying and selling, and so on, compared with Twitters straightforward microblogging service.
However, this isnt just about profitability. It is about the economic power of belief. Dorsey is also a cryptocurrency fanatic. A particular champion of bitcoin, he claims it will one day unite a deeply divided country behind it, and eventually become the worlds single currency. Square accepts payments on its cash app from bitcoin, but no other cryptocurrency. Recently, Square released a white paper for a decentralised bitcoin exchange platform that would appear to freeze out competing cryptocurrencies.
Dorsey is also a doom-monger about fiat currencies those issued by governments. Hyperinflation, he oracularly warns, is going to change everything. Its happening. This is baseless. Recent inflationary pressures due to the increased costs of production and transit caused by Covid and extreme weather patterns are real. But there is no hyperinflation in the global economy. Given Dorseys profile and potential impact on investors, it could be considered a reckless thing to say; but it also reflects the strange ideology of all bitcoin enthusiasts.
According to its devotees, bitcoin is a deflationary force that routes around the inefficiencies and tyrannies of central banks and fiat currencies. It is deflationary because it is designed to mimic the supply of a real-world commodity, gold. This means that the number of coins that it is possible to mine is restricted: the supply will eventually hit a ceiling with 21m bitcoins. So even though, as the Peoples Bank of China recently noted, the digital coin is not backed up by any real value, it operates as its own virtual gold standard. Moreover, bitcoins apologists say, decentralised blockchain technology cuts out all middle men, a principle that can be deployed in gaming, finance and social networks. It makes transactions cheaper and faster and keeps efficient records without the oversight of a big state.
The advantage of this upstart libertarian ideology is that it chimes directly with the commercial interests of bitcoin investors. Currently, one bitcoin will trade for 42,973. But it wouldnt be worth a dime if enough investors hadnt decided to treat it as though it were gold. It is a hyperstition: a fiction that makes itself true because enough people believe in it. All currencies rely on what Michel de Certeau called a secret network of believers. We all must believe, not only in the value of the currency we exchange, but that others believe in it too. We look to a higher power, typically the central bank, to guarantee this belief. In the case of cryptocurrencies, the tech itself is supposed to eliminate the need for all these elaborate systems. This is typical of the California ideology, which blends the values of the libertarian right with the countercultural ethos of some of the internets pioneers.
Yet, far from driving any great disruption, the value of cryptocurrencies is mainly a byproduct of developments in fiat currencies. The latter benefited from a glut of spare investment capital caused by the institutionalisation of quantitative easing. The crypto boom since Covid has therefore been made possible by central banks sending money supply through the roof. Ironically, the cryptocurrencies have benefited from precisely the sort of central bank policies that the libertarian right tends to complain about.
Dorseys belief in a single global cryptocurrency is not likely to happen. And, as the economist Yanis Varoufakis has pointed out, it would actually be disastrous if bitcoin did replace fiat currencies. The bitcoin community would have no incentive to expand the money supply in the event of a crisis. That scenario would benefit the rich holders of the coin, such as tech monopolists, investment bankers and energy oligarchs, while wrecking the lives of everyone else.
Nonetheless, we would be fools to underestimate belief backed up by spare investment capital. Since at least 2017, when a bitcoin was trading at less than $1,000 (750), there have been a glut of articles explaining why the bitcoin bubble is unsustainable. But, far from falling apart, it continues to surge. Even after Elon Musk dropped the coin earlier this year, and China banned traders from offering bitcoin prices, its tradeable value climbed. The total value of cryptocurrencies today is close to $3tn. With Amazon looking to accept payment in bitcoins, there is space for further growth. Dorseys messianic belief in the power of crypto will probably be rewarded with profit for some time, in a way that the hype around Twitter never was.
If we underestimate the economic value of belief, we will underestimate how large the bubble can grow.
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Jack Dorseys ditched Twitter for bitcoin. Has the social media bubble burst? - The Guardian
Can Bitcoin’s hard cap of 21 million be changed? – Cointelegraph
The hard cap on Bitcoin is secured from alteration by its incentive structure and governance mechanism. The entities that govern Bitcoin's ruleset have significant incentives to fight a change to the hard cap because of the network's architecture, but those who wish to change it have no power over the network.
The individuals with the most incentive to modify Bitcoin's hard cap are the miners. Changing Bitcoin's hard cap could boost earnings for miners for a short time. However, doing so would negate one of the main arguments for investing in Bitcoin: its scarcity.
The attractiveness of BTC for many investors is its predictable, fixed supply. However, it is not in miners' best interests to remove the fundamental driver of Bitcoin's value proposition. Although the modification will raise miner revenue in BTC terms, it would lead to a catastrophic and permanent price fall, resulting in a net loss of miner revenue in fiat terms.
Miners are more concerned with their fiat-denominated earnings than their Bitcoin-denominated revenue since practically all of their costs — salaries, equipment costs, and energy bills — are paid in fiat. As a result, if Bitcoin's price falls, miners will lose money.
The possibility of changing Bitcoin's hard cap stems from two underlying misconceptions regarding BTC as a distributed, consensus-based network. To begin with, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of different versions of the Bitcoin source code. For example, every node in the Bitcoin network runs a software that rejects any incorrect blocks.
While many nodes are running the most recent version of Bitcoin Core, some are still using older versions and implementations. As a result, while changing BTC Core's source code is simple, convincing tens of thousands of nodes to implement these modifications is significantly more challenging.
Moreover, miners have no control over the network's rules. Instead, miners are responsible for creating new blocks and validating transactions. When miners submit a new block to the network, tens of thousands of nodes independently verify it, ensuring that it generates a suitable amount of new BTC, has legitimate proof-of-work and contains valid transactions. All blocks that break these criteria will be rejected by nodes, implying that miners have no control over Bitcoin's ruleset.
When 95% of miners agreed to lift the block size limit in 2017 in an attempt to allow Bitcoin to scale, this theory was confirmed by reality. On the other hand, nodes and users resisted the shift and successfully forced miners to switch to a different scaling method.
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Can Bitcoin's hard cap of 21 million be changed? - Cointelegraph
Countries Are Leaving The USD Standard, They Need A Bitcoin Strategy – Bitcoin Magazine
The below is a direct excerpt of Marty's Bent Issue #1126: "Dedollarization accelerates." Sign up for the newsletter here.
Above is an excerpt from an article published in Al Mayadeen yesterday morning that highlights another domino falling in a trend we've been following for years in this rag; countries deciding to conduct foreign trade in their native currencies instead of using the dollar. In the past, most of the focus has been on energy trade between countries. The petrodollar system makes it so individual countries have to settle their oil trades in USD terms as it is has become the dominant unit of account for international trade. As time goes on and other countries become increasingly displeased with the US government's attempts to police the world and worried about the pace at which dollars are being created, they have begun to begin working to conduct trade without involving the US Dollar in an attempt to separate them selves politically and from currency risk.
Russia and India deciding to conduct arms trade using rubles and rupees as their settlement currencies is yet another step away from dollar hegemony on the international stage. This may not be a big deal in terms of the size of economic activity that is being settled outside of the USD reserve system. However, it is a very strong signal to the rest of the world that the dollar isn't as sticky as it has been for the last five decades. Many countries are tired of catering to a bloated and irresponsible US federal government that seems to be banking on prestige of another era that has not necessarily been earned over the last couple of decades to claim dollar dominance over the rest of the global market. We shouldn't be surprised that countries are beginning to turn away from the dollar.
With that being said, Russia and India better have a bitcoin accumulation strategy and an intent to adopt a Bitcoin Standard over time because even if they settle their trades outside the confines of the dollar system their currencies are still competing with bitcoin, the best money humans have ever come into contact with.
The seas of the currency markets are getting frothy. Power players are taking positions and more people will begin to notice this sooner or later. Make sure you get on the ship that has the highest probability of navigating increasingly volatile seas.
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Countries Are Leaving The USD Standard, They Need A Bitcoin Strategy - Bitcoin Magazine
Ethereum Might Dethrone Bitcoin as Best Crypto Store of Value, Study Argues Bitcoin News – Bitcoin News
A recent paper authored by members of several universities, including Sydney and Macquarie, argues that recent changes in Ethereum monetary policy are making it a better store of value than bitcoin. The deflationary effect that the EIP-1559 proposal has caused in the issuance of the currency is said to be the main cause of this.
A new paper released by members of Australian universities last month is putting the spotlight on Ethereum and its possible future as a store of value. The paper, titled Better than Bitcoin? Can cryptocurrencies beat inflation?, is authored by Ester Flez-Vias of the University of Technology in Sydney and other academics, and compares the issuance of Bitcoin with the new issuance model of Ethereum, that is making the currency deflationary.
The paper states:
We show that following the recent change in its transactions protocol, the digital currency Ethereum displays a significantly lower net issuance rate of tokens than Bitcoin, achieved by destroying the feesassociated with each transaction.
This has to do with the activation of EIP-1559, a proposal that burns Ethereum in a proportional way to the usage of the network. While this proposal had some opposition when it was presented mainly from miners and mining pools it is now contributing to this new appreciation of Ethereum as a possibly deflationary currency in the future.
The implementation of EIP-1559 has caused the network to burn a significant amount of Ethereum in fees. This change has led to more than one million ETH being put out of circulation after just three months of its implementation on mainnet. Regarding this, the study remarks:
In many cases the amount of Ethereum burned outpaces the networks creation of new tokens, resulting in Ethereum potentially becoming the worlds first deflationary currency. We argue that this provides better inflationary hedging properties than Bitcoin, and Ether may therefore offer a superior long-term value storage than Bitcoin.
Other cryptocurrency projects are adopting similar burning schemes hoping to recreate the same effect. Binance coin recently activated an update to its network that also implemented fee burning. However, Binance coin and Ethereum are fundamentally different: The latter has no cap on its issuance, while Binance coin does have a hard issuance cap.
What do you think about the Better than Bitcoin? Can cryptocurrencies beat inflation? paper and its conclusions? Tell us in the comments section below.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.
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Ethereum Might Dethrone Bitcoin as Best Crypto Store of Value, Study Argues Bitcoin News - Bitcoin News
Ethereum it outperforming bitcoin because its a tech bet: Novogratz – Markets Insider
Mike Novogratz is one of the most high-profile bitcoin and crypto investors.
John Lamparski/Getty Images
Ethereum is outperforming bitcoin as the latter becomes less attractive as an inflation hedge in the face of the Federal Reserve's hawkishness going into 2022, said Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz in an interview on Wednesday.
With a fixed supply of 21 million, many investors have long seen the world's biggest cryptocurrency as a hedge against inflation, especially in the face of unprecedented easy money policies intended to keep the economy afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic. That could be challenged, however, as the US central bank turns hawkish to combat inflation next year.
Speaking on CNBC, Novogratz said that as bitcoin loses some of its appeal as a hedge against a devalued currency, ethereum is outperforming as its proponents see the potential in the solutions enabled by the underlying technology.
"People see ethereum as a technology bet," Novogratz said. While bitcoin remains the most dominant cryptocurrency, its market share has dipped to about 40%, down from 70% as investors turn to other digital assets.
For Novogratz, ethereum becomes more promising compared to bitcoin as the Fed stops pumping cash into the economy. The billionaire crypto bull said that in any event, he expects a "monster fourth quarter" on the back of a booming economy.
He also laid out his prediction of a continued bull run in stocks, which he added are trading much more bullishly than crypto.
"Crypto's not trading as bullish as equities because you see this tension, that the Fed's going to take the booze away from the punchbowl much sooner than we thought," Novogratz said in a Wednesday CNBC "Squawk Box" interview. "Broadly that shouldn't be good for risk assets."
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Ethereum it outperforming bitcoin because its a tech bet: Novogratz - Markets Insider
Monster-Sized Bitcoin Whale Transfers: Blockchain Parser Catches Significant Amounts of ‘Cold BTC’ Moved to Active Exchanges Featured Bitcoin News -…
Two days ago on November 30, the price of bitcoin (BTC) tapped a high that day reaching $59,250 per unit, but it has since dropped close to 5% in value to just above the $56K region. Onchain statistics indicate that whales and long-term holders (LTHs) have been spending over the last month and blockchain parsers have witnessed enormous movements in recent days.
On the first two days of December, there have been some massive bitcoin (BTC) whale movements stemming from long-term bitcoin holders. On Thursday morning, the creator of the web portal Btcparser.com explained that significant amounts of bitcoin were taken out from cold wallets and moved to active exchanges.
The onchain action was caught by the blockchain parsing tool Btcparser 3, a tool that analyzes each and every new bitcoin block by getting detailed information about all transactions within it. The bot uses groups of 100 blocks and identifies all wallets that sent or received a total exceeding 1,000 bitcoins during that time, explains the parsing tools website.
On December 1, Btcparser 3 caught some major onchain action, which saw the movement of thousands of bitcoins during the course of the day. For instance, on Wednesday the parser caught the movement of 15,074 BTC or $849 million, 6,970 BTC moved, and thousands more BTC spent as well.
Then the following day on December 2, monster-sized bitcoin transactions were caught by Btcparser 3. This transaction on Thursday saw a whopping 36,645 BTC deposited and 10,547 BTC left the wallet. Thats more than $2 billion worth of bitcoin in USD value, and the address spent more than $28.2 billion in bitcoin (BTC) during its lifetime. At 1:59 a.m. (EST) on Thursday, Btcparser 3 caught 15,074 BTC or $849 million move.
In addition to Btcparser 3 catching two days worth of major whale movements, Glassnodes most recent insights report, Week Onchain 48, establishes that long-term holders (LTHs) are spending some of their holdings. Glassnodes report notes that this action has been prominent during the last 30 days.
Shifting our focus to [LTHs], Glassnodes report details. We can see that there has been a reasonably continuous rate of spending over the last month. From the peak of 13.5M BTC in holdings, LTHs have spent (assumed distributed) 150K BTC, equivalent to around 5.8% of the volume accumulated since March 2021.
Crypto advocates have been discussing major whale movements on forums and bitcoin whale commentary is littered all over social media. The crypto analytics firm Santiment also tweeted about this past months whale action on November 23.
Bitcoins key active whale addresses that hold between 100 to 10K BTC are content after accumulating a total of ~40K more BTC on last weeks dip, Santiment said. The company also shared its weekly report as well, which discusses whale action and the growing bearish sentiment (& why its a good thing).
What do you think about the recent bitcoin price action, whale movements and the current bearish sentiment? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Btcparser.com, Glassnode onchain report,
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.
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Monster-Sized Bitcoin Whale Transfers: Blockchain Parser Catches Significant Amounts of 'Cold BTC' Moved to Active Exchanges Featured Bitcoin News -...
Bitcoin.com Unlocks Earn on Crypto Promoted Bitcoin News – Bitcoin News
Bitcoin.com is integrating technology from CoinFLEX that enables users to earn interest on a wide range of cryptoassets, including a US-dollar stablecoin (flexUSD), through both passive and active strategies.
The passive yield strategy is built on flexUSD, a US-dollar pegged cryptocurrency that automatically provides all holders with compounding interest payments, regardless of where they hold it.
Were incredibly excited to be offering an interest-earning product thats easy to use and carries minimal risk, said Bitcoin.com CEO Dennis Jarvis. Now our users can not only shield themselves from the downside market volatility by trading into a US dollar equivalent, they can also earn yield on those dollars that far exceeds anything available in legacy banking.
To start earning interest now, Bitcoin.com users can either swap into or mint flexUSD in a few clicks.
Behind the scenes, yield for flexUSD is generated by fees and interest paid on short-term lend/borrow markets. Interest rates will vary but are usually between 10-20%. FlexUSD can also be used as collateral to trade, meaning you can earn yield and trade at the same time.
The CoinFLEX technology integration also brings advanced trading tools and products to the Bitcoin.com ecosystem, including physically settled futures and perpetuals with leverage up to 100x. These features are available on the Bitcoin.com Exchange, where users can also trade 40+ spot pairs: all the majors like Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Ethereum (ETH), as well as DeFi coins like UNI and SUSHI, popular meme coins like SHIB, and a range of other coins weve never offered before.
Bitcoin.com users can also employ active yield strategies by providing liquidity in both single and dual asset pools for futures markets.
CoinFLEX CEO Mark Lamb explains: The system democratizes access to the yields generated by market making for futures markets, where volumes vastly exceed spot. And since its a hybrid model, where the liquidity is decentralized but the order book is centralized, liquidity provision and trades are executed instantly and fees are minimal.
Bitcoin.com traders can use a handy APR Simulator tool to easily estimate the yield generated by supplying liquidity into a given pool and at a defined trading price range.
Beyond providing folks who want to trade at higher frequency with the advanced tools they need, Bitcoin.com now enables holders of cryptoassets to put them to productive use and earn a yield for doing so, adds Bitcoin.com CEO Dennis Jarvis. Its a big step in expanding the Bitcoin.com ecosystem towards our goal of providing an even more comprehensive financial services platform that further supports economic freedom.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons
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Bitcoin.com Unlocks Earn on Crypto Promoted Bitcoin News - Bitcoin News
Bitcoin And Omicron: Is Another Black Swan Brewing? – NewsBTC
Back in March of 2020, those taking position ahead of the Bitcoin halving were blindsided by the Black Thursday market selloff, driven by panic at the onset of the COVID pandemic and subsequent lockdowns.
With the new Omicron strain making headlines, and lockdowns once again considered, could the cryptocurrency market be facing another dangerous macro storm and catastrophic collapse?
According to Wikipedia, a black swan is an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight.
Black Thursday in March 2020 classifies perfectly as such. COVID came, the market panicked, and Bitcoin collapsed back to $3,800 at the low. It turned out to be a huge overreaction.
Related Reading | Want To Learn Technical Analysis? Read The NewsBTC Trading Course
Despite the surprise factor of the event and the fact no one saw COVID coming, technical analysis proves that these black swan events can be predicted to a point. But what if two black swan events were to happen from touching the same trend line. Would these really be considered black swan events?
Thats exactly whats at risk, given the recent Omicron strain news and related panic, and the fact that Bitcoin price is indeed up against the very trend line that was used to predict Black Thursdays eventual target to the dollar.
The chart above shows that Bitcoin price was rejected from the same trend line that prompted the COVID correction. The move was so sharp and intense, a polar opposite rally resulted that took the cryptocurrency to more than $65,000 per coin.
Bitcoin selling off just as severely wouldnt necessarily be a bad thing, as the bounce from such an event has shown. But despite the dangerous macro landscape and the stock market sinking, the conditions for the top cryptocurrency are very different this time around.
For one, the arrows depict two rejections from former resistance in 2019, with the second (marked in red) failing to break out of the Ichimoku cloud. That resistance level dated all the way back to the very beginning of the bear market, which is why the Black Thursday rejection was particularly strong. Meanwhile, the current price action more so appears to demonstrate a resistance level being flipped as support.
The blue path outlines an expected Elliott Wave motive wave, with three impulses up and two corrective waves. Per Elliott Wave Theory, wave 1 shows there still life left in an asset, but market participants are reluctant to believe the bull market has begun.
Related Reading | Finding Fibonacci: Is Bitcoin Beginning A Golden Recovery?
Because of the remaining bearish sentiment, wave 2 wipes out most of the progress of wave 1, before wave 3 begins. With lows of wave 1 retested at the climax of wave 2, market participants are more confident in a blossoming bull trend, which is why wave 3 tends to be the longest and strongest. EWT refers to this as a wave extension.
Wave 4 cannot enter into the path of wave 1 and tend to move sideways. This suggests that it is unlikely to see another sharp correction like what happened on Black Thursday in 2020. Whenever wave 4 officially ends, and whether it has or not is still up for debate, targets of $100,000 per coin remain likely for the peak of wave 5.
Follow @TonySpilotroBTC on Twitter or jointhe TonyTradesBTC Telegram for exclusive daily market insights and technical analysis education. Please note: Content iseducational and should not beconsidered investment advice.
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Bitcoin And Omicron: Is Another Black Swan Brewing? - NewsBTC
True or false: 91% of surveys about Bitcoin and crypto are totally wrong – Cointelegraph
When Tony Richards, the head of payments policy at the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), read the recent survey results from Finders Crypto Report, which stated that almost one in five Australians owned crypto, he didn't believe it for a second.
However, the results had already been widely published around the country, gracing headlines for weeks. They even made their way into the recent Senate Committee on Australia as a Technology and Financial Centers final report in October.
Welcome to the statistically dubious world of cryptocurrency surveys an easy way for companies to get publicity by hawking survey results, but not necessarily a great way to stay informed.
The Finder survey from August claimed that 17% of Australians own at least one cryptocurrency 9% own Bitcoin, 8% own Ether and 5% own Dogecoin.
Richards called these figures into question in his address to the Australia Corporate Treasury Association on Nov. 18, saying that he finds them somewhat implausible.
I cannot help thinking that the online surveys they are based on might be unrepresentative of the population, he said.
He referenced important segments of the population including the elderly, people living in regional areas, and those without reliable access to the internet, that online survey panels do not capture well.
His point echoes a similar sentiment outlined by Dr. Chittaranjan Andrade in his 2020 report for the Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, where he claims online survey samples are often unrepresentative, regardless of the subject.
Online surveys are completed only by people who are sufficiently biased to be interested in the subject; why else would they take the time and trouble to respond? he wrote.
But the head of consumer research at Finder, Graham Cooke, defended the methodology, telling Cointelegraph:
We are confident that this produces a trustworthy sample which is representative of the population, he added.
In the 15-page report, which summarized the survey results, there are only a few lines at the end to explain the methodology. It says: Finders Consumer Sentiment Tracker is an ongoing nationally representative survey of 1,000 Australians each month, with more than 27,400 respondents between May 2019 and July 2021.
The survey is conducted by Qualtrics, a Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing (SAP) company. Qualtrics website boasts, "in just ten weeks, Finder lifted brand awareness 23 percent," but there was no additional information regarding survey methodology, and none was provided in response to a request from Cointelegraph.
A Finder spokesperson was able to confirm to Cointelegraph that: Qualtrics collects respondents from various panels and can be incentivized in different ways. Some are paid a small fee for their participation, some earn a charity donation, for example.
This is not to single out Finders survey for particular criticism: There appears to be a new survey every day and often their findings are at odds with one another.
Take the YouGov survey commissioned by Australian crypto exchange Swyftx, which found that the number of Australians who hold crypto is closer to 25%. The July survey collected responses from 2,768 adult Australians, and the figures were weighted using estimates from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. This survey was found to be compliant with the Australian Polling Council Code.
However, both surveys cant be correct. The population of Australia is 25.69 million. This means that Finders 17% of the Australian population equates to roughly 4.37 million people. Meanwhile, Swyftxs 25% is about 6.42 million people.
The difference between the two estimates translates to just over two million people thats more than the entire population of South Australia.
The numbers also dont appear to be reflected on local platforms. Crypto trading platform Binance Australia told Cointelegraph that it had 700,000 users, Easy Crypto Australia said it had around 15,000 users, Swyftx has 470,000 users (many from overseas). BTC Markets has over 330 000 Australian users and Independent Reserves site claims 200,000 users.
Digital Surge, eToro, Coinspot, and Coinmama did not respond with user numbers.
Not all Australians use a local exchange to trade their crypto of course, but on the other hand, a significant proportion of users are signed up to multiple local exchanges. There appears to be a mismatch of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, between survey results and exchange accounts.
That said, Jonathon Miller, Australian managing director Kraken exchange, said that his platform came up with similar figures to Finder in YouGov market research in May.
The sample in that survey included 1,027 Australians aged 18 years and older, the data weighted by age, gender and region to reflect the latest ABS population estimates.
It found that one in five (19%) Aussies have owned or currently own a cryptocurrency, and 14% (2.78 million) currently have a crypto portfolio.
Speaking to the Finder survey, Miller said: I dont think its going to be that far off. The point is that these surveys are probably representative.
One issue that could be affecting the results of crypto-related surveys is that respondents to some of these surveys are actually being paid in crypto.
On Nov. 18, a Premise Data survey of 11,000 participants across 76 countries claimed that 41% of people globally trust Bitcoin (BTC) over local currencies.
The catch was, a separate survey of Premises contributors two months earlier reported 23% of its contributor base have been paid in BTC, and since 2016, the data collection company has paid out over $1 million in Bitcoin via Coinbase to survey participants in 137 countries globally.
Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research Principal Research Fellow Nicole Watson told Cointelegraph that paying someone Bitcoin to complete a survey about cryptocurrency would bias the result.
People who know what Bitcoin is and want some would be more likely to take part, she said. In short, theyre not going to be reflective of the wider population.
Cointelegraph reached out to Premise about its survey methodology, but received no response.
In Watsons opinion, online-only surveys are not representative of the wider population.
She explained that someones participation in a survey could be influenced by who is running it, what it is about, how long it will take and what (if any) incentives are offered all of which may bias the results.
For research conducted in Australia, a good way to tell whether the findings are trustworthy is by checking whether it has been issued an Australian Polling Council Quality Mark. In the United Kingdom, you can look to see whether the polling company is a member of the British Polling Council (BPC) and in the United States, the National Council on Public Polls.
The Australian Polling Council says that any survey or poll worth its weight should include a long methodology statement, including additional information like weighting methods, effective sample size and margin of error.
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True or false: 91% of surveys about Bitcoin and crypto are totally wrong - Cointelegraph
This simple Bitcoin options strategy lets traders profit while also hedging their bets – Cointelegraph
For traders who are undecided on Bitcoin's (BTC) move, the "long condor with call options," or the "iron condor" options strategy, yields optimal results with very low risk. This strategy offers protection down to $53,500, which would be a 7% downside move from the current $57,600, and returns a positive outcome up to $67,500.
Options markets provide more flexibility to develop custom strategies. Unlike futures, there are two separate instruments available. The call option gives the buyer upside price protection, while the protective put option offers the opposite.
This long condor strategy has been set for the Dec. 31 expiry and uses a slightly bullish range. The same basic structure can also be applied for other periods or price ranges, although the contract quantities might need some adjustment.
Bitcoin was trading at $57,600 when the pricing took place, but a similar result can be achieved starting from any price level. The minimum contract size depends on the derivatives exchange, but one needs to keep the suggested ratio to hold the overall strategy structure.
The first trade requires buying 0.54 contracts of the $52,000 call options to create positive exposure above this price level. Then, to limit gains above $56,000, the trader needs to sell 0.50 BTC call option contracts.
To further limit gains above $64,000, another 0.45 call option contracts should be sold. To complete the strategy, the trader needs upside protection above $70,000 by buying 0.41 call option contracts if the Bitcoin price skyrockets.
Related: 3 reasons why Bitcoins drop to $56.5K may have been the local bottom
The strategy might sound complicated to execute, but the margin required is only 0.0152 BTC, which is also the max loss. Traders should remember that it is also possible to close the position ahead of the Dec. 31 expiry if there's enough liquidity.
The max net gain occurs between $56,000 and $64,000 at 0.0233 BTC, which is 50% higher than the potential loss. With 30 days until the expiry date, this strategy gives the holder peace of mind because, unlike futures trading, there is no liquidation risk.
Furthermore, having a profit range that varies from a 7% downside move to a positive 17% price change seems conservative and covers a decent $14,000 price range.
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.