Category Archives: Bitcoin
New Report Shows China Dominates Bitcoin Mining, Is This a Sign of Worry? – Forbes
domestic gpu cripto mining rig on wall with selective focus.
2019 has been a relatively good year for miners, generating $5.4 billion in total revenue. But, according to the year-end report of CoinShares, one country has dominated bitcoin mining throughout the year more than any other.
The research paper entitled "The Bitcoin Mining Network", which explores trends, average creation costs, electricity consumption and sources in bitcoin mining, discovered that nearly 65 percent of bitcoin hashrate originates from China.
"Regardless of the reasons, the effect is that the current Chinese hashrate ratio is likely higher than in June 2019. While we expect this ratio to fall again as latest generation hardware further makes its way into the non-Chinese market, at the time of writing, as much as 65% of Bitcoin hashpower resides within China the highest weve seen since we began our network monitoring in late 2017," the report read.
For many years, China has consistently been a major market for bitcoin miners due to its cheap electricity and affordable resources. Companies like Bitmain, F2Pool, and Canaan that account for a large portion of the Bitcoin network's hashrate are all based in China.
Distribution of the Bitcoin network's hashrate (Source: Blockchain.com)
However, in April, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) of China included bitcoin mining on a list of industries it plans to phase out over time. The unexpected move of the Chinese government left mining companies wondering the future of China's mining sector.
In a strange turn of events, following Chinese President Xi Jinping's call for increased efforts in blockchain development, China essentially unbanned bitcoin mining in the last quarter of 2019.
Since then, China's bitcoin mining sector has prospered. Eventually, it recovered from a slow several months in mid-2019 to establish dominance over the cryptocurrency mining industry once again.
Whether much of the Bitcoin network's hashrate coming from China is necessarily negative or positive depends on perspective. But, as a purely permissionless and decentralized network, it is always favorable to have more geographically distributed hashrate.
In the hardware side, the dominance of Bitmain has started to subside, which opens the space up for increased competition. Companies like Hut8, Bitfury, and Canaan are competing to take the top spot in the bitcoin mining sector.
"Since our last report in June 2019, we estimate that Bitmains market share by hashrate has fallen from ~70% to ~66%. To add context, Bitmains own estimates (via Frost and Sullivan) claim that as recently as in in 2017, their market share was around 75%," said the CoinShares research team.
Hence, while the dominance of China in bitcoin mining has increased, in the hardware department, the industry has begun to see a more competitive environment.
The expansion of major mining facilities to other major mountainous areas such as Washington, British Columbia, and Norway also serve as signs that the geographical distribution of bitcoin hashrate will improve over time, as the sector evolves.
"Among these regions we find the major mining centres of: Washington and New York States in the United States; British Columbia, Alberta, Newfoundland & Labrador, and Quebec Provinces of Canada; Iceland; Northern Scandinavia (Norway and Sweden); The Caucasus (Georgia and Armenia); the Siberian Federal District of Russia; Yunnan and most importantly of all regions, Sichuan provinces of China," CoinShares researchers wrote.
Originally posted here:
New Report Shows China Dominates Bitcoin Mining, Is This a Sign of Worry? - Forbes
Bitcoin Breakdown Looks Real, $6.2K On The Horizon? – newsBTC
Bitcoin (BTC) price is showing signs of bearish continuation below $6,800 against the US Dollar. BTC bears seems to be eyeing a test of the $6,500 support or $6,200.
After consolidating above the $7,000 support, bitcoin bears gained strength against the US Dollar. As a result, BTC price nosedived below the $7,000 support and settled well below the 100 hourly simple moving average.
The price is down around 4% and it even broke the $6,880 support area. A new monthly low is formed near $6,800 and the price is currently consolidating losses.
An immediate resistance is near the $6,880 level. Besides, the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the recent downward move from the $7,135 high to $6,800 low is also near the $6,880 area.
More importantly, there is a short term contracting triangle forming with resistance near $6,880 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair. Therefore, an upside break above $6,880 level might start a short term upside correction.
The next resistance is near the $6,980 level. Additionally, the 50% Fib retracement level of the recent downward move from the $7,135 high to $6,800 low is also near the $6,980 level.
However, the main resistance is seen near the $7,000 and $7,015 levels (the recent breakdown zone). A successful daily close above $7,015 is needed to start a substantial recovery in the near term.
Conversely, the price is likely to accelerate lower below the $6,840 and $6,820 levels. If bitcoin breaks the $6,800 low, the next stop for the bears could be near $6,600 or $6,500.
Any further losses may perhaps lead the price towards the key $6,200 support area, where the bulls are likely to take a stand.
Bitcoin Price
Looking at the chart, bitcoin price is sliding heavily below $7,000 and $6,880. Thus, there are high chances of more downsides as long as the price is trading below the $7,000 and $7,015 resistance levels in the near term.
Technical indicators:
Hourly MACD The MACD is currently showing signs of an upside correction.
Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) The RSI for BTC/USD is slowly recovering and it is near the 30 level.
Major Support Levels $6,800 followed by $6,500.
Major Resistance Levels $6,880, $7,000 and $7,015.
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Bitcoin Breakdown Looks Real, $6.2K On The Horizon? - newsBTC
Bitcoin.com Lists Ponzi-like Token HEX to the Dismay of BCH Fans – Crypto Briefing
Roger Ver, a co-founder of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and owner of Bitcoin.com, finally responded to criticism after listing the controversial altcoin, HEX. If you dont like HEX, dont trade it, he wrote on Reddit. The Bitcoin Cash community has since been up in arms that their projects founder has openly validated the highly controversial crypto project.
Crypto Twitter has been debating the nature of crypto influencer Richard Hearts latest project, HEX.
Pitched as a staking platform that starves scams of attention and referrers by using the same and better sales tactics they do, users send ETH to The Origin Address in exchange for the token. HEX holders are then promised 10,000x returns in under 2.5 years.
After digging through the documentation on the project, however, it becomes clear that Heart is in control of nearly half of the tokens sent to the address despite stating otherwise. It should also be noted that at the time of press, the ETH address attached to the project has recorded $5.7 million in incoming transactions.
Although the project features several other questionable components (i.e. a referral system, Adoption Amplifier, founders tax), the unknown owner of the Origin Address is an immediate red flag. Goldman Sats, a noted crypto commentator, put it best in an exhaustive Medium article on the project:
When Richard has been pressed on information about the Origin Address, he goes to lengths to stress that he doesnt own it, and he doesnt know who WILL own it. Listening to him describe it, you could wake up tomorrow to an unsolicited letter telling you YOU are the owner of the Hex Origin Address. This is a lie.
As seen in the Tweet above, Heart has also recruited the services of noted Bitconnect influencers Trevon James and Craig Grant. Bitconnect was an open-source crypto project released in 2016. In 2018, the platform shut down after it became clear that it was nothing more than an elaborate Ponzi scheme.
The inclusion of these two individuals has naturally led to even greater criticism from the crypto community.
In the latest HEX development, Roger Ver has now added the token to Bitcoin.coms exchange. Trading began on December 13, 2019, according to a press release. In that release, they remind users that if they are thinking about claiming HEX to be sure they use privacy tools to obfuscate your transaction history before taking any action that can possibly lead back to you. That could also be a general warning, however.
When visiting the r/BTC subreddit, a BCH-dominated community on Reddit, the criticism of the listing has been severe. One user writes that while they agree with [Roger Ver] and support [Ver] on the majority of [his] endeavors, this time [his] company is doing something inexcusable. Other comments describe worry that associating BCH with HEX will inevitably taint the credibility of the Bitcoin fork.
To this and other commentaries, Ver responded with a curt, if you dont like HEX, dont trade it.
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Bitcoin.com Lists Ponzi-like Token HEX to the Dismay of BCH Fans - Crypto Briefing
Boredom Is The Enemy? A Look At Bitcoin Since Peaking At $20,000 – Yahoo Finance
The price of bitcoin has dropped 34% in the past three months from above $10,000 to below $7,000. The worlds most valuable cryptocurrency is on track to start 2020 once again down about 65% from its all-time highs hit in December 2017 around $20,000.
The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (OTC: GBTC) has more than doubled in 2019, but it's limping into 2020 after tumbling 34% in the past three months.
Skeptics Vindicated
After a hit start to 2019, bitcoin prices reached the $13,000 level in early summer before the rally stalled out. The bitcoin bears that predicted the bursting of the bitcoin bubble in 2017 and 2018 have yet to be proven wrong after the 2019 rally ran out of steam well short of previous highs.
Plenty of experts predicted the downfall of bitcoin. Benzinga reported on notable bitcoin bears such as Jamie Dimon (CEO of JPMorgan Chase), Warren Buffett (CEO of Berkshire Hathaway), Mohamed El-Erian (chief economic adviser for Allianz), Robert Shiller (Nobel Prize-winning Yale University economist) and Ray Dalio (founder of Bridgewater Associates) back in 2017.
Boredom Is The Enemy
But perhaps nobody pegged the deflating of the bitcoin bubble quite as well as Jim Angel, professor at Georgetown University School of Business.
In December 2017 near the peak in bitcoin prices, Angel told Benzingas PreMarket Prep the bitcoin bubble is unique given bitcoin bulls see the cryptocurrency as a store of value, much like gold. Therefore, their thesis wont be disproven unless the global economy collapses.
What makes this one different is very few catalysts for popping the bubble, Angel said at the time. During the dot-com bubble, when a dot-com baby came out with a bad earnings report, people realized the business model is broken, and the market responded swiftly and harshly.
Instead of a mass exodus of bitcoin bulls all at once, Angel said traders would likely slowly lose interest over time.
My prediction is that eventually boredom is whats going to cause it to deflate, Angel said. Once the people who are rushing in out of fear of missing out, the FOMO, see, Wow, ok I got this thing, now what can I do with it? If the price goes nowhere, the speculators are going to say, Im bored, Im going to sell it and take whatever profits or losses I have and move on. Eventually, I think it will kind of wither away.
Commodity, Currency, Security, Or Scam: What Type Of Asset Do You Think Bitcoin Is?
A Technical Take
Throughout 2018, bitcoin drifted steadily lower via a series of lower peaks and lower troughs as volatility died down, just as Angel predicted. Volatility picked up again in early 2019 before the same pattern of lower peaks and lower toughs once again took hold heading into the end of the year.
But just as Angel predicted, bitcoin bulls are digging in their heels, and the case for buying bitcoin is as strong as ever. In the past three years, the price of bitcoin is up 646% overall compared to just a 42.1% gain by the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE: SPY).
Benzingas Take
If bitcoin bulls want to believe 2017 was more than just a short-term bubble, bitcoin prices will need to get above $20,000 at some point in the future. In the meantime, bitcoin prices need to stay above late 2018 lows of around $3,000 to maintain post-bubble technical support.
Do you agree with this take? Email feedback@benzinga.com with your thoughts.
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Boredom Is The Enemy? A Look At Bitcoin Since Peaking At $20,000 - Yahoo Finance
Bitcoin Languishes at 3-Week Lows, Ethereum Erases Yearly Gains amid Mind-Boggling Crypto Correction – CCN.com
Bitcoins price printed fresh three-week lows on Tuesday, as fear and uncertainty continued to dictate the trend for the number one cryptocurrency. Now, bitcoin is veering towards a re-test of long-term psychological support, threatening to undermine almost a year of progress.
The bitcoin price plunged by nearly $200 in the span of a few minutes on Tuesday. The loss of the $7,000 support triggered a deeper fall all the way down to $6,584, the lowest in over three weeks. The nearly 4% loss puts bitcoin closer to the upper band of a key psychological range that tracks between $6,000 and $6,500.
At current values, bitcoin has a total market capitalization of $122.3 billion. Spot turnover was valued at just over $735 million, according to Bitwise tracking data. Volumes are well below levels seen through the spring and early summer when bitcoin was recovering from its previous low.
Accounting for 67.3% of the overall cryptocurrency market, bitcoin exerted a strong gravitational pull on other assets. The Tuesday selloff prompted a similar reaction across altcoins and tokens, sending the overall cryptocurrency market to its lowest level in over six months.
Digital asset values bottomed near $181.8 billion, the lowest since May, according to CoinMarketCap. Remarkably, the asset class has shed more than $180 billion from its June high.
With the exception of Tether (USDT), a stablecoin partially backed by U.S. dollars, all of the top cryptocurrencies reported declines on Tuesday. Ethereum (ETH) shed 6.5%, XRP plunged 10.% and bitcoin cash was down 9.4%.
Ethereums fall from grace is especially notable. The developers cryptocurrency touched an intraday low of $135.01, wiping out its gains for the year.
Bitcoin and the broader cryptocurrency market are languishing due to adoption constraints, regulatory uncertainty and an extremely bearish outlook among traders. Bitcoins Fear & Greed Index, a multi-factor sentiment analysis, is registering extreme fear on Tuesday.
Strategists warn that a perfect storm could be brewing for bitcoin as dismal trade volumes and a lack of institutional interest keep digital assets from reaching critical mass. Although Bakkt bitcoin futures have picked up in recent months, the highly-anticipated launch of the custody platform has failed to deliver as expected.
Economist and crypto analyst Alex Kruger has warned that Bakkt traders have very little interest in storing bitcoin. His research unveiled that the futures exchange is being used solely for speculative purposes. Even then, volumes remain razor thin.
Despite the recent correction, bitcoin remains the best-performing major asset of 2019. The digital currency is up more than 76% since Jan. 1 and is well on its way to setting a higher low for the year. Bitcoin has printed a higher yearly low in six of its last seven years.
This article was edited by Josiah Wilmoth.
Last modified: December 18, 2019 03:54 UTC
‘It Needs to Look Real’: The Bitcoin Scam That Took Buyers for a $722 Million Ride – The Daily Beast
For five years, the cryptocurrency company BitClub Network made sky-high profits, while customers lost so much money that at least one lodged death threats against the company.
I became bankrupt with this clubcoin, wrote one member of a cryptocurrency forum in March. He claimed to have invested $40,000 in the company. I don't know what to do now. These lying bastards lied so much for almost 2 years. If I meet Russ Medlin, I will just strangle him.
At the time, BitClub Network (BCN) was a near-billion-dollar company and Medlin, a convicted sex offender for child pornography and sexual assault of a minor under 14, sat at its head. Today, Medlin is one of the companys only leaders not facing federal charges. BCN was a sophisticated scam that bilked customers out of at least $722 million across five years, prosecutors charged last week. Four alleged ringleaders were arrested, while two others, whose names are redacted in a federal complaint, remain at large.
BCN was an empire propped up by dubious technology, customers they privately called idiots, and the stolen identity of at least one violent rapist, according to the court documents.
The company said it would make investors rich by earning them cryptocurrency, a form of digital money. Customers could invest in BCNs mining technology, which supposedly used high-powered computers to generate the cryptocurrency bitcoinand BCN would give investors a share of the bitcoin profits. It looked like the ultimate work-from-home scheme: Once a customer paid a $99 joining fee and at least $500 to join a mining pool, they could sit back and reap the rewards for years.
Or at least thats how it would work if BCN actually owned the mining technology it advertised. But messages from the companys leaders suggest they were misleading customers from the beginning. The federal complaint, filed in New Jersey includes messages from June 2014, in which BCNs early leaders said their target audience would be the typical dumb MLM [multi-level marketing] investor.
We may need to fake it for the first 30 days while we get going, Matthew Goettsche wrote to Silviu Balaci in October 2014, according to the criminal complaint. It needs to look real.
Both men, along with alleged co-conspirators Jobadiah Weeks and Joseph Frank Abel have been arrested for their roles in BCN. It is unclear whether the defendants have lawyers.
Back then I didnt know much about crypto like I know right now and I failed to do my own research hence I fell prey to BCN recruiters. I will live to regret it!
Edmond Thamage, who invested $3,500 in BCNs Founders pool
BCN was not actually mining the bitcoin it advertised, Goettsche said. Instead, he wanted Balaci to provide fake mining numbers to investors. We are building this whole model on the backs of idiots, Goettsche told Balaci in January 2015. Keeping the scheme going just means convincing the morons ;).
Both Goettsche and Balaci, along with alleged co-conspirators Jobadiah Weeks and Joseph Frank Abel, have been arrested for their roles in BCN. It is unclear whether the defendants have retained lawyers yet.
Goettsche might have had contempt for his customers, but the unregulated world of cryptocurrency in 2015 meant that plenty of non-morons were still losing money on bitcoin schemes. Rising cryptocurrency values led a growing pool of people to invest via third-party dealers who promised to act like unofficial banks. But nearly all those companies were brand new, making it difficult for investors to tell which were legitimate and which were scams. BCN claimed to be the most transparent company in the history of the world, and one of the top 10 crypto currency mining operations in the world.
Many of their customers believed them.
Edmond Thamage invested $3,500 in BCNs Founders pool, the companys supposedly premier mining pool that promised the greatest rate of return.
Back then I didnt know much about crypto like I know right now and I failed to do my own research hence I fell prey to BCN recruiters, Thamage told The Daily Beast. I will live to regret it!
When he realized he wasnt receiving the payouts hed hoped for, he said, he contacted BCN many times but I think they have blocked or terminated support services.
Juliet Nursey, another BCN customer, isnt a Silicon Valley techie. Shes a pensioner in the U.K. living on what she described as a very limited income. She didnt know exactly what to expect from BitClub, she told The Daily Beast. Just hoped to earn some money.
Through a friend, she invested 250 (approximately $330) in the company. She hasnt seen a penny in return, a development thats left her bloody annoyed, she said. Like many other BitClub customers, she left a complaint on the companys Facebook page, but never received a response.
But for years, BCN did just enough to give its business the appearance of legitimacy.
Bump up the daily mining earnings starting today by 60%, Goettsche told him in 2015, according to the criminal complaint.
60%? Balaci asked. Wow. That is not sustainable, that is ponzi teritori [territory] and fast cash-out ponzi. But sure.
They just needed to placate restless members, Goettsche told him. We will dilute over time. Members will think its due to strong growth.
To show off its supposed growth, BCN fabricated at least one of the reviews on its site. Its website included testimonials from supposed customers whod struck it rich on the network, including a rave review from a Brazilian man named Victor Diaz who wrote in Spanish instead of Brazils official language of Portuguese. The accompanying picture of Victor was actually a mugshot of a Mumbai man who received a lifetime sentence for a violent rape, a bitcoin blog noted in 2016.
Not everyone was convinced. From the companys founding, some industry insiders noted that it had the makings of a Ponzi scheme. The blog Behind MLM noted that although the companys founders were difficult to track down, some of its earliest promoters were linked to ZeekRewards, a Ponzi scheme that netted $900 million from victims.
Meanwhile, multiple BCN leaders led jetsetting lifestyles promoting the company. The criminal complaint describes them traveling through the U.S. to host talks about BCN. BCN also hosted presentations internationally. In October 2015, a Redditor in Zurich, Switzerland, posted from a BCN pitch meeting, which he said looked like a Ponzi scheme.
As BCNs profile rose, Medlin emerged as the companys de facto leader. We have seen interviews and footage of the BitClub CEO Russ Medlin, so that adds a degree of assurance when the owner of the scheme is prepared to show their face in public, a scam-detection site wrote in 2017. (In the comments, investors argued that the company was very much a scam. I invested $2500 and they took all my money. I lost 10,000USD. They asked me to fund my account again. I invested my pensions fund into them but when i asked for a withdrawal they refused.)
As of April, Medlin was still doing interviews as the companys CEO. But his own reputation was less than clean. A Nevada criminal record reveals he was twice convicted on sex offenses: sexual assault on a minor under 14 in 2005, and possession of child pornography in 2008. For these offenses, he is required to register as a sex offender with Nevada for 25 years. Nevadas sex offender registry currently lists Medlin as non-compliant, suggesting the state might not know where he is.
A voicemail at a number listed for Medlin (his answering machine message: do not leave any messages) was not returned.
According to a Department of Justice release on Tuesday, two unnamed people connected to BCN remain at large. The complaint includes messages between Goettsche and one of those people.
Here is my current plan, Goettsche wrote in September 2017, outlining an 8-step scheme to cash out. Step 8: We retire RAF [rich as fuck]!!!
I like it, the unnamed collaborator wrote. Call me when you can.
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'It Needs to Look Real': The Bitcoin Scam That Took Buyers for a $722 Million Ride - The Daily Beast
Bitcoin 2020: Whats Ahead – Forbes
Photo Illustration by Avishek Das
It doesnt take a genius to see that bitcoin ((BTC) is trending down.
The bitcoin price remains all about China and the trade war and as the BTC price has indicated for some time now, the progress of the China/U.S. trade dispute towards settlement.
The so-called phase 1 deal is a de-escalation of the China/U.S. trade war and you do not have to be too cynical to see the road to this stage in the slow but sure declining trend in the bitcoin price.
This trade deal progress is great for stocks but bad news for Chinese demand for secure assets outside of the reach and effect of the trade conflict and the risk of a devaluing yuan.
You can guarantee when the heat goes up at the negotiating table, up goes bitcoins price, well before we, if we ever do, hear about it what went on. Likewise all progress towards deals, interim or otherwise, will hit the price of Bitcoin.
A comprehensive China/U.S. deal is a long way off, as far off as last years bitcoin lows. So there is still no guessing exactly what will happen next in the trade conflict and hence the short term price of bitcoin.
We can, however, look at the bitcoin chart and imagine it as an index of the trade war and if you buy that as a model we can start to speculate how the trade war may pan out and thereby what will happen next.
Here is the chart which I have doodled all over:
The Bitcoin chart can be an index of hte trade war
In this we can see that if there is a quick path to a full deal, bitcoin is going to go to the low of 2019 pretty quickly, there might be a little pause just above $6,000, then sploosh the price capitulates to below $4,000.
Alternately with some trade war setbacks ahead, we would expect to get a bitcoin rally back above $9,000.
Thats a radically divergent pair of outcomes.
Now the key to this outcome is going to be down to Trump and his election hopes.
If Trump is going to win next year, then China will want to settle fast but Trump will want to hang tough because he will be able to drive a hard bargain if China is facing four years more of his pressure and hasnt settled. Trump may get his deal early, because China will not want to face an even tougher deal post victory.
If Trump looks likely to lose his reelection bid, then China will hang back and Trump will hang back as well to berate China as a campaigning tactic. Obviously, a democratic winner will close a deal fast with China to snub the Trump legacy and get on with their own agenda, so a weak Trump in the campaign will halt or flare the trade war and boost bitcoin.
So Trump up, bitcoin down. Trump down, bitcoin up. This should be the next few months. Then when the election results loom the dynamic should reverse. With no final deal in place and Trump ahead in the polls, Trump up, bitcoin up.
If China plays awkward over the election cycle, and it will if there is a good chance Trump will not win and then Trump gets reelected the resulting retaliation will see an almighty bitcoin rally.
And the betting on Trump is as near as it can be 50/50 for reelection.
All things considered, my money is on a trend bounce at around $6,000.
Until the current bear market trend ends Bitcoin is going down and believers should buy dips and non-believers should stay away.
Ill be buying at around $6,000 and if we see previous lows Ill be buying a lot more.
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Clem Chambers is the CEO of private investors websiteADVFN.com and author of 101 Ways to Pick Stock Market Winners and Trading Cryptocurrencies: A Beginners Guide.
In 2018 Chambers won Journalist of the Year in the Business Market Commentary category in the State Street U.K. Institutional Press Awards.
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Bitcoin 2020: Whats Ahead - Forbes
Bitcoin price breaks down below $7,000: Will it fall more? – Decrypt
The price of bitcoin has fallen below $7,000 on multiple exchanges, according to data provider Messari, which pegs the current price of bitcoin at $6,914 at time of writing. Trading on Binance appears to be leading the way with the price falling as low as $6,850 at time of writing. The rest of the exchanges seem to be following suit, with prices breaking down through the $7,000 mark.
Bitcoin's price is now down by more than $1,500 for the month, falling from around $8,500. Towards the end of November, traders witnessed an inverted head and shoulders pattern, which is typically seen as a bullish sign. And though the price did rise briefly in the days following the pattern, it is now heading back down south.
As a result, the rest of the crypto market is starting to go downhill. The price of Ethereum is down nine percent to $130 today and XRP is getting dangerously close to the $0.20 mark. Litecoin and EOS are the worst hit with both seeing losses of 10%.
Read more:
Bitcoin price breaks down below $7,000: Will it fall more? - Decrypt
Bitcoin Price Diary: Long BTC and Profitable on Many Altcoin Positions – Cointelegraph
Trading altcoins continues to be one of the most profitable strategies in the crypto market. The highlight of this week was the MATIC (MATIC) pump and subsequent dump, which I was lucky enough to time perfectly, securing a 60% profit near the all-time high. I closed a number of positions in profit, and am still trading EtherParty (FUEL), (IOST), Elrond (ERD), Chainlink (LINK), Zilliqa (ZIL), Verge (XVG) and FunFair (FUN).
I failed to take profits on some of these coins at the first resistance and target, only to see them retrace to my entry and this presents an important lesson about being too greedy. Each setup looked good, but the MATIC movement spooked the market and caused a ripple effect that saw temporary price depreciation across the board. Lesson learned.
Bitcoin (BTC) has been chopping sideways with errant wicks both up and down throughout the past week, likely liquidating high leverage traders on both sides. I am presently long Bitcoin from $7,100 after taking two other positions that closed even or in a slight profit this week.
BTC USD hourly chart. Source: TradingView
The first signal that sparked my interest in a long position was a clear bullish divergence with the Relative Strength Index (RSI) on the hourly chart. I normally do not trade lower time frames, but I noticed that there were potential divergences showing on larger time frames, so I zoomed in. Often we will see an hourly bull divergence confirm on the 4-hour, 6-hour and daily timeframes.
BTC USD 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
I decided to enter a position at $7,100 when the price dropped down to the previous swing low at $7,080 and then bounced. This looked likely to confirm as a bullish swing failure pattern (SFP). At the most basic level, when price wicks slightly below a previous swing low, its an indication that liquidity has been engineered by a whale.
In this case, it seemed likely that they pushed price down to compel retailer traders to take shorts, and also to fire existing stop losses on long positions - thus creating a ton of sell orders to buy into. The price has currently risen from that point.
BTC USD 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
Furthermore, the price is showing a potential bullish divergence with the RSI on the daily chart, which would be a likely signal of a bottom. I am awaiting confirmation, as this would make me feel far more secure in my current position.
FUN offered a very clear trading opportunity this week. I pulled up the chart after not looking at it for almost two months and found that price had continued traveling in a channel that I drew in October near the local highs.
FUN BTC daily chart. Source: TradingView
The ideal entry would have been a bounce off of the channel bottom, between .00000033 (sats) and .00000038 (sats). However, a clear resistance formed at .00000044 (sats), which flipped to support and was my entry, as shown below.
The price moved up very quickly, topping out at .00000060 (sats). I exited half of my position at .00000056 (sats), for a quick profit of 27%. The rest of the position is still open and my target is at the top of the channel.
This is a relatively straightforward trade. The price was forming a pennant at support (not shown) before the Binance shakeup. The MATIC move caused the price to drop through support at .00000080 (sats). I was watching for a bounce off of the blue ascending support but saw price quickly drop through and entered at .00000071 (sats) just above the horizontal support line.
IOST BTC daily chart. Source: TradingView
I want little to do with IOST below that line, or below the .00000070 (sats) support and I have set my stop loss at .00000067 (sats) because this would allow for a wick below that .00000070 (sats) support and close back above.
IOST BTC 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
This trade is currently still open and starting to move as anticipated. After my entry, the price continued to test the .00000070 (sats) support, dropping below by 1 sat but never reaching my stop loss. The price then formed a descending wedge, where it is currently breaking up from. Initial targets are shown as black horizontal lines.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the (@scottmelker) 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.
Excerpt from:
Bitcoin Price Diary: Long BTC and Profitable on Many Altcoin Positions - Cointelegraph
Bitcoin Transactions on the Decline Since June This Year – Bitcoinist
The level of Bitcoin on-chain activity has declined since June, sliding just as market prices sank from their yearly peak. Transactions also saw a spike in October when BTC touched $10,000 again briefly.
On-chain transactions for BTC often coincide with heightened trading interest. This led to slowing on-chain activity, as retail holders or whales did not transfer funds to exchanges.
At the same time, bitcoin futures activity picked up and expanded without the need for on-chain BTC transactions. Transfers to and from exchanges also coincide with bitcoin price action. But those trends also turn relatively quickly.
The new analysis also attempts to list flows to OKEx with the exchanges BTC price action. The tool gives more clarity about on-chain bitcoin transactions and the intention to sell.
Bitcoin transactions also tanked this Monday, sinking to 263,000 for the last day. On average, in the past quarter, BTC saw between 300,000 and 400,000 transactions per day, with a falling trend. But the dollar value of bitcoin transactions remains relatively constant, often crossing $1 billion per day.
BTC as an asset is mostly moved to and from exchanges, as other forms of payment have been abandoned. The coin may be used for payments, but it is relatively difficult to discern which transactions are used this way. Bitcoin transfers also show low levels of potential spam, or any attempt to overload the mempool.
Despite the short-term fluctuations, bitcoin has seen an overall improvement in the past year, and for sure over the past decade. What is more interesting, is that there are now more wallets containing less than 1 BTC, with the inflow of new buyers and retail investors.
Whale wallets still hold a large percentage of bitcoins, and make up a significant part of transaction activity, but stacking sats behavior seems to have grown.
Altcoin transactions follow a different logic. Some networks carry an extremely high transaction load. EOS is once again at the lead with more than 42 million transactions, though most of them are related to the minting of the EIDOS token.
Bitcoin SV (BSV), one of the networks challenging BTC, is currently carrying more than 446,000 transactions, which may be related to concerted activity to boost network statistics.Ethereum (ETH) also outpaces BTC with more than 600,000 transactions per day, related to dApp usage, decentralized finance, or other utility use cases.
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Bitcoin Transactions on the Decline Since June This Year - Bitcoinist