Category Archives: Bitcoin
Renewed Institutional Interest: Crypto Inflows Surge After … – Cryptonews
Source: Adobe / VAshowcase
Investment funds backed by digital assets saw their largest weekly inflows in a year last week, with $199 million being added to the sector.
The inflows were the largest since July 2022, and made up almost half of the prior nine consecutive weeks of outflows, the crypto investment and research firm CoinShares wrote in its latest fund flows report.
The large inflows seen for the week marks a significant change from the week before, when the sector saw net outflows totaling $5.1 million.
According to CoinShares report, the surge in inflows was driven mainly by funds backed by Bitcoin (BTC), which saw $187 million in inflows for the week, up from net outflows of $0.5 million the prior week.
The Bitcoin flows made up a whopping 94% of the total flows last week, which indicates just how dominant Bitcoin is over other cryptoassets among investors in crypto-backed funds.
Interestingly, the category that saw the largest outflows last week were short-Bitcoin funds, an indication that sentiment among Bitcoin investors has improved drastically in recent weeks.
Among the altcoin-backed funds, Ethereum (ETH) funds stood out with inflows of $7.8 million, while funds backed by baskets of multiple digital assets saw inflows of $8.1 million.
Interesting to note is that the largest inflows for the week came from Germany with $85.5 million, up sharply from $2.4 million of inflows the week before.
The next countries on the list were the United States and Canada, which were responsible for inflows of $58.9 million and $45.3 million, respectively.
The inflows came after BlackRock, the worlds largest asset management firm, on June 15 filed an application to list a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).
We believe this renewed positive sentiment is due to recent announcements from high profile ETP issuers that have filed for physically backed ETFs with the US Securities & Exchange Commission, CoinShares commented in its report.
It added that total assets under management in crypto-backed funds now stand at $37 billion, their highest since before the collapse of 3 Arrows Capital.
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Renewed Institutional Interest: Crypto Inflows Surge After ... - Cryptonews
Bitcoin Hard Forks BCH, BSV, and BTG Continue to Rally Amidst … – Securities.io
This week, the crypto market is in a mix of red and green as Bitcoin sustains above $30,000 still. The largest cryptocurrency has been trading at $30,580 at the time of writing, while the trading volume sees a 3.7% drop from a day ago to $13.45 billion.
For now, the key challenge for Bitcoin is to maintain its position above the key psychological level of $30,000. On the downside, BTC has support available at $29,500.
With Bitcoins market dominance above 50%, it is likely that BTC will continue to consolidate around this level for now, but if it breaks the $32,400 resistance, a rally could see it hitting the $35,000 level.
ETH, meanwhile, is trading at around $1,880. The total crypto market cap is currently at $1.227 trillion as the likes of Near protocol, Stacks, Kaspa, Kava, BitDAO, Algorand, ApeCoin, and Bitget lost 3% to 7% of their value in the past 24 hours.
The latest lull in the crypto market comes after ten days of positive price action. During this time, Bitcoin soared to its one-year high but has now entered the consolidation phase. As BTC takes a breather, many altcoins are taking this as an opportunity to pump.
However, Bitcoin remains the main focal point of the crypto market action thanks to the worlds largest asset manager, BlackRock (BLK), filing for a spot Bitcoin ETF. Though the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has repeatedly refused to accept such funds, BlackRock can finally make this happen.
Moreover, a slew of other ETF sponsors, including Invesco, WisdomTree, and Valkyrie Investments, have filed for their own spot Bitcoin funds.
While Bitcoin ETF approval will take time given the SECs very strong anti-crypto stance, Katie Talati, head of research for crypto asset management firm Arca said in an interview that there could be some more pressure on regulators to approve this vehicle, just because BlackRock is sponsoring it. Were also seeing other asset managers for the traditional world filing their own ETFs, which is promising down the road in terms of having access to the asset class.
Circles co-founder and CEO, Jeremy Allaire, expects this new wave of Bitcoin ETFs to be approved as past concerns of regulators are being addressed through the creation of a market surveillance mechanism.
This improved outlook comes after the early-June crackdowns on crypto trading giants Binance and Coinbase. The SEC sued both for acting as unlicensed exchanges and listing cryptocurrencies that it considers unregistered securities.
According to Markus Thielen, head of research for crypto service provider Matrixport, July has been a historically strong month for the crypto asset, with returns of 24%, 20%, and 27% in the past three years.
Therefore, the probability that Bitcoin will be 10-20% higher during the next 30 days is high, wrote Thielen, adding that BTC can rise to as much as $36k by August.
He further noted that the cryptocurrency had followed a pattern this year where its price increased about $10,000 before falling $5,000. He pointed out how the tumult caused by the U.S. banking crisis in March saw BTC sink to $20k before reaching as high as $25k, and then after this months SEC lawsuits, it dropped to $25k from $30k.
Now we appear on the way to $35,000 as the expectations for the Bitcoin ETFs approval will bring more U.S. institutions and U.S. retail into this space, he said. Matrixport had predicted earlier this year that BTC would reach $45k by years-end.
According to Thielen, BTCs strongest rallies have occurred during U.S. trading hours, a sign that U.S. institutions are buying Bitcoin while other regions are less active. Claiming that Crypto is dead in the U.S. appears to be a misconception, he wrote.
While the US is cracking down on crypto, another bank HSBC Hong Kong will now allow its customers to trade Bitcoin and Ethereum futures ETFs. HSBC is the largest bank and the first lender in Hong Kong to allow its customers access to digital asset ETFs.
On Monday, the ETFs; CSOP Bitcoin Futures ETF, CSOP Ethereum Futures ETF, and Samsung Bitcoin Futures Active ETF have listed on HSBC Hong Kongs Easy Invest mobile app. The simplicity and convenience of ETFs make them an attractive option for retail traders compared to other derivatives, such as options.
Besides all this, there has also been the emergence of China back into the cryptocurrency space.
China's relationship with cryptocurrency has been complex. This began in 2013 when China started imposing restrictions on cryptocurrency transactions. The nation's stance hardened further in 2017 when it took aim at Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), which are used to raise funds for new cryptocurrency ventures.
This escalating pattern continued, culminating in 2021 when China outright banned cryptocurrency mining. But recently, Beijing published a whitepaper titled Web3 Innovation and Development White Paper (2023) that promoted Web3 technology as a crucial element of the internets future development.
Bitcoin is not the only one that is capturing all the attention, though its hard forks have also managed to gain traction, so much so that they have managed to rally even harder.
Compared to BTCs 14.2% 7-day gains, BCH is up by 106.4%, BSV by 48.3%, and BTG has jumped 20.7%. Meanwhile, in 2023 so far, BTCs price performance has been +82.23%, BCHs +126.15%, and BTGs +13.53%, while BSV fell 11.63% during this period.
BCH is the clear winner among Bitcoin hard forks. The $4.25 billion market cap cryptocurrency is up more than 16% in the past 24 hours to now trade at $225. BCH is also up 12.6% against BTC.
In contrast, BSV is a $706 million market cap coin trading at $37.8, following a 3.6% rise in its value against USD and no change against BTC. BTG is a $241.68 million market cap coin trading at $14.15, up 6% against USD and 4% against BTC.
When it comes to the trading volume of BCH, it recorded a 21.7% increase from a day ago to a record $987.6 million. Just four days ago, on Friday, BCH was managing $294.7 million in trading volume. This 235% jump in its volume suggests a significant increase in its market activity.
BCH derivative contracts also registered a 47.77% increase in its open interest (OI) at $400.86 million, last seen in Sept. 2021, as perCoinglass. This could be in anticipation of a significant flow of institutional capital into the crypto asset.
BSV, on the other hand, saw a 69.70% decrease in its volume to $31 million from a day ago, while BTGs increased by an impressive 81% at $15.5 million.
While all three Bitcoin hard forks are enjoying renewed interest, their value is nowhere near their peaks. The crypto king Bitcoin is down 56% from its all-time high (ATH) of $69,00 that it hit in Nov. 2021.
Meanwhile, BCH, BSV, and BTG are down 94.2%, 92.5%, and 96.98% from their respective peaks. Interestingly, out of these three, only BSV made a new high in 2021, while BCH and BTG hit their ATHs in 2017, but then BSV didnt even exist until late 2018.
These hard forks are rallying despite the ongoing consolidation in the market. BCH surged to a new one-year high, particularly due to being listed on EDX Markets alongside Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin.
The non-custodial crypto exchange EDX Markets has the backing of traditional finance heavy-weights Charles Schwab, Citadel Securities, and Fidelity Digital Assets. This is serving as a vote of confidence in Bitcoin Cash that it may be considered a commodity rather than a security amidst the increased scrutiny of the SEC over blockchain projects.
According to crypto research firm Santiment, the launch of EDX Markets helped BCHs trading volume rise and, in turn, social media interest in the altcoin, which together is helping its price to rally. The sudden price move and social discussion about the token then attracted retail trader attention.
Click here to learn all about investing in Bitcoin Cash (BCH).
BCH is the native crypto of the Bitcoin Cash network, which was forked from the original Bitcoin blockchain in August 2017.
The chain split happened due to disagreements within the Bitcoin community over transaction capacity and scalability. Amaury Schet, along with Roger Ver, Craig Wright, Bitmain, and others, left the Bitcoin network and created Bitcoin Cash.
Aiming to serve as a payment network, the blockchains activity is dwarfed by Bitcoins transaction numbers and has been facing significant challenges in achieving widespread adoption.
In 2018, Bitcoin Cash went through a further split, which resulted in the creation of Bitcoin SV (Satoshis Vision), led by early Bitcoin Cash proponents self-proclaimed Bitcoin creator Craig Wright and Calvin Ayre, founder of CoinGeek.
As tension rose amongst the developers of Bitcoin Cash over whether the protocol should have larger block sizes as well as smart contracts capability, those in favor to restore the original Satoshi protocol, keep it stable and enable it to massively scale went with BSV.
As for Bitcoin Gold (BTG), it was created in Oct. 2017 with the intention of reforming the mining process. The Bitcoin Gold blockchain split from Bitcoin because the community behind the project wanted to reduce the role of large miners by switching out Bitcoins mining algorithm, SHA-256, with EquiHash and to give smaller operations a chance to participate.
Over the years, the Bitcoin Gold blockchain has been hit with 51 percent attacks, first in May 2018 and then in 2020, where the attacker made off with $87,000 worth of BTG.
When it comes to price, all three of Bitcoins hard forks have been struggling to sustain any market movement and price action, only managing to pump during the market-wide bullish momentum. Even then, BCH, BSV, and BTG havent managed to see the kinds of returns other altcoins in the market have been experiencing.
In fact, BCH was only up 184.54% from its all-time low (ATL) of almost $77 in Dec. 2018. BSVs ATL came just this month at $21.43 on June 10, and since then, it has only noted a +71% price performance. As for BTG, its price managed to rise 224% from its $4.25 low in Mar. 2020.
The latest price action is mainly driven by Bitcoins strength and being the center of attention. Retail may also have mistakenly, as the hard forks carry Bitcoin in their names or intentionally, due to their low price, turned to Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV, and Bitcoin Gold.
So, while these hard forks of Bitcoin have been gaining the spotlight in recent times, their level of adoption and market activity is nowhere near the largest cryptocurrency, which continues to dominate. In the near term, BCH, BSV, and BTG may see more uptrend, but in the medium to longer term, these coins may not see much improvement in their value, network activity, or adoption.
Click here to learn all about investing in Bitcoin.
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Bitcoin Hard Forks BCH, BSV, and BTG Continue to Rally Amidst ... - Securities.io
US Treasury yields are rising What does it mean for Bitcoin price? – Cointelegraph
United States government bonds, or Treasurys, have a tremendous influence across all tradeable markets, including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). In that sense, risk calculation in finance is relative, so every loan, mortgage and even cryptocurrency derivatives depends on the cost of capital attributed to U.S. dollars.
Assuming the worst-case scenario of the U.S. government eventually defaulting on its own debt, what happens to the families, businesses and countries holding those bonds? The lack of interest debt payments would likely cause a global shortage of U.S. dollars, triggering a cascading effect.
But, even if that scenario comes to fruition, history shows us that cryptocurrencies may work as a hedge during periods of uncertainty. For instance, Bitcoin vastly outperformed traditional wealth preservation assets during the U.S.-China trade war in May 2021. Bitcoin gained 47% between May 5 and May 31 of that year, while the Nasdaq Composite shed 8.7%.
As the general public owns over $29 trillion in the U.S. Treasury, they are deemed the lowest-risk financial product in existence. Still, the price for each of those government bonds, or the yield traded, will vary depending on the contract maturity. Assuming theres no counterparty risk for this asset class, the single most important pricing factor is the inflation expectation.
Lets explore whether Bitcoins and Ethers price will be impacted by the growing demand for U.S. Treasurys.
If one believes that inflation will not be restrained anytime soon, this investor is likely to seek a higher yield when trading the Treasury. On the other hand, if the U.S. government is actively devaluing its currency or theres an expectation for additional inflation, investors will tend to seek refuge in U.S. Treasurys, causing lower yield.
Notice how the five-year Treasury yield reached 4.05% on June 22, the highest level in more than three months. This movement happened while the U.S. Consumer Price Index for May came in at 4.0% on a year-on-year basis, the lowest growth of inflation since March 2021.
A 4.05% yield indicates that investors are not expecting inflation to drop below the central bank's 2% target anytime soon, but it also shows confidence that the 9.1% peak CPI data from June 2022 is behind us. However, thats not how Treasury pricing works because investors are willing to forego rewards in exchange for the security of owning the lowest-risk asset.
U.S. Treasury yields are a great tool for comparing other countries and corporate debt, but not in absolute terms. These government bonds will reflect inflation expectations, but they may be severely constrained if a global recession becomes more likely.
The typical inverse correlation between Bitcoin and the U.S. Treasury yield has been invalidated in the past 10 days, most likely because investors are desperately buying government bonds for their safety regardless of the yield being lower than inflation expectations.
The S&P 500 index, which measures the U.S. stock market, hit 4,430 on June 16, just 7.6% below its all-time high, which also explains the higher yields. While investors typically seek scarce and inflation protected assets ahead of turbulent times, their appetite for excessive equity valuations is limited.
Related: Bitcoin price data suggests bulls will succeed in holding $30K as support this time
The only certain thing at the moment is that investors expectations for a recession are becoming more evident. Aside from the Treasurys yield, the U.S. Conference Boards leading indicators declined for 14 consecutive months, as described by Charlie Bilello:
Consequently, those betting that Bitcoins recent decoupling from the U.S. Treasury's yield inverse correlation will quickly revert might come out disappointed. Data confirms that government bond yields are higher than normal due to increased expectations of a recession and economic crisis ahead.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
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US Treasury yields are rising What does it mean for Bitcoin price? - Cointelegraph
Bitcoin Surges Past $30,000 For First Time In Months – Forbes
Topline
Bitcoin rose sharply Wednesday and surpassed $30,000 for the first time in months, continuing a days-long increase in the cryptocurrencys price, despite economic uncertainty and a regulatory crackdown on some crypto exchanges.
Bitcoins price rose as much as 9.8% on Wednesday, peaking at $30,749.45 at around 12:35 p.m. ET, the first time Bitcoin has topped the $30,000 mark since mid-April.
As of 2:30 p.m. ET, bitcoin was trading at $30,222.52.
The surge Wednesday extended a rally that has caused bitcoin prices to shoot up almost 20% over the last week, along with a smaller 13% jump in ethereum.
Bitcoin took a dive just last week, when the price fell below $25,000 for the first time since March, amid lawsuits from regulators against Binance and Coinbase and after the Federal Reserve announced it would not hike interest rates this month but could return to aggressive increases later in the year, both of which led to uncertainty about what the markets future would look like.
Bitcoins price has nearly doubled since last December, when the cryptocurrency industry was left reeling from the collapse of exchange FTX and arrest of its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, on fraud charges. Since then, several other crypto firms have faced scrutiny from regulators. Prices of bitcoin are still well below their all-time peak of more than $64,000 in late 2021.
The recent increase in bitcoin prices came six days after BlackRock, the worlds largest money manager, requested to register a spot-market bitcoin ETF, despite the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission not yet approving any applications for spot bitcoin ETFs. The ETF would own bitcoins that are held in custody by Coinbase, the largest U.S.-based crypto exchange. In the past, the SEC has rejected ETF applications and said the product is not safe enough to be sold to investors and that prior applicants hadnt proven they could prevent fraud and protect investors, CNBC reported. Meanwhile, a crypto exchange backed by Fidelity, Charles Schwab and Citadel Securities launched this week.
U.S. regulators of late have been cracking down on crypto firms and several have been hit with civil lawsuits, leading some to question the timing of BlackRocks application. The request came just one week after the SEC sued Coinbase, alleging the platform had been operating an unregistered broker since at least 2019. Just one day earlier, the SEC also sued Binance, another crypto exchange, for allegedly misusing customer funds.
Bitcoin Drops To 3-Month Low Following Fed Rate Decision (Forbes)
BlackRocks Spot Bitcoin ETF Plan Appears To Be A Case Of Perception Bending Reality (Forbes)
Bitcoin rallies 10% to highest level in over a month as traders get bullish on ETF news (CNBC)
I am a Colorado-based reporter. Before joining Forbes, I covered education and local government in Fort Collins, Colorado. I am a graduate of Creighton University, where I got a BA in journalism, and Arizona State University, where I got an MA in investigative journalism. Send tips at mbohannon@forbes.com and follow me on Twitter @molboha.
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Bitcoin Surges Past $30,000 For First Time In Months - Forbes
Man sentenced after paying scammer hitman 40 bitcoin to kill child porn victim – NJ.com
A man who hired a scammer hitman in an attempt to retaliate against a teenager he had previously exchanged sexually explicit media files with has been sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said.
John Michael Musbach, 34, of Haddonfield, pleaded guilty to knowingly and intentionally using and causing another to use a facility of interstate and foreign commerce with the intent that a murder be committed, on February 2.
Musbach exchanged sexually explicit photos and videos with a victim from New York, who was 13 years old at the time, during the summer of 2015, officials said. The teens parents then found out about the exchange and contacted local police, authorities said.
Detectives from the Atlantic County Prosecutors Office executed a search warrant on his home in Galloway and he was arrested on child pornography charges, prosecutors said.
He later pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child by sexual contact and was sentenced to a two-year suspended term with parole supervision for life in February 2018, the U.S. Attorneys Office said.
Musbach then started communicating with the administrator of a murder-for-hire site on the dark web in May 2016, when his criminal case was pending, officials said. He paid the administrator 40 bitcoin, approximately $20,000 at the time, for the killing of the teen, who was then 14, authorities said.
The operator of the site then asked for an additional $5,000 and Musbach declined and requested a refund, officials said. The person then revealed that the website was a scam and threatened to report Musbach to law enforcement, officials said.
As part of his sentence, Musbach will serve three years of supervised release and has also been ordered to pay a $30,000 fine, the U.S. Attorneys Office said.
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Nicolas Fernandes may be reached at nfernandes@njadvancemedia.com.
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Man sentenced after paying scammer hitman 40 bitcoin to kill child porn victim - NJ.com
Bitcoin expert: It’s a matter of when, not if XRP ‘Ponzi’ gets cut down … – Finbold – Finance in Bold
As the legal battle between Ripple and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) unfolds, experts continue to speculate on the possible outcomes for both parties involved.
In this line, renowned Bitcoin (BTC) expert and outspoken critic Max Keiser has suggested that the SEC would ultimately succeed in bringing down XRP while criticizing Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, referring to his operation as a Ponzi scheme, he said in a tweet on June 23.
Keiser emphasized that he believes it is only a matter of time before the regulatory authority takes action against XRP while acknowledging that the SECs actions may be considered by some as overreaching, but nevertheless predicting significant consequences for most cryptocurrencies, except Bitcoin.
The Bitcoin expert further proposed that the financial world, particularly on Wall Street, lacks a comprehensive rule of law that tends to favor individuals with wealth and influence.
Of course, the SEC is overreaching, but that wont stop them from killing off XRP and every other shitcoin. (Except BTC, of course. Its untouchable). Because there is virtually no rule of law whatsoever in Wall St/finance for those with $ and clout, Brad Garlinghouse has been spending a lot to keep his Ponzi scheme going, but he cant outspend the Feds & Jamie Dimon. Its just a matter of when, not if, when XRP gets cut down, he said.
Keiser expressed his sentiment in response to a tweet by pro-XRP lawyer John Deaton on June 22. Deaton had criticized Bitcoin maximalists for celebrating what he referred to as the SECs excessive regulatory practices in the cryptocurrency space.
What is inconsistent is that so many BTC Maxis fancy themselves Libertarians and then applaud or celebrate the massive and gross overreach by the SEC, he said.
It is worth noting that Keiser has previously been critical of Ripple, suggesting that the company stands no chance against the regulator. In a report by Finbold, Keiser highlighted that the blockchain firm cannot triumph over the SEC, stating that XRP is essentially marked for death.
The outcome of the SECs lawsuit against Ripple Labs and its potential consequences for the future of XRP remains uncertain. The case holds significant importance for investors and enthusiasts who closely monitor the ongoing legal proceedings, as they can potentially shape the regulatory environment for digital assets.
At the moment, the crypto community eagerly awaits the announcement of the date for the summary judgment following the conclusion of the hearing.
Adding to the anticipation, a significant development unfolded when the controversial Hinman documents were unsealed, offering insights into the regulators initial perspective on the classification of digital assets.
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Bitcoin expert: It's a matter of when, not if XRP 'Ponzi' gets cut down ... - Finbold - Finance in Bold
Bitcoin (BTC) Hits New All-Time High, Here’s What Happened – U.Today
Yuri Molchan
Flagship cryptocurrency has reached new historic peak, according to recent report
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According to a report by on-chain data aggregator Glassnode, this week Bitcoin has hit a new all-time high related to the illiquid supply of BTC held in cold wallets off crypto exchanges.
A tweet by the company's analytics team stated that there has been noted a divergence between Bitcoin balances on exchanges and the illiquid supply of BTC.
This week, the Bitcoin supply with no history of spending has reached an ATH of 15.2 million. As for balances on trading platforms, they have reached a bottom since early 2018. This figure stands at 2.3 million BTC at the time of writing.
Glassnode also wrote that BTC hodlers are buying Bitcoin by approximately 42,200 coins per month: "the price insensitive class are absorbing a non-trivial portion of the currently available supply."
This process of active gradual buying started around two years ago, and Glassnode believes that investors may continue to buy BTC for another six months or even a year.
Prominent crypto trader and analyst Michael van de Poppe has reminded his followers that "the big players are jumping in" to buy Bitcoin.
Recently, BlackRock fund management company submitted an application for a Bitcoin ETF, and Fidelity was rumored to do that soon too. Invesco and WisdomTree have both applied for a Bitcoin ETF as well. Deutsche Bank is striving to gain a license to provide crypto custodial services.
Besides, Fidelity, Citadel and Schwab have joined forces to launch cryptocurrency exchange EDX. All this has pushed Bitcoin up over $28,000, and it is trading close to the $29,000 level now.
Poppe added, "The big players are jumping in, so should you."
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Bitcoin (BTC) Hits New All-Time High, Here's What Happened - U.Today
Bitcoin 30-Day Price Range Foreshadowed The Rally, Heres How – NewsBTC
Bitcoin has observed a sharp rally above the $30,000 mark over the past day. Heres how the 30-day price range may have foreshadowed this volatility.
According to data from the on-chain analytics firm Glassnode, tight price ranges have historically preceded large moves in the cryptocurrencys price. In the context of the current discussion, the Bitcoin price range of interest is the 30-day one, simply a measure of the percentage difference between the top price and bottom price that the asset has observed over the last month.
When the value of this metric is high, it means that the cryptocurrency has seen a significant degree of fluctuation between the high and low set during the past 30 days. Such a trend implies that the asset has registered high volatility recently.
On the other hand, low values suggest the asset has only moved inside a narrow range during the past month. This kind of trend naturally highlights how stale the cryptocurrencys price action has been lately.
Now, here is a chart that shows the trend in the Bitcoin 30-day price high and low, as well as the 30-day price range, over the history of the coin:
As highlighted in the above graph, the Bitcoin 30-day range had compressed to a very tight range recently as the assets price had mostly moved sideways.
During this period of consolidation, the 30-day range had fallen below the 11% mark, meaning that within 30 days, the assets top and bottom had only seen price action amounting to less than 11%.
In the chart, Glassnode has also marked the historical instances where the asset moved in similarly tight or tighter 30-day price ranges. Following such tight price consolidation periods, BTC has generally always observed a sudden burst of volatility.
Most of the time, this volatility has been in the upwards direction, as the tight 30-day ranges have preceded many rallies in the asset. The 2021 bull run, for example, saw a similarly narrow price range in its early buildup.
Though most cases may have been like this, the volatility hasnt always been bullish. During the 2018-19 bear market, the cryptocurrency saw a long stale price action, with the 30-day price range falling to pretty low values. This stagnation finally ended up being broken by the November 2018 crash.
Therefore, the recent tight range that Bitcoin had been stuck under wasnt certain to lead to bullish volatility. But fortunately for the coin, it would appear that the narrow range has decompressed into a rally this time, as the cryptocurrency has been able to enjoy a sharp jump toward the $30,000 mark.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $29,800, up 19% in the last week.
Featured image from iStock.com, charts from TradingView.com, Glassnode.com
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Bitcoin 30-Day Price Range Foreshadowed The Rally, Heres How - NewsBTC
Ordinals turned Bitcoin into a worse version of Ethereum: Can we fix it? – Cointelegraph
The launch of BRC-20 tokens and Ordinals NFTs on Bitcoin has transformed the No. 1 blockchain overnight into a clunkier version of Ethereum.
The core developers and miners who signed off on the networks Taproot upgrade in November 2021 never envisaged this would be the result. Bitcoin now suffers from many of the same problems that have bedeviled Ethereum for years, including scammy memecoins and shitcoins, NFTs of monkey pictures hogging block space and skyrocketing transaction fees.
The network is even having to deal with incidences of miner extractable value (MEV), whereby miners profit by reordering pending transactions.
Im kind of upset at myself for not realizing, says Quantum Economics founder Mati Greenspan, a Bitcoiner since 2013.
It took these guys starting to hype up JPEGs on Bitcoin until I was like: Oh shit, what did we just do? He laughs ruefully.
Some Bitcoiners on Bitcointalk and Twitter refer to the impact of Ordinal NFTs and BRC-20 tokens as an attack on Bitcoin, an exploit of Taproot, or simply as spam clogging up the network.
Its sparked a fierce debate over whether unexpected outcomes are precisely the sort of outcomes you should expect from a permissionless protocol, or whether something needs to be done to get rid of them.
BRC-20 tokens were only launched by anonymous developer Domo back on March 8. They use Ordinal inscriptions of JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) data to deploy token contracts, mint tokens and transfer tokens. Some argue this is horribly inefficient and costs four times as much in transaction fees as if they just used binary.
Alongside the inefficiencies, theres also a gold rush for minting memecoins. Someone will deploy a contract with a ticker for a new token and a max supply, and then traders rush in to mint as many as possible in the series, on a first come, first served basis, at whatever fee rate gets them priority. These tokens have already surpassed $1 billion in market cap even though Domo argues they will be worthless.
But they are here to stay at least in the short term with major wallets already adding support for BRC-20 tokens. And newer developments, such as the launch of a Uniswap fork that amassed $500,000 in trading of smart BRC-20 tokens (SBRC-20) in just a few days, suggest that the building of a permissionless new ecosystem on Bitcoin is set to continue.
Greenspan points out that while the flurry of interest has seen Bitcoin transactions hit an all-time high, the number of unique addresses plummeted, meaning fewer people are accessing the network. And while transaction fee revenue has overtaken the block reward seen by many as the only way to ensure Bitcoins security after another couple of halvings it comes with a lot of issues.
I spoke to one miner yesterday who said his revenue has doubled, which is nice, especially ahead of the halving, so its good for miners, but its terrible for the countries of Nigeria and El Salvador, for example, where, suddenly, the average cost to send a transaction is $30, he says. The dream of financial inclusion on Bitcoin has been temporarily postponed.
Read also: What its actually like to use Bitcoin in El Salvador
Interestingly, this isnt the first time someone has put a token or NFTs onto Bitcoin. Counterparty led the way with NFTs on Bitcoin, with Spells of Genesis and Rare Pepes in 2015 and 2016. And stablecoin Tether also launched a token on Bitcoin back in 2014 via the Mastercoin protocol (which later became Omni).
On Bitcointalk, there is much discussion of fighting off the attack on Bitcoin, with some claiming its the work of malicious Bitcoin SV devs. Users are talking about a soft fork to enforce strict Taproot validation script size, ways the protocol can filter out what they see as spam or even a hard fork to reverse Taproot.
Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr stated that action should have been taken months ago. Spam filtration has been a standard part of Bitcoin Core since Day 1. Its a mistake that the existing filters werent extended to Taproot transactions [] since this is a bugfix, it doesnt really even need to wait for a major release.
Glassnodes lead on-chain analyst, Checkmate, tells Magazine that he believes this sort of censorship is against the entire ethos of Bitcoin and notes there are already optional mempool rules enabling node operators to filter ordinals if they choose.
From my view, any attempt to ban or censor these transactions is far more of an attack on Bitcoin than leaving them be. They are within consensus rules, and when a loud minority of individuals want to change the rules to stop something they dont like, that is the real attack.
But podcaster Chris Blec made the case on Twitter that limiting transaction types to ensure the health of the network wasnt censorship.
If it doesnt depend on the content of the message or the sender of the message, then its not censorship, he said.
Hass McCook, a former member of the Bitcoin Mining Council and a Bitcoin true believer, is no fan of Ordinals but thinks trying to get rid of them is a step too far, saying:
The only thing more important than Bitcoin is freedom. My general take is I personally dont like it and dont see value in it. But I dont want to censor it. I think that could go down a very dark path.
If the protocol allows for something and somebody is happy to pay to do that thing, then it is what it is.
Andrew Poelstra, director of research for Blockstream, is one of the inventors of Taproot. He doesnt like the upgrades toxic offspring either but doesnt see any practical way to stop them.
As near as I can tell, there is no sensible way to prevent people from storing arbitrary data in witnesses without incentivizing even worse behavior and/or breaking legitimate use cases, he wrote.
Read also: Is Bitcoin a religion? If not, it soon could be
Its not going to be possible just to ban useless data, he said, noting that people could just hide useless data like NFTs inside of useful data like dummy signatures or public keys.
Doing so would incur a 2x cost to them, but if 2x is enough to incentivize storage, then theres no need to have this discussion because they will be forced to stop due to fee market competition anyway.
The best-case scenario and the most likely, according to interviewees for this piece is that interest in the tokens and NFTs will die down as the memecoin fad plays out.
Network congestion on Bitcoin is not a new thing, right? says Greenspan. It usually comes with hype. But also it leaves when the hype is over.
Whats most likely to happen is people are gonna run out of money.
But if Ordinals continue to have an outsized impact on the network, theres always the nuclear option of forking Bitcoin to modify or remove Taproot. Blec and many others have raised the possibility, though it seems mostly hypothetical at this stage.
Greenspan says, while its always possible to implement a hard fork, itll split the network. And nobody wants that.
McCook says the market chose Bitcoin, rather than Bitcoin Cash or Bitcoin SV during the scaling wars in 2017, and he predicts the current version would win over a fork with Taproot.
Id take the Ordinals one. So, even though I dont find any value in Ordinals, maybe I need to inscribe something in the future that I need to have absolute censorship resistance, he says.
This could potentially have pretty powerful implications. Lets say Julian Assange decided to do his WikiLeaks info dump as an inscription, this is a very useful thing.
Greenspan also believes the benefits of using Bitcoin to store data have only just begun to be explored.
People are now aware that Bitcoin has the ability to store files. And Im excited to see what, you know, forward-thinking developers will do with this new tool. More than just creating memes.
When he released BRC-20, Domo added, I believe there are almost certainly better design choices and optimization improvements to be made.
Plenty of people agree. One of the easiest improvements would be to use binary rather than the JSON format, which developer John W. Ratcliff argues is one of the most inefficient data formats anyone could use. He believes this would reduce BRC-20 tokens from 89 bytes to 19.
This means that they are paying over four times as much in fees to commit these BRC-20 tokens than necessary, he said.
Hashrate Index researcher Colin Harper says that using binary code could reduce bandwidth by as much as 80%. However, this wouldnt entirely solve the problem, as Bitcoin influencer Udi Wertheimer points out, given the spike in fees is due to token minting degens bidding up fees to get their transaction prioritized into order to mint or snatch up low serial number tokens before the supply runs out.
Theres also another way to issue assets on Bitcoin called Taro, which Domo says is a better solution. Taproot Asset Representation Overlay is a proposed protocol that will allow people to issue digital assets on Bitcoin that can be transferred to Lightning for fast and cheap transactions.
Read also: Attack of the zkEVMs! Cryptos 10x moment
A much more radical and experimental approach is being taken by Trustless Computer, which is behind a Uniswap v2 fork called Trustless Market that enabled $500,000 worth of swaps in its first three days.
The projects documentation states its working toward a Turing-complete virtual machine called BVM built on top of Bitcoin to enable a DeFi ecosystem.
Core team member @punk3700 tells Magazine it is not a layer 2, its a protocol within layer 1 that works like Ordinals but uses SBRC-20s.
Instead of writing text files to Bitcoin, Trustless Computer writes smart contract transactions to Bitcoin. Raw files vs. programs/logic/apps. He claims this cuts down the bandwidth required for the tokens by 80%90%.
I think the BRC-20 in their current form (using text files) are a flash in the pan, he says. You cant use paper and pen to build an alternative scalable financial instrument.
Our SBRC-20 implementation is different. We use smart contracts, the same ERC-20 smart contract on Ethereum. It works exactly as programmed.
Ordinals is v0.1 of what is possible on Bitcoin. Trustless Computer shows that you can build a full DApp ecosystem on Bitcoin.
He expects that well see MakerDAO, Aave, Compound and other smart contracts deployed soon, which, if it works as he claims it will, would be a huge change for Bitcoin.
While the project has recieved coverage in other major crypto news outlets, Magazine hasnt verified their tech works as promised, and the extent to which you can integrate smart contracts with Bitcoin is debatable, so tread carefully.
The influx of NFTs and token minting on Bitcoin has shown the blockchain remains unable to scale to deal with increased demand, meaning the more popular it gets, the worse it works.
The Lightning Network is usually touted as the solution, but Nostr creator Fiatjaf noted it has been unable to cope with the recent fee spike. Channels are too fragile, it costs a lot to open a channel under a high fee environment, to run a routing node and so on, he wrote, stating that users instead had to rely on the centralized Lightning providers.
Greenspan believes that gradual progress toward scaling is the only safe solution to ensure Bitcoin remains bulletproof.
Weve seen Segway; weve seen Taproot. I mean, these are, these are good progressions and steady scaling. Which is whats best usually for a decentralized network of this size. You dont want to rush things because you might break them. As weve seen.
Read Also: Reformed altcoin slayer Eric Wall on shitposting and scaling Ethereum
Various parties, including StarkWare and blockchain researcher Eric Wall, have been investigating scaling Bitcoin using zero-knowledge (ZK) rollups, which is Ethereums plan to solve its very similar challenges.
But ironically, while the surge in demand caused by Ordinals has shown that further scaling is required, its also made it much less likely the community would agree to a new hard fork to enable ZK-rollups. After all, they voted for Taproot and look what happened?
I doubt that will ever happen, says Checkmate.
I am also skeptical of even a soft fork since the unintended consequences of the witness discount have woken everyone up to the risks of change.
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Based in Melbourne, Andrew Fenton is a journalist and editor covering cryptocurrency and blockchain. He has worked as a national entertainment writer for News Corp Australia, on SA Weekend as a film journalist, and at The Melbourne Weekly.
Originally posted here:
Ordinals turned Bitcoin into a worse version of Ethereum: Can we fix it? - Cointelegraph
Tudor Jones on Bitcoin: ‘I’ve Never Sat on a Horse That Long’ – Blockworks
Longtime trader and billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones told CNBCs Squawk Box that hes sticking with bitcoin despite the regulatory pressures in the United States.
From the beginning, Ive always said that I want to have a small allocation [of bitcoin], Jones said. Its the only thing that humans cant adjust the supply [of].
Im sticking with it. Im always going to stick with it, he added.
Bitcoin (BTC) came up as a hedge against inflation in Jones conversation with Aaron Ross Sorkin. The two were previously discussing how quantitative easing and flat interest rates lasted all the way through 2021. Jones said this policy contributed somewhat to the banking failures in 2023.
Anyone that was listening to our Fed at that point in time was probably doing exactly what these banks did extending maturities because they were being told that inflation didnt exist, and when it finally did come, it was transitory and rates were going to be low forever.
Of course, inflation wasnt transitory with the CPI reaching a 40-year high of 9.1% in June 2022. Bitcoins price sank as low as $18,999.95 on July 13, 2022, the day the June CPI report was released.
Notably, Jones said the strategy of buying bitcoin and gold as an inflation hedge may be over if prices begin to moderate.
Additionally, bitcoin isnt without its risks, according to Jones. He cited the US regulatory regime as a major thorn in the side of the worlds first digital currency.
Bitcoin has a real problem because in the United States you have the entire regulatory apparatus against it, Jones said.
CNBCs interview with Jones made news because he said theres a good chance that the US could be on the verge of a recession by the third quarter based on recent financial episodes.
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Originally posted here:
Tudor Jones on Bitcoin: 'I've Never Sat on a Horse That Long' - Blockworks