Category Archives: Bitcoin
Billionaire Mike Novogratz Forecasts How Long the Bitcoin and Crypto Bear Market Will Last – The Daily Hodl
Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz is updating his outlook on the future of the current bear market and the crypto markets as a whole.
Novogratz says in a Yahoo Finance interview that Bitcoin (BTC) and other crypto assets are likely to rally once the Federal Reserve pauses its monetary tightening measures.
According to the Galaxy Digital CEO, the crypto market selloff was caused by the Federal Reserve hiking interest rates.
Since the Fed has decided to try to smash inflation by raising rates aggressively, the most aggressive rate-raising in our lifetime, Bitcoin sold off with other assets. Its actually done better than most.
I think if you finally get the pause, you will start seeing Bitcoin pick back up. Bitcoin and all cryptocurrencies.
Are we going to get the pause? At one point, yes.
On when the crypto downturn could end, Novogratz says that the prevailing bear market could last up to six more months.
You know the bear case is weve got two to six months left of this pain. The bull case is the market starts breaking. And were seeing a lot of breakage. Not necessarily in crypto but in the rest of the world.
According to the Galaxy Digital CEO, sellers in the crypto market are largely exhausted.
Cryptos interesting in that three months ago, after the big selloff and the deleveraging, most people that needed to sell sold.
And so youve seen price is much more muted. Things take off when theres a good story and they sell right back off when the story goes away.
And so a lot less activity in crypto, a lot less for sellers. But also a lot less new buyers.
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Billionaire Mike Novogratz Forecasts How Long the Bitcoin and Crypto Bear Market Will Last - The Daily Hodl
Heres Why ARK Invest Analyst Maintains Bitcoin at $1 Million Prediction – CryptoPotato
Yassine Elmandjra analyst at ARK Invest believes bitcoins valuation could skyrocket beyond $1 million per coin in the following years.
Earlier in 2022, a research team of the company estimated that the market capitalization of the primary cryptocurrency could reach $28.5 trillion by 2030.
Bitcoin and the broader cryptocurrency market have seen better days. During the past several months, the leading digital asset has lost a significant chunk of its valuation, while investors seem less enthusiastic about entering the ecosystem due to the ongoing negative macroeconomic situation.
And while numerous companies and individuals forecast a gruesome future for BTC, albeit in the short term, ARK Invest remains overly positive.
In a recent interview for Bloomberg, Yassine Elmandjra an analyst at the organization outlined the cryptocurrencys merits, including its ability to serve as a store of value, to conduct settlements, and to act as an insurance policy.
Keeping those benefits in mind, he said its market capitalization has a chance to reach $28 trillion, which translates to more than a million dollars per bitcoin.
He also outlined Bitcoins limited supply hard cap of 21 million coins and its decentralized nature that allows it to compete against central banks and fiat currencies.
I think there is an arms race especially as we shift from the digital to the physical world to be an asset independent of the traditional financial systems and traditional asset classes, he concluded.
His current statement is in direct continuation and support of the companys previous prediction that BTC can reach $1.36 million per coin by 2030.
Michael Saylor the Executive Chairman and former CEO of MicroStrategy also thinks that the cryptocurrency can reach $1 million.
In May this year, the American entrepreneur argued that BTC does not have a price target, expecting it to soar into the millions.
A month later, Saylor praised it as the best financial instrument in terms of adoption levels and investor protection. He also claimed bitcoin is obviously better than gold and everything that gold wants to be, while its use cases will lead to a huge price rally in the foreseeable future.
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Heres Why ARK Invest Analyst Maintains Bitcoin at $1 Million Prediction - CryptoPotato
Bitcoin: Before you make your next trade in October, read this – AMBCrypto News
The last four months have been marked by a boring price action from the leading coin, Bitcoin [BTC], data from on-chain intelligence platform Santiment revealed. In the past few weeks, BTCs price oscillated strangely between the $19,000 price region and the psychological $20,000 price region.
Noticeably, the king coin has been increasingly less volatile in the past few weeks. Glassnode, in a recently published report, compared BTCs performance with that of the broader financial markets. It found that,
Recent weeks have seen an uncharacteristically low degree of volatility in Bitcoin prices, in stark contrast to equity, credit, and forex markets, where central bank rate hikes, inflation, and a strong US dollar continue to wreak havoc.
According to Santiment, this decline in volatility could be attributed to the lack of whale presence in the BTC market. The count of BTC whale transactions that exceed $100,000 and $1 million also declined nearly to a two-year low, data from Santiment revealed.
A persistent fall in BTCs volatility has been partly induced by the lack of whale presence in the BTC market. This aimed to signify attempts by investors to establish a bear market floor. A look at the assets supply on exchanges supported this position.
According to data from Santiment, BTCs supply on exchanges dropped by 13% in the past four months. The percentage of the coins total supply on exchanges fell from 10.10% to 8.72% between June and October.
The decline in BTCs supply on exchanges was an indication that buying pressure for the asset rallied in the period under consideration.
While this ordinarily should aid a price uptick, the downtrodden nature of the broader financial markets made it impossible for the price of BTC to rise significantly.
While the fall in BTCs supply on exchanges might have indicated a rally in buying pressure in the past four months, a look at the assets Mean Dollar Invested Age (MDIA) revealed that the BTC network was plagued by an increasing repository of dormant coins.
Data from Santiment also showed that BTCs MDIA has been on a long stretch upward in the past four months showing stagnancy on the network.
However, for the king coin to see any significant price action, a fall in MDIA is required. This will mean that previously dormant coins have started to change hands.
According to Bloomberg, October, historically, has been a good month for BTC.
The virtual currency tends to rise roughly 25% in October and has, since 2015, advanced more than 85% of the time during it.
Investors hoping for a respite may thus have something to rejoice about.
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Bitcoin: Before you make your next trade in October, read this - AMBCrypto News
You can now search ETH addresses on Google But what about Bitcoin? – Cointelegraph
Googles latest crypto feature enables some Ethereum wallet addresses to have their Ether (ETH) balances tracked straight off of the Google search engine saving the need to make the trip to Etherscan.
The feature was first made public by the principal of Google Ventures, Han Hua, in an Oct. 11 tweet.
But Cointelegraphs attempt to search for a Bitcoin (BTC) address revealed a no-show on Google. Angel investor Stephen Cole was not impressed, tweeting Does Google not know about Bitcoin?
Cointelegraph also tried several different Ethereum addresses most of which didnt work. So, the functionality is very limited at present and may improve over time.
Nonetheless, recent efforts suggest Google is playing a key role in onboarding internet users to the world of blockchain-based services and Web3.
The new feature comes in addition to Googles partnership with crypto exchange Coinbase on Oct. 11 to allow its customers to pay for cloud services in crypto, which is expected to take effect in early 2023.
Google also got in on the Ethereum Merge hype by embedding a countdown ticker until the point at which Ethereum transitioned from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS).
Related: Near Protocol partners with Google Cloud to support Web3 devs
Speaking to Cointelegraph, Markus Thielen, Head of Research at digital asset services platform Matrixport, said we shouldnt be surprised by Googles efforts in the Web3 space as both commercial banks and Web2 companies continue to do an enormous amount of work in the background, adding:
But while Googles efforts are welcome, Thielen believes a mass adoption event for Web3 could come when the iPhone can be used as a crypto wallet.
If and when this happens, the crypto industry will go from 100 miles an hour to 250 miles in a heartbeat, he added.
Vittorio Rivabella, developer relations manager of Web3 development platform Alchemy,said the news of Googles new Ethereum address search feature was bullish.
However, SadPanda.blockchain, the former editor-in-chief at Web3ArtBlog.NFT, wasnt so thrilled with the news, arguing that Google will sell our blockchain data to advertisers in order to target us via our wallets!
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You can now search ETH addresses on Google But what about Bitcoin? - Cointelegraph
Brendan Lee: How to prove ownership of a Bitcoin address – CoinGeek
Do you know how public and private keys are generated? Would you be able to verify a digital signature? If your answer to either of those questions is no, theres no need to feel embarrassed as you are not alone! For all the articles and opinion pieces on the internet about Bitcoin, there is still a distinct lack of understanding around how the technology actually works.
Indeed, a YouGov survey from 2021 found that 98% of respondents didnt understand basic crypto concepts.
On this weeks CoinGeek Conversations, Charles Miller has re-enlisted the help of Brendan Lee, Training and Development Manager of the BSV Blockchain Association, to help him get to the bottom of a few key concepts.
When the two last spoke back in February 2021, Brendan covered what really happens when a transaction is made on the Bitcoin network and how exactly coins move from one wallet to another. This time Charles wants to find out what a digital signature is and how it can be used to verify ownership of a Bitcoin address.
First, they discuss public and private keys, with Brendan explaining that the two keys exist as a pair, with the private key generated first and the public key produced cryptographically from the private key.
The conversation then moves on to Bitcoin wallets, where an individuals private keys are stored. Brendan says that Electrum, a wallet software that has some additional features, is a good way to allow users to demonstrate their ownership of keys by using those keys to sign messages and create digital signatures.
Brendan explains that a user needs to first pick an address and type in a custom message to generate a signature. Once this signature has been created, any other user can decode and verify the signed message provided they have the custom message, signature, and public key.
While the technology might seem complicated, Brendan says that the mathematics used to generate signatures and verify keys were not anything new when Satoshi utilised them in Bitcoin software.
He wasnt doing anything significantly new; he was just taking something that existed already, was well-tested, very proven, highly trusted as a technique and then applying it as a digital cash system, he says.
Charles and Brendan also do a practical demonstration on Electrum, showing how it can be used to prove control over a specific set of private keys. This is particularly interesting given the fact that this was how Dr. Craig Wright demonstrated his control of the Satoshi keys to Gavin Andresen in 2016.
For more about Bitcoin technology, see this previous CoinGeek Conversation: Brendan Lee: What really happens when you make a Bitcoin payment
Hear the whole of Brendan Lees interview in this weeks CoinGeek Conversations podcast or catch up with other recent episodes:
You can also watch the podcast video on YouTube.
Please subscribe to CoinGeek Conversations this is part of the podcasts ninth season. If youre new to it, there are plenty of previous episodes to catch up with.
Heres how to find them:
Search for CoinGeek Conversations wherever you get your podcasts
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Visit theCoinGeek Conversations website
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Brendan Lee: How to prove ownership of a Bitcoin address - CoinGeek
New hashprice-based derivatives instrument gives Bitcoin miners another way to hedge – Cointelegraph
Hedging against downside has always been a challenge for Bitcoin BTC miners, and the current bear market is a perfect example of how energy prices and crypto market volatility can negatively impact miners profit margins and their ability to stay solvent.
Oftentimes, institutional and retail traders use BTC-, stablecoin- and U.S. dollar-settled derivatives (options and futures contracts) to create hedging strategies that mitigate downside in Bitcoin price, and now an instrument specific to Bitcoin mining is available to miners.
The Oct. 10 launch of Luxor Hashprice NDF, a non-deliverable forward contract, will allow miners to hedge their exposure to Bitcoin price and the energy costs associated with mining.
According to Luxor Technologies, hashprice is the revenue BTC miners earn per unit of hash rate, which is the total computational power deployed by miners processing transactions on a proof-of-work network.
The over-the-counter derivatives contracts are settled using Luxors Bitcoin Hashprice Index, and investors can choose to settle in dollar-pegged stablecoins, dollars or BTC. A primary benefit of the instrument is that contract sellers can lock in Bitcoin mining revenue, while contract buyers can tap into the upside potential of Bitcoin mining without the need for physical exposure.
Related: Will the Bitcoin mining industry collapse? Analysts explain why crisis is really opportunity
According to Luxor co-founder and CEO Nick Hansen:
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
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New hashprice-based derivatives instrument gives Bitcoin miners another way to hedge - Cointelegraph
Stablecoin Issuer Tether Fulfills Promise by Reducing Commercial Paper Holdings Down to Zero Bitcoin News – Bitcoin News
On October 13, 2022, Tether Holdings Limited announced that the stablecoin issuer has reduced the companys commercial paper holdings down to zero. The company has said it would reach this goal for a while now, and Tether says that shrinking commercial paper holdings down to zero demonstrates Tethers commitment to backing its tokens with the most secure reserves in the market.
The company behind the largest stablecoin by market capitalization, Tether, has revealed that USDTs reserves are exposed to U.S. Treasury Bills (T-Bills), in contrast to commercial paper holdings. The announcement follows the statement Tethers chief technology officer Paolo Ardoino made on October 3.
At the time, Ardoino explained that U.S. Treasury bills represented more than 58% of the companys reserves, and he further said [Commercial paper] exposure is [less than] 50M now. The company that manages USDT, a stablecoin with a market valuation of around $68.53 billion, believes the decision to erase commercial paper holdings is positive for the crypto industry as a whole.
Reducing commercial papers to zero demonstrates Tethers commitment to backing its tokens with the most secure reserves in the market, the company stated on Thursday. This is a step towards even greater transparency and trust, not only for Tether but for the entire stablecoin industry.
Tethers move follows the issues associated with the Terra blockchain and the UST de-pegging event last May. Furthermore, a handful of stablecoins have de-pegged from the $1 parity following USTs collapse. The news also follows the stablecoin USDCs market cap deflating during the last few months down to todays valuation of around $45.82 billion.
USDTs market cap dropped as well, following the Terra collapse, as Bitcoin.com News reported in mid-June that the number of USDT in circulation dropped by over 12 billion coins in two months. Despite the drops of USDT and USDC in circulation, the stablecoins are still the top two stablecoin assets by market cap, and the third (USDT) and fourth (USDC) largest crypto assets by valuation.
What do you think about Tether fulfilling the companys promise to reduce commercial paper holdings down to zero? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
Jamie Redman is the News Lead at Bitcoin.com News and a financial tech journalist living in Florida. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for Bitcoin, open-source code, and decentralized applications. Since September 2015, Redman has written more than 6,000 articles for Bitcoin.com News about the disruptive protocols emerging today.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Tether,
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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Stablecoin Issuer Tether Fulfills Promise by Reducing Commercial Paper Holdings Down to Zero Bitcoin News - Bitcoin News
Cardano founder points out flaws in Ethereum and Bitcoin – Cointelegraph
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has been pointing out the flaws affecting the Ethereum protocol following its latest upgrade.
A major issue, according to Hoskinson, is the locking mechanism that prevents investors from withdrawing their staked Ether (ETH) from the Beacon Chain until the completion of the next upgrade.
Ethereum is the Hotel California of cryptocurrencies. You can check in, but you cant check out, said Hoskinson in a recent Cointelegraph interview.
According to Hoskison, this mechanism heavily impacts ETHs liquidity and could eventually spark a liquidity crisis.
Youll have less and less Ether trading in the marketplace, he explained. And then what will ultimately happen is youll have a liquidity crisis where a lot of volatility comes in.
Cardanos founder is also critical of the proof-of-work mining system that powers Bitcoin (BTC), which he sees as wasteful and unnecessary in the long run.
While Hoskinson acknowledged the importance of proof-of-work in the process of creating new BTC, he doesnt believe its effective when BTC is used as a financial instrument.According to Hoskinson, once BTC is mined, it could be moved onto a different, less energy-consuming blockchain in the form of wrapped assets:
To learnabout Hoskinsons thesis on Bitcoin and Ethereum, watchthe full interview on our YouTube channel, and dont forget to subscribe!
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Cardano founder points out flaws in Ethereum and Bitcoin - Cointelegraph
Bitcoin holds steady around $19,000 amid growing signs of institutional adoption – CNBC
A visual representation of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin on December 12, 2017 in London, England.
Jordan Mansfield | Getty Images
Bitcoin on Tuesday floated at the $19,000 level, where it has remained for about a month with some momentary breaks.
The largest cryptocurrency by market cap, whose volatility has been uncharacteristically low in recent weeks, was down by 1.1% at $19,002.70, according to Coin Metrics. Ether fell 2% to $1,282.17.
Crypto prices remain depressed, with bitcoin off its all-time high from nearly a year ago by more than 70%. Chart analysts have been looking for the cryptocurrency to break lower to retest its June lows of about $17,000 and find a new bottom, potentially as low as $10,000 if it fails to hold at $19,000. Slight breaks below that level haven't proved to be meaningful, however.
"Crypto markets continue their slumber with little progress either way," said Richard Usher, head of OTC trading at the BCB Group. "Until broad risk bounces, this sector won't."
Traders are keeping an eye on economic data out later this week. Though recent bitcoin volatility is low compared with stocks, the correlation between the two is still high.
"The price of bitcoin is maintaining the $19,000 level, but with the FOMC's minutes and CPI ahead this week, the market will likely refrain from taking risks, which in turn will likely put pressure on bitcoin," Yuya Hasegawa, crypto market analyst at Japanese crypto exchangeBitbank, told CNBC Tuesday.
Prices held steady even after two big announcements signaling that institutional acceptance and adoption of crypto continues to build in spite of the bear market. On Tuesday, Google announced it would explore using Coinbase's service for storing and trading cryptocurrencies. On top of that, BNY Mellon said Tuesday that it will add cryptocurrencies to the various assets it holds as a custody manager.
"These large companies believe in the potential of digital assets and Web3," said Owen Lau, an analyst at Oppenheimer. "It takes time to build, but these companies are taking a long-term view to bulk up their capabilities to make sure they won't be behind in 3-5 years."
In the past month, Nasdaq also launched crypto custody for institutions and Franklin Templeton, Betterment, Socit Gnrale and other wealth managers have made forays into crypto.
A year ago, news like that might have moved the crypto market, but prices are largely macro driven now.
Still, prices will likely be stuck for some time. The Federal Reserve pushed crypto into the well with its rate-hiking plan, and investors say it's on the central bank to pull it back out.
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Bitcoin holds steady around $19,000 amid growing signs of institutional adoption - CNBC
The software used in bitcoin mining is getting its first big makeover in more than a decade here’s what’s changing – CNBC
Employees work on bitcoin mining computers at Bitminer Factory in Florence, Italy.
Alessandro Bianchi | Reuters
Software used in bitcoin mining just got its first upgrade since late 2012, and a coalition of companies including payments giant Block (formerly Square) is trying to help push the open-source protocol forward to become an industry standard.
The move could help open bitcoin mining to more participants by supporting lower-quality internet connections, as well as improving security so miners get properly compensated for their work.
Bitcoin operates on a proof-of-work mining model, meaning that miners around the world run high-powered computers to create new bitcoin and validate transactions. Mining requires professional-grade equipment, some technical know-how, a lot of electricity and a special kind of software.
Rather than directly accessing the bitcoin protocol, the vast majority of miners today work through an intermediary protocol called Stratum, which facilitates communication between the bitcoin network, miners, and the mining pools that combine the hashing power of thousands of miners all over the world.
Miners use Stratum to submit their work and to collect a reward if they successfully complete a new block of transactions.
On Tuesday, a coalition of bitcoin developers is releasing version 2 of Stratum under an open-source license for the mining industry to evaluate and test.
It will take some work to convince the mining industry to adopt the new protocol, so Spiral a subsidiary of Jack Dorsey's payments companyBlock(formerly Square) is teaming up with bitcoin mining company Braiins to launch a group to test and fine-tune the open-source software before they push mass adoption.
Steve Lee, the lead at Spiral, tells CNBC there are several significant benefits to the upgrade, including cutting down on the use of data.
Currently, it is common for each mining rig in a large farm to directly connect to a pool. This setup wastes a lot of energy. Lee says that Stratum V2 supports a proxy that aggregates all the connections and only establishes one connection with the pool.
The process of sending that data is also changing to a more efficient method.
"All told, much less data needs to be transmitted between miners and pools, and this could help miners in remote regions of the world with poor internet," noted Lee.
The upgrade is designed to improve security, as well. Today, it is possible to steal hash rate from a miner, which can lead to some miners losing money. Hash rate is a term for the collective computing power of the bitcoin network. To resolve this, Lee says Stratum V2 introduces a standard security mechanism with authentication and encryption between miners and pools.
The version being released Tuesday is for initial testing, and in early November, a more robust version will come out that supports additional functionality, including job negotiation a "feature that represents a historic shift in the censorship-resistant mechanics of bitcoin mining by replacing a pools responsibility of assigning work to miners with the ability for miners to select their own work," according to a joint statement released by Spiral and Braiins.
There are orders of magnitude more miners than pools, so if miners select transactions it is far more decentralized than just a handful of pools, Lee explained.
"Working for industrywide adoption of the upgraded Stratum protocol is one of the most important developments in improving the decentralization and censorship resistance of bitcoins architecture," Lee said.
As for timing, the pilot and integration testing will happen this fall, and next year, the upgraded protocol will likely see greater adoption once miners and pools are confident it is working well.
"I'd anticipate a gradual increase in hash rate in 2023," Lee told CNBC. "Reaching 10% hash rate by the end of 2023 would be a great success," continued Lee.
Lee added that it will likely take several years to see the latest version of Stratum replace the original.
Miners know the benefits of upgrading to Stratum V2 very well, but pushing the entire mining industry over some of the remaining development and adoption hurdles is a big task," said Jan Capek, co-founder of Braiins.
"Universal standards for running and building Stratum V2 and the efforts of this working group to push the industry forward will provide the momentum bitcoin needs to finally upgrade from a version of its mining protocol that was built a decade ago, continued Capek.
Similar to the Lightning Network, which is a technology built on top of bitcoin's base layer to make payments more efficient, there will be different implementations of Stratum V2. However, the open-source version released Tuesday will make it easier to collectively test out the technology. It will also ensure that the various projects can interact with one another.
Tuesday's announcement is part of Block's larger push into the bitcoin mining industry.
On the sidelines of the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami in April, digital assets infrastructure company Blockstream and Block announced that they were breaking ground on a solar- and battery-powered bitcoin mine in Texas that uses solar and storage technology fromTesla.
Tesla's 3.8 megawatt solar PV array and 12 megawatt-hour Megapack will power the facility.
Block is also independently working on a project to make bitcoin mining more distributed and efficient.
The idea of making the mining process more accessible has to do with more than just creating new bitcoin, according to Block's general manager for hardware, Thomas Templeton. Instead, he says the company sees it as a long-term need for a future that is fully decentralized and permissionless.
"Mining needs to be more distributed," Dorsey wrote in a tweet in October,when he first floated the idea. "The more decentralized this is, the more resilient the bitcoin network becomes."
Toward that end, the company is solving one major barrier to entry: Mining rigs are hard to find, expensive and delivery can be unpredictable. Block says it is open to making a new ASIC, which is the specialized gear used to mine for bitcoin.
The project is being incubated within Block's hardware team, which is beginning to build out a core engineering team of system, ASIC and software designers led by Afshin Rezayee.
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The software used in bitcoin mining is getting its first big makeover in more than a decade here's what's changing - CNBC