Category: Markethive

Bitcoin Price Nears $5,000; YTD Growth Exceeds 400%

Bitcoin Price Nears $5,000; YTD Growth Exceeds 400%

Bitcoin Price Nears $5,000; YTD Growth Exceeds 400%

2017 has been a breakout year for bitcoin and the cryptocurrency ecosystem as a whole. Now, as the bitcoin price approaches $5,000, it’s an excellent time to look back at the trials and triumphs that have contributed to this 400% YTD rally.

Global Adoption & the Road to $5,000

Bitcoin rang in the new year by crossing $1,000 for the first time since the 2013 melt-up, and the Financial Times promptly called it a pyramid scheme that would soon collapse to zero. The bitcoin price held at this level for the next three months, leading critics like Gizmodo writer Michael Nunez to complain that it “refuses to just die already.”

Of course, bitcoin obituaries like these ignored bitcoin’s increasing global expansion. There was once a time when bitcoin risked becoming a Western phenomenon, excluding the majority of the world’s population. Today, that could not be further from the truth. Bitcoin adoption has exploded in Asia, and the highest-volume cryptocurrency exchange is located in South Korea. Bitcoin has also made inroads into emerging markets such as Africa and India.

This year has also seen Japan embrace bitcoin more rapidly than perhaps any other nation. Toward the beginning of the year, Japan terminated its crippling 8% bitcoin consumption tax, and before long major retailers were accepting bitcoin payments. By the end of the year, analysts predict that as many as 300,000 Japanese businesses will accept bitcoin.

By late April, the crypto market advance had begun to pick up steam, leading to a market cap explosion in May and June. On May 20, the bitcoin price broke through $2,000. Less than a month later, it crossed $3,000 on several exchanges for the first time.

Bitcoin Price Nears $5,000; YTD Growth Exceeds 400%

YTD Bitcoin Price Chart from CoinMarketCap

Despite this bull run, bitcoin almost lost its status as the largest cryptocurrency by market cap. About this time, ethereum came within $10 billion of bitcoin’s market cap, making it seem inevitable that there would be a “Flippening” between the two cryptocurrencies. MarketWatch columnist Brett Arends, meanwhile, wrote that both cryptocurrencies were “complete garbage.” However, the Flippening never came. The markets took a bearish turn following the June 26 “Monday Massacre,” and bitcoin consolidated its position as the dominant cryptocurrency.

Eventually, the markets recovered. After falling as low as $1,900 during mid-July, the bitcoin price reversed course toward the end of the month, initiating the record rally that has carried bitcoin to the brink of $5,000.
 

Bitcoin Overcomes UAHF and PBoC Squeeze

The most astonishing aspect of the bitcoin price’s 2017 performance is not its 400% climb, but rather the trials it overcame to get there. Aside from the incessant claims by mainstream media analysts that bitcoin is a bubble, bitcoin faced adverse events that threatened its future. One of these was increasing regulation. Bitcoin has faced regulation since shortly after its inception, but its 2017 bull run has intensified government interest in cryptocurrency. As early as January, the People’s Bank of China (PBoc)–China’s central bank–began putting a regulatory squeeze on bitcoin exchanges in response to “abnormal [bitcoin] price fluctuations.” Exchanges shut their doors as the PBoC began conducting on-site inspections. However, the PBoC ultimately allowed Chinese bitcoin exchanges to continue their operations, albeit with strict supervision.

More recently, bitcoin survived the contentious bitcoin cash hard fork that split the bitcoin network into two different blockchains. Rather than lead the bitcoin price into decline, the hard fork actually appeared to build confidence in bitcoin’s ability to survive a serious community divide, and bitcoin soared more than 75% in the month that followed.

Scaling With SegWit

The bitcoin cash hard fork was caused by the debate about the best way to scale the bitcoin network. Bitcoin cash proponents, claiming to follow Satoshi’s vision, believed that raising the block size was the best way to ensure bitcoin remained a viable P2P transaction vehicle rather than just a settlement layer. Bitcoin Core, however, adopted Segregated Witness (SegWit), a scaling and transaction malleability fix that also facilitates the creation of Lightning Networks. SegWit was activated earlier this month, which should soon cause bitcoin transaction fees–which reached above $8 this month–to finally decrease to more acceptable levels.

SegWit2x and the Road Ahead

Of course, SegWit activation did not put the scaling debate to rest. Earlier this year, a group of prominent bitcoin companies and personalities signed the New York Agreement (NYA), which proposed a hard fork to the bitcoin protocol. SegWit2x, as the proposal is known, called for a block size increase in addition to SegWit activation. The proposal received near-universal support from miners, but Bitcoin Core developers have vociferously opposed it. Relations between Core and SegWit2x supporters have worsened over the intervening months, and several companies have reversed their NYA support. Despite Core opposition, SegWit2x proponents say they will proceed with the hard fork in November, creating a potentially-chaotic situation in which two blockchains will fight to be the “real bitcoin”.

Nevertheless, investors remain bullish on bitcoin, and the bitcoin price’s triumphant march toward $5,000 continue

 

Author: Josiah Wilmoth on 01/09/2017

 

Posted by David Ogden Entrepreneur

David Ogden Cryptocurrency Entrepreneur

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Bitcoin’s nearly five-fold climb in 2017 looks very similar to tech bubble surge

Bitcoin's nearly five-fold climb in 2017 looks very similar to tech bubble surge

Bitcoin's nearly five-fold climb in 2017 looks very similar to tech bubble surge

David Ader, chief macro strategist at Informa Financial Intelligence, shows how bitcoin's gains resemble that of the Nasdaq Telecommunications Index before the tech bubble burst.

Bitcoin has gained nearly 400 percent this year, helped by increased interest from institutional investors.

However, digital currency expert Chris Burniske points out the market value of bitcoin is still a fraction of what stocks were during the dot-com boom.

Vidoe blob:https://www.cnbc.com/e53fec4c-f5c1-4568-b72a-67d362f70882

When charted, bitcoin's rapid gains resemble how stocks surged into the tech bubble before collapsing.
 

David Ader, chief macro strategist at Informa Financial Intelligence, matched a graph of the Nasdaq Telecommunications Index at its peak in 2000 to bitcoin's five-year run to all-time highs.

"This is the price chart for an overly frothy market, in my opinion. I just don't see anything quite as comparable to this in bubblelicious terms," said Ader, a former top-rated bond market strategist.
 

Bitcoin climbed more than 3.7 percent Thursday to a record of $4,802.74, up nearly five times in price this year and about 67 percent higher for August, according to CoinDesk.

Bitcoin's nearly five-fold climb in 2017 looks very similar to tech bubble surge

"I think it's going to come to a sorry ending," Ader said. "I don't know anybody who's actually used a bitcoin for any purpose legal or otherwise. This looks like an overly frothy market and frothy markets lose their froth."

Ader said he used the Nasdaq telecom index since many of those stocks led the Nasdaq composite's overall gains during the tech bubble. The Nasdaq telecom index shot up more than 700 percent from 1995 to 2000, before collapsing 90 percent in the next two years. The index remains about 75 percent below its record high.

Bitcoin's meteoric surge this year comes as many on Wall Street are becoming more interested in the digital currency and the blockchain technology behind it. New digital asset investment funds are rolling out and the Chicago Board Options Exchange is planning to launch bitcoin futures.

Many investors also bought bitcoin this month after it survived a relatively uneventful split on Aug. 1 into bitcoin and bitcoin cash, an alternative version supported by only a few developers. Bitcoin cash is up about 180 percent from its Aug. 1 low, to Thursday's price of $588, according to CoinMarketCap.

However, bitcoin could split again this fall because there's another upgrade proposal, and others have warned that the speculative forces behind bitcoin could quickly turn against it.

Here are a few of the alarm bells sounded this summer:

The Elliott Wave Newsletter predicted bitcoin's surge from 6 cents in 2010, but in July said bitcoin's surge has surpassed the tulip mania of roughly 400 years ago and is now showing signs of nearing a sharp downturn.

Later in July, widely followed Bank of America Merrill Lynch commodity and derivatives strategist Francisco Blanch concluded in a sweeping report that bitcoin still faces many challenges to becoming a globally accepted currency.

Then about a week later, a New York University finance professor, Aswath Damodaran, said in a blog post that bitcoin may just be a "dangerous pricing game."

By percent change, analysis from Bespoke Investment Group shows how bitcoin's surge has already well surpassed that of any major stock market bubble.

Bitcoin's nearly five-fold climb in 2017 looks very similar to tech bubble surge

Source: Bespoke Investment Group

That said, some well-respected names on Wall Street have also issued positive reports on the digital currency.

In early July, Thomas Lee became the first major Wall Street strategist to issue a report on bitcoin. A former JPMorgan strategist who co-founded Fundstrat, Lee said bitcoin could reach $20,000 to $55,000 by 2022. On Aug. 18, he established a mid-2018 target of $6,000 for bitcoin.

According to a mid-July Forbes report, investing legend Bill Miller put 1 percent of his net worth into bitcoin in 2014, and the digital currency is one of the top holdings in Miller's $120 million hedge fund.

Stock analyst Ronnie Moas of Standpoint Research published a report in late July predicting bitcoin would rise nearly 80 percent to $5,000 in 2018. He then raised that target in mid-August to $7,500.

Lee and Moas both reason that bitcoin can climb to those levels if even a fraction of the trillions of dollars in gold or other traditional investments move into the digital currency.

Bitcoin has a market value of about $78 billion, and digital currencies overall are worth $170 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.

That makes the value of all digital currencies less than 5 percent of the more than $4 trillion inflation-adjusted value of stocks during the tech and telecom boom, said Chris Burniske, author of the upcoming book, "Cryptoassets: The Innovative Investor's Guide to Bitcoin and Beyond.
 

"If people think this is the 'big bubble,' then they don't have an appreciation for how big the idea of cryptoassets really is," he said.

Many digital currency enthusiasts agree there is speculation in the digital currency. But they note that, just like the dot-com bubble, companies that were able to utilize the underlying technology then became global giants.

 

Evelyn Cheng
Writer

 

Posted by David Ogden Entrepreneur

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Ethereum, Bitcoin Prices Rally Despite Sluggish Market

Ethereum, Bitcoin Prices Rally Despite Sluggish Market

Ethereum, Bitcoin Prices Rally Despite Sluggish Market

Bitcoin and ethereum continued to rally on Wednesday, pushing the total value of all cryptocurrencies higher even as the wider markets were mostly red. The bitcoin price punched through $4,500 to set a new all-time high, while the ethereum price looks poised to make a record-setting run of its own.

The total cryptocurrency market cap climbed as high as $167 billion Wednesday morning, continuing its August bull run. At present, however, the crypto market cap has tapered to $162.6 billion.


Chart from CoinMarketCap

Bitcoin Price Targets $5,000

The bitcoin price spent the latter half of August stuck between $4,000 and $4,400. As the month waned, it did not appear bitcoin was going to be able to break past this level. However, the bitcoin price defied many investor expectations by spiking from $4,400 to $4,600 at about 12:30 UTC on August 29, posting a new CoinMarketCap average record of $4,627. On some individual exchanges, the price rose even further. The bitcoin price has not yet found solid support for $4,600, which has caused it to pull back to $4,501 this morning. Nevertheless, this represents a daily gain of 3% and gives bitcoin a $74.4 billion market cap.

Bitcoin Price Chart from CoinMarketCap

Now that bitcoin has broken through the $4,500 wall, many analysts predict it will cross the $5,000 threshold in short order. RT host Max Keiser, for instance, stated that he believes it will probably reach that level this week.

Ethereum Price Inches Closer to All-Time High

All eyes were on bitcoin as it set a new all-time high, but ethereum made impressive progress on Wednesday as well. Bolstered by increases in ETH/KRW and ETH/CNY, the ethereum price climbed to $389 on August 30, its highest level since June 14. At present, the ethereum price is $367, resulting in a market cap of $36.6 billion.

Ethereum Price Chart from CoinMarketCap

 

Altcoin Markets Take a Hit

Bitcoin and ethereum may have been posted solid gains on Wednesday, but traders dealt the altcoin markets a blow.

The bitcoin cash price fell to 2% to $573, continuing its week-long decline. The Ripple price managed to climb 1%, thanks to news that the FinTech startup had given a presentation on blockchain trends to officials from the central bank of China. The litecoin price was mostly stable, holding at about $62, while Dash and NEM each made minor advances.

Altcoin Price Chart from CoinMarketCap

This is where the chart starts to turn red. IOTA dipped 2% to $0.828, while the Monero price fell 6% to $128, despite strong volume from Bithumb’s newly-opened XMR/KRW market.

Monero Price Chart from CoinMarketCap

The hardest hit cryptocurrency in the top 10, however, was NEO. The “Chinese Ethereum” plunged by 17% to about $31. This reduced its market cap to $1.5 billion and gives it just a $41 million edge on 11th-ranked ethereum classic.

7-Day NEO Price Chart from CoinMarketCap

Outside of the top 10, the majority of cryptocurrencies engaged in a retreat. That retreat included Qtum and Hshare, which had just entered the $1 billion club on August 29. Unfortunately, these tokens had their membership cards revoked on Wednesday as they experienced declines of 19% and 27%, respectively.

 

Author: Josiah Wilmoth on 30/08/2017

 

Posted By David Ogden Entrepreneur

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

SEC Warns Public to Avoid ICO Scams Manipulating Stock Prices

SEC Warns Public to Avoid ICO Scams Manipulating Stock Prices

SEC Warns Public to Avoid ICO Scams Manipulating Stock Prices

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued an investor alert intended to warn the public about companies using claims about initial coin offerings (ICO) to manipulate their stock prices.

SEC: Avoid ICO-Related Microcap Scams

The alert, which was published by the SEC Office of Investor Education and Advocacy, specifically focuses on publicly-traded companies who claim to be involved with or investing in ICOs. They allege that companies use the lure of cutting edge technology like ICOs to manipulate their stock price and facilitate pump-and-dumps.
 

From the alert:

Fraudsters often try to use the lure of new and emerging technologies to convince potential victims to invest their money in scams. These frauds include “pump-and-dump” and market manipulation schemes involving publicly traded companies that claim to provide exposure to these new technologies.

 

The SEC had previously issued an investor alert regarding direct ICO participation, but they have found that companies may be “publicly announcing ICO or coin/token related events to affect the price of the company’s common stock.” This is particularly a problem with microcap companies, whose stock price can be manipulated in the same way that traders can artificially pump up the price of a cryptocurrency with a small market cap and then dump their coins to secure a profit.

SEC Cracks Down on Public Bitcoin Firms

The Commission says this type of fraud is often rampant within the emerging technologies sector. For this reason, they have been cracking down on publicly-traded bitcoin firms in recent months. In August alone, the SEC has suspended securities trading for CIAO Group (OTC: CIAU), First Bitcoin Capital Corp. (OTC: BITCF), and Bitcoin Crypto Currency Exchange Corporation (OTC: ARSC). All of these companies had seen dramatic increases in the price of their stock, leading the SEC to want to take a closer look at their operations.

According to the release, the SEC issues trading suspensions due to the following occurrences:

  • “A lack of current, accurate, or adequate information about the company — for example, when a company has not filed any periodic reports for an extended period;
  • Questions about the accuracy of publicly available information, including in company press releases and reports, about the company’s current operational status and financial condition; or
  • Questions about trading in the stock, including trading by insiders, potential market manipulation, and the ability to clear and settle transactions in the stock.”
  • A suspension does not necessarily mean a company is acting nefariously, but the SEC warns investors to take caution when considering an investment in a company whose stock has been suspended.

The SEC has been monitoring the cryptocurrency industry with an increasingly watchful eye. Last month, they issued a report concluding that DAO tokens are a security, which implies that smart contract tokens may also fall under securities regulations. This is one reason why Filecoin restricted its record-setting $250 million ICO to investors willing to submit to SEC accreditation.

 

Author: Josiah Wilmoth on 29/08/2017

 

Posted By David Ogden Entrepereneur

DAvid Ogden Cryptocurrency Entrepreneur

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Bitcoin Cash — The New King of Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin Cash - The New King of Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin Cash — The New King of Cryptocurrency

Less than a month ago, a few new lines of code and a verbal agreement forked the Bitcoin blockchain, creating a newer, more nimble version called Bitcoin Cash. Since its arrival on Aug. 1, the infant cryptocurrency has more than doubled in value from $300 to a price north of $600, and investors are now wondering if its popularity poses a serious threat to the Bitcoin throne.

Bitcoin Cash is essentially a clone of the existing Bitcoin blockchain​ with one important feature: additional block size capacity (more on that later). Those who owned Bitcoin before the split now own an equal amount of Bitcoin Cash, meaning Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin each now have 16.5 million units in circulation. Multiply Bitcoin Cash’s recent price of $607 times 16.5 million units, and you arrive at a market cap of $10.8 billion, making it the third-most valuable cryptocurrency​ at around 16% of Bitcoin’s $69 billion market value. An asset with the same value as streaming-music service Spotify or social media giant Twitter was born overnight.

Bitcoin Cash - The New King of Cryptocurrency

Source: Coinmarketcap.com

Bitcoin Cash got off to a slow start but sprang to life as the cryptocurrency’s mining algorithm self-corrected to attract profit-seeking computers, known as miners. These super-computers are the beating heart of the blockchain responsible for verifying and embedding transactions in digital ledgers, called blocks. Once the market noticed a rise in the rate at which blocks were being produced, known as the hash rate, investors bid up the price of the resulting tokens.

Bitcoin Cash - The New King of Cryptocurrency

Source: Tradingview.com

An Answer to a Years-Long Dispute

When Bitcoin was first introduced in 2009, block sizes were unlimited. To buy and sell Bitcoin, wallets required users to keep a record of the entire blockchain. It was as if one had to download the entire history of Google searches to find something on the internet. This led to an abundance of Denial of Service (DOS) attacks as hackers stuffed blocks with meaningless transactions making it difficult for users with slower computers to transact. To alleviate this problem, the Bitcoin community moved to limit block size to one megabyte (MB)

Currently, the 1 MB block size limits transaction speeds to four to seven per second, which can’t compete with Visa's and Paypal’s 2,000 transactions per second. Newer, innovative wallets permit an increase in block sizes, and the introduction of Bitcoin Cash is necessary to scale for mass adoption as a payment platform.

The new cryptocurrency attempts to solve the scaling problem by increasing existing block sizes from 1 MB to 8 MB, thereby increasing the amount of transactions processed per day and improving transaction speed.

Critics argue that larger block sizes will lead to the centralization of mining operations, as larger blocks require professional hardware. This would run counter to the idea of a decentralized network of miners, and limit oversight of the Bitcoin network to a few large miners and nodes.

What Has Happened Recently

To run a cryptocurrency, miners must confirm and account for recent transactions and mine new blocks. Their profitability is the spread between the value of the block reward (price of the coin x # issued per block) and the amount of resources needed to mine the block (known as the “difficulty”). The hash rate is the speed at which blocks are created. Higher hash rates make mining coins more lucrative as it increases the opportunity of mining the next block and receiving the reward.

The blockchain contains an important, self-correcting mechanism that can either speed up or slow down the hash rate when necessary. Essentially, the mathematical formula at the heart of the blockchain goes through a difficulty adjustment every 2,016 blocks. The difficulty is set so that 2,016 blocks will be mined just about every two weeks. If the pace is too slow, the difficulty adjusts downwards; and if the pace is too quick, the algorithm becomes more difficult to solve.

As Bitcoin Cash struggled out of the gates to attract miners, its difficulty adjusted sharply downward, making mining an extremely lucrative proposition. Accordingly, Bitcoin miners chased the easy money and shifted capacity to Bitcoin Cash. Hash rates subsequently skyrocketed, and this caused havoc to the original Bitcoin network. In just the past few days, the Bitcoin hash rate has been halved—slowing down the network and raising transaction prices.

Bitcoin Cash - The New King of Cryptocurrency

Source: Blockchain.info

Reports on social media say that Bitcoin transactions are taking hours or even days to confirm. However, the slower hash rate means that Bitcoin’s difficulty adjustment will be lowered for the next cycle and lead to an increase in miners.
 

The Bottom Line

Blockchain miners are now shifting capacity to Bitcoin Cash’s larger block-sized network, which is temporarily troublesome for the Bitcoin network. However, the difficulty adjustment for both networks will ensure that Bitcoin remains the king cryptocurrency—at least for now.

 

Author: Ian King August 28, 2017

 

Posted by David Ogden Entrepereneur

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Miners Are Milking Bcash’s Difficulty Adjustments

Miners Are Milking Bcash's Difficulty Adjustments

Miners Are Milking Bcash’s Difficulty Adjustments

 

Bitcoin Cash (Bcash or BCH) has been more profitable to mine than Bitcoin (BTC) on multiple occasions over the past week or two. This is creating a new dynamic within Bitcoin’s ecosystem — one which is not really beneficial for either coin.

In Bitcoin Magazine's previous article on this topic, we explained why Bcash mining should normally not affect Bitcoin too much, aside from the incidental higher fees and slower confirmations. We also explained why this dynamic could, in the meantime, ruin Bcash, as it should freeze that blockchain in its tracks.

We also noted that Bcash has a built-in emergency solution to mitigate the risk, which could get its blockchain moving again. But this solution does assume either that some miners are choosing to act against their own short-term interest at certain times for the benefit of all miners — or that miners are coordinating for their mutual benefit, on some level.

Now, several days later, it appears that this is what’s happening. Some miners are either acting against their short-term interests for specific periods of time — or they are coordinating to trigger the emergency solution.

The good news for Bcash is that this means its blockchain is still in motion for now, at least on most days. But at the same time, the dynamic generated by the emergency solution is benefiting its miners overall, more than anyone else — and it’s even calling into question the long-term viability of Bitcoin Cash itself.

The Emergency Difficulty Adjustment

First, a brief recap of Bitcoin mining and Bcash’s built-in emergency solution.

Mining profitability is determined by the value of the block reward (newly mined coins plus transaction fees) and the “difficulty” to mine a block. If the value of the block rewards are higher and the difficulty is lower, miners make more money.

The difficulty on both Bitcoin and Bcash self-adjusts each time 2016 blocks are mined. If it takes longer than two weeks to mine these 2016 blocks, difficulty adjusts downward so it becomes easier to mine. If it takes less than two weeks, the difficulty adjusts upward so it becomes harder.

Bcash really needs its difficulty to be low enough to match the value of its block rewards in relation to Bitcoin. So, if Bcash's block reward is worth 15 percent of Bitcoin’s block reward, Bcash’s difficulty must also be 15 percent of Bitcoin’s difficulty, or lower. Otherwise, Bitcoin will be more profitable to mine, and miners will really have no reason ever to return to Bcash, leaving the Bcash blockchain frozen in its tracks.

The big problem is that, as long as Bcash’s block rewards do not exceed Bitcoin’s block rewards, this is bound to happen sooner or later. At some point, Bcash difficulty will exceed what its block reward will be worth, at which point all miners should leave.

To mitigate this problem, Bcash implemented a feature called the “emergency difficulty adjustment” (EDA). If in a space of at least twelve hours, fewer than six blocks are mined, the difficulty adjusts downwards by 20 percent for the next block. If miners coordinate or time this well, this can bring difficulty down by about 75 percent within a day.

The Problems

While triggering the EDA is preferable over a blockchain frozen in its tracks forever, it does present new problems.

Once difficulty is low enough, profit-maximizing miners are incentivized to jump on Bcash mining, producing an enormous number of blocks before difficulty adjusts within a day or two. Then, once the difficulty adjusts upward by a lot, and all these miners will switch back to Bitcoin — until some miners trigger Bcash’s EDA again, potentially after 12 hours or so, and all miners hop back on Bcash, creating a sort of stop-and-go cycle, on repeat.

In our previous article, we noted that this stop-and-go cycle is not ideal for users. But we didn’t go into specifics about what problems those would be, exactly. And there are a number of them…

First of all, this stop-and-go cycle actually causes a disturbance for Bitcoin users as well. Each time miners hop on Bcash, hash power leaves the Bitcoin network, which means that Bitcoin blocks are mined more slowly. As a result, Bitcoin’s transaction fees and confirmation times go up. And the fact that miners are intentionally gaming the system like this, suggests that the situation could drag on for a while: potentially weeks or months, and maybe even longer depending on how Bcash develops.

Meanwhile, this cycle makes Bitcoin Cash confirmation times very unreliable. On some days, transactions confirm very quickly, as blocks are found about every minute. On other days, there are (almost) no new blocks at all for at least 12 hours, and transactions take incredibly long to confirm, by comparison.

Arguably, an even bigger problem is that because of this dynamic, Bcash mining rewards — new coins — enter the system much more quickly: currently about four times faster than they are supposed to. As a result, Bcash’s inflation rate is relatively high. While Bitcoin’s current yearly inflation rate sits at about 4 percent, Bcash’s yearly inflation rate is on pace to be closer to 16 percent. This favors miners who earn these coins — at the cost of coin-holders.

What’s more, because of this same dynamic, Bcash’s next block halving will arrive much faster as well, possibly around mid 2018 instead of mid 2020. And if nothing changes, there could even be another halving by early 2019: the block reward could fall to 3.125 BCH in just a little over a year from now.

These halvings is where Bcash’s real problems could begin.

As perhaps its central value proposition compared to Bitcoin, Bcash wants to keep its transaction fees extremely low; even as low as zero. Therefore, it is not clear that fees will make up for the loss in rewards; it seems especially unlikely that these losses will be made up within a year, if ever. So unless the market price of BCH, compared to BTC, increases by a lot, and fast, the value of Bcash’s block reward could dwindle significantly.

Now, keep in mind that for miners to mine Bcash at all, its difficulty must be even lower than its block reward, compared to Bitcoin, and that if that is the case, all profit-maximizing miners are expected to pile on.

That means that all these miners will be able to mine the 2016 blocks even faster when they do all pile on Bcash. Instead of two days, it could take them even one day. Or less. Which would, of course, mean that the next block halving will be reached even faster. This would in turn means that the block rewards would be even less valuable, difficulty would needs to be even lower for miners to hop on, and miners would be able to mine the 2016 blocks even faster next time. Maybe even in half a day.

Bcash’s EDA could lead to vicious downward spiral, which would significantly decrease Bcash’s security against 51% attacks. It would also make it easier for miners hostile to Bcash to frustrate the system in other ways; for example, they could prevent emergency adjustments from kicking in. Moreover, Bcash could reach the point where its block rewards aren’t even worth the time and effort for miners to switch between chains, and Bcash freezes in its tracks, after all.

Bitcoin Cash will need to fix this problem somehow, and by now developers are indeed discussing the issue. Either that, or the coin must become more valuable than Bitcoin to mitigate the problem altogether — fast.

 

by Aaron van Wirdum

Staff Writer Bitcoin Magazine

Aug 27, 2017 12:46 PM EST

 

Posted by David Ogden Entrepreneur

David Ogden cryptocurrency Entrepreneur

 

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Cryptocurrency Trading Helps Make Traditional Wall Street Traders Millionaires

Cryptocurrency Trading Helps Make Traditional Wall Street Traders Millionaires

Cryptocurrency Trading Helps Make Traditional Wall Street Traders Millionaires

Wall Street’s traders Mike Komaransky and Chase Lochmiller have achieved greater financial success by trading cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. They’re the only ones withdrawing their funds from stocks. In fact, CNBC reports that many stock traders are pulling out their billions from the stock market.

One of the traders, Komaransky, has reportedly done so well that he already announced his retirement at the age of 38 in the summer of 2017.

On June 30, 2017, Komaransky tweets:

After 16 years of trading, today is my last day at @Cumberland_BTC and @DRWTrading. Good luck to the crew, I wish you the best.

12:46 PM — Jun 30, 2017

How Komaransky discovered Bitcoin

Komaransky became interested in Bitcoin after reading George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen’s blog about the digital currency in 2010. Komaransky was working in London, England during that time.

In late 2013, the price of Bitcoin started its upward mobility following the collapse of the biggest Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox.

Due to the continuous rise of Bitcoin’s price, high-frequency trading company DRW Holdings founder and chief executive officer (CEO), Don Wilson, has ordered Komaransky to establish cryptocurrency trading currency subsidiary Cumberland Mining in 2014.

Cumberland Mining was able to exploit the volatile era of Bitcoin trading as it was successful in making notable trades such as gaining the bulk of tokens auctioned by the US Marshals Service. The coins were seized by the service from dark market operator Ross Ulbricht and the illegal online black market he established, Silk Road.

Cumberland Mining has sustained its success and is now one of the biggest digital currency market makers. The company currently has 12 employees, who are mainly involved in trading cryptocurrencies such Bitcoin and Ethereum.
 

Lochmiller’s story

For the past 10 years, Lochmiller has worked for the largest high-frequency trading companies on Wall Street such as Jump Trading and Getco. In July 2017, however, he resigned at Jump Trading to join hedge fund Polychain Capital, which is mainly involved in trading virtual currencies like Tezos and Ethereum.
 

By Lisa Froelings

 

Posted By Daving Ogden Entrepreneur

David ogden cryptocurrency entrepreneur

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Monero Price Up 15% as World’s Largest Cryptocurrency Exchange Prepares Integration

Monero Price Up 15% as World's Largest Cryptocurrency Exchange Prepares Integration

Monero Price Up 15% as World’s Largest Cryptocurrency Exchange Prepares Integration

 

Monero, the world’s second largest anonymous cryptocurrency, is up 22 percent again today, on August 26.

Monero Price Up 15% as World's Largest Cryptocurrency Exchange Prepares Integration

For many years, Monero has been regarded as one of the few cryptocurrencies that is highly legitimate, backed by an experienced and talented development team. It had no pre-sales or controversial mining deals for its miners. The Monero development and community have shown unity since it forked off from Bytecoin, with almost all of its hard forks executed without any contention amongst developers, community members, industry and miners.

Yet, it has struggled to see an increase in its value. It was pushed out of its top 10 largest cryptocurrency spot and was overtaken by Dash, another anonymous cryptocurrency. A large factor of Monero’s struggle in obtaining an active consumer base and trading market has been the lack of support from large-scale trading platforms and wallets.

Dash for instance, despite its controversial pre-sale and negative reputation, was remained as the world’s seventh largest cryptocurrency for many months due to the support from Jaxx and leading exchanges.

This week, Bithumb, South Korea’s leading bitcoin exchange and the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is about to provide the push Monero has long needed. Bithumb is set to list Monero in its cryptocurrency trading platform tomorrow, on August 27. Because it handles around $700 million worth of trades on a daily basis, the integration of Monero by Bithumb is expected to be an immediate and drastic increase in liquidity for Monero traders, users and investors.

Starting August 23, when Bithumb began to accept deposits from Monero traders, the price of Monero surged, even before the exchange fully listed the cryptocurrency. Tomorrow, as Bithumb completes its last phase of integration and opens Monero trading, the price of Monero will likely surge once again.

Monero was able to rise by 22 percent earlier today due to upward momentum supported by Bithumb and optimistic traders in Asia. So far, every cryptocurrency released or introduced by Bithumb to the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange market has seen a drastic increase in value and trading volume. Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Ripple and Litecoin have all seen rapid increase in value after being listed by Bithumb and Korbit, two largest exchanges in South Korea.

More importantly, the South Korean exchange market and its traders are highly attracted to cryptocurrencies that have special attributes. For instnace, South Korean traders are keen on Ethereum due to its smart contract-based protocol and flexible ecosystem. The anonymity of Monero will likely attract many investors on the Bithumb platform and if it is well accepted by the South Korean market, Monero could make its way back to the top five cryptocurrencies. Already, it has surpassed Zcash and many other cryptocurrencies to become the tenth largest cryptocurrency in the market.

 

Author Joseph Young 12:36 am August 26, 2017

 

Posted by David Ogden Entrepereneur

David Ogden Cryptocurrency Entreprenuer

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Standpoint Founder — Bitcoin Asset Class Will Grow Into $2 Trillion Market

Standpoint Founder - Bitcoin Asset Class Will Grow Into $2 Trillion Market

Standpoint Founder — Bitcoin Asset Class Will Grow Into $2 Trillion Market

 

Forget $5,000.

At a time when many are making short-term bets on the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, one bitcoin bull is going a step further. Ronnie Moas, founder of Standpoint Research, is making the case cryptocurrencies will not only be a decade-long trend, but a viable asset class.

In fact, he's going so far as to call for a massive rise in the market cap of cryptocurrencies. His prediction? The total value of all cryptographic assets, today valued at $150 billion, will soar to $2 trillion over the next 10 years.

And in a new interview, Moas walked CoinDesk through his forecast, explaining how it stems from his fundamental analysis of the capital markets and the broader macroeconomic trends he now sees in place.

The Standpoint founder's view stands in stark contrast to the highly bearish analysis of Peter Schiff, who called cryptocurrency a bubble, a speculative frenzy and a natural Ponzi scheme driven by "just plain greed" last week.

In the broadest sense, Moas sees the current state of the cryptocurrency market as a direct parallel to Silicon Valley during the 1990s, when a massive surge of innovation created new technologies that transformed the way we work and live and ushered in a period of massive wealth creation.

He explained:

"I am not any more concerned with bitcoin being at a record high than Amazon or Google investors were concerned when those share prices jumped hundreds of percent and hit $100 and $200 many years ago. Today, both of those stocks are above $900. The question is not where we are at — it is where are we going? I do not think we are in a bubble."

 

Roadmap to $2 trillion

How does Moas get to the $2 trillion market cap for cryptocurrency in his forecast?

He begins by looking at the $200 trillion that is currently invested in global capital markets today, including all major asset classes: cash, stocks, bonds and gold. Moas, who also does traditional equity analysis, begins his market breakdown with stocks, which he believes are currently overvalued.

According to Moas, three-quarters of the names in the S&P 500 are trading at least 18 times earnings, which is higher than his value threshold of 12 times earnings. He also adds that we haven't had a stock market correction in 20 months.

On the currency front, the U.S. dollar is currently losing 1 to 2 percent per year due to inflation. Moas also points out that the dollar has lost half its value since he was in high school 35 years ago.

 

From a global perspective, where most people don't have access to U.S. dollars, Moas believes the case for cryptocurrency is even more compelling:

"Now, imagine what they think of their own local currencies elsewhere in the world. Imagine you live in Venezuela and you're keeping your money under the mattress. Would you rather leave it there in Venezuelan bolivar or would you rather put it in bitcoin? It's not going to take you very long to make that decision."

Breaking his thesis down further, Moas believes that a conservative estimate is that at least 1 percent of the $200 trillion now tied up in stocks, cash, gold and bonds will migrate into cryptocurrencies over the next decade.

In that case, he says, "Bitcoin could end up with a market capitalization that is more than Amazon and Apple combined."

Under this scenario, that would mean that the current market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies would naturally grow.

And if Moas's market capitalization targets are correct, investors would then receive a 1,250 percent return on their cryptocurrency investments made today.

 

Diversified strategy

But he adds one major caveat to that prediction. Simply, "You've got to be in the right names."

Assuming you accept Moas's basic bull market thesis for cryptocurrencies, how do you know if you are invested in the right "names" in the cryptocurrency space? And, if the market boom in cryptocurrency is analogous to the roaring years of the 1990s tech boom, how can you avoid investing in the next Pets.com?

As Moas frames it:

"A lot of people say there is a bubble out there. I see a bubble when you get down below the top 50 cryptocurrencies. There are more than 800 names right now. In my view, what happens outside the top 50 is irrelevant."

Moas goes on to point out that 91 percent of the nearly $150 billion market cap is invested in the top 20 names and 70 percent is invested in bitcoin and ether alone.

He recommends, for the purposes of portfolio diversification, retail investors should hedge their bets and invest across the top 10 or 20 cryptocurrencies.

In Moas's view, the 800 cryptocurrencies that are now trading are analogous to the 800 stocks that were available on the Nasdaq at the height of the dot-com bubble nearly 20 years ago. While Amazon and Apple and Microsoft emerged to become among the most valuable companies of all time, there were many companies from that time period that died slow and painful deaths.

Or, as Moas more colorfully puts it: "Back then, there were hundreds of pump-and-dump, small-cap junk names just as there are in crypto today. Today, the crypto market is giving you the same signals with names like dash, ripple, litecoin, monero, bitcoin, ethereum, neo, nem, iota and others."

He went on to add that while there are certainly risks involved in investing in cryptocurrency, those risks are, in his view, outweighed by the possibility of 10-to-one or 20-to-one payout to the upside experienced by tech stocks.

 

The bull case

Of all the major cryptocurrencies, though, Moas seems especially bullish in his view of bitcoin. Unless there is a major shakeup in the underlying confidence, he believes that investors are going to want to buy-and-hold for their portfolios for 10 years or more.

Moas points out that there are currently only about 16 million bitcoins that have been issued of a possible total 21 million coins that will be created.

In his analysis, this could lead to tens of millions of people trying to get their hands on just a few million coins.

When asked for a specific price target, Moas summed up as follows:

"At the beginning of July, bitcoin was trading at $2,500. I believe in the next three years you will probably see $15,000 to $20,000 for bitcoin. It could double twice from here in the next 36 months."

 

Aug 24, 2017 at 09:00 UTC by Ash Bennington

 

Posted By David Ogden Entrepreneur

DAvid Ogden Cryptocurrency Entrepreneur

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

1,000 Universities: IBM’s Ambitious Plan to Fill Vacant Blockchain Jobs

There's a staffing problem in the blockchain industry: simply, there are too many open positions and too few blockchain specialists.

Now, to help meet that rapidly increasing demand, IBM is partnering with Baruch College, Fordham University, University of Arkansas, University at Buffalo and the University of British Columbia to establish a series of grants, design blockchain curricula and more.

In addition, IBM has added new blockchain resources to it's IBM Academic Initiative, an ambitious effort that opens resources from the global tech giant to 1,000 universities.

But while unique in its sheer scope, IBM's new push is just the latest in a series of efforts around the world to train new blockchain industry talent.

Marie Wieck, general manager of IBM Blockchain, described the results of a beta release of the program to CoinDesk:

"We’ve already gotten some very, very positive responses."

Hands-on learning

Wieck also revealed details about how the programs will leverage IBM's technology.

To start with, IBM Blockchain Platform, the firm's proprietary distributed ledger technology, will form a part of the university curriculum, and will be made accessible for students.

Further, universities that participate in the projects will receive six months access to IBM Cloud and use of the IBM Blockchain cloud sandbox.

And it's becoming increasingly easy to see how such skills would be put to use by graduates of the courses.

The announcement comes on the same day that IBM formally launched its IBM Blockchain Platform, a food supply chain consortium with Walmart and other major firms on board, and revealed the first ever startup accelerator aimed at investing in startups building with Hyperledger Fabric.

Student lockers image via Shutterstock

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Stephen Hodgkiss
Chief Engineer at MarketHive

markethive.com


Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member