Crypto Crypto News 2020

{Note from mods - this thread continues from here: Crypto News 2019 [Crypto]}





"Cryptocurrency user and investor losses due to fraud and misappropriation in 2019 increased by more than five times"

"has led to massive losses for investors"

Cryptocurrency crime losses more than double to $4.5 billion in 2019, report finds

 

Cold storage FTW.
That is one of the challenges with cryptos when it comes to end user ease of use. Although hardware wallets have made it much easier to manage there are still so many that are not aware of the safe approach to these things.

 

Trezor Wallets Can Be Hacked, Kraken Reveals

 

Dude, it’s with actual access to the device.
Anything can be hacked, whether it’s likely is another thing completely.

anyone with access to you or your devices can hack them with the $5 wrench hack.

 

This is a lot more complicated than hacking in to most things considering you need physical access so the wallet needs to be physically stolen and then hacked as well. Sounds a lot more secure than most other storage methods of wealth.

 

Bitcoin hashrate hits new ATH

Bitcoin's hashrate has continued to climb hit a new all time high above 130 EH/s, which suggests miners are banking on a price rise post halving. Alex de Vries, blockchain specialist at PwC, pointed out the curious fact this week that 98 percent of bitcoin mining machines will NEVER produce a block during their average lifespan of 1.5 years. Around 4 million machines are currently active, producing 75,000 blocks every 1.5 years, meaning just 2% actually produce a block.

Ethereum volume through the roof

According to analyst Alex Kruger, the average trading volume for Ether is now four times higher than it was in the second half of 2019. DTC Capital head of crypto investments Spencer Noon claims that since February 9 Ethereum miners have stopped accumulating the cryptocurrency and have offloaded more than 30,000 Ether.

Bitcoin recognised by the courts

A judge in New South Wales has recognised Bitcoin as a legitimate investment vehicle. As part of a defamation case Judge Judith Gibson allowed the plaintiff to use the cryptocurrency as collateral against the court awarding costs. "This is a recognised form of investment," Gibson said. However the plaintiff is required to report to the court immediately if the price tanks.

Bitcoin price predicted to hit $385,000

If you thought the current price dip meant the "halving to the moon" narrative was over, think again Rekt Capital has researched previous halving events and discovered that a price decrease before the block reward halving is perfectly normal. In fact, it's a positive sign, because historically speaking, if BTC goes up less prior to the halving it will increase more after. Bitcoin retraced 50% around 100 days prior to the first halving and it retraced 38% around 20 days prior to the second halving. They suggest the new time high of 12,000% higher will come many months after the halving. Which would equate to a Bitcoin price of $385,000. Stock to flow proponent Plan B, also says the current price movements are in line with expectations.


SOURCE:
Independent Reserve - The Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Exchange in Australia and New Zealand

 

Great news for crypto from India and South Korea

The sell off comes in a week when the crypto markets received some very bullish news. India's supreme court struck down the Reserve Bank of India's controversial ban on banks dealing with crypto-related companies. Local exchanges resumed deposits and withdrawals that same day and US exchange Kraken has announced it'll expand on the sub-continent. (A bill to ban crypto entirely remains live however so they're not out of the woods yet). And the South Korean National Assembly has unanimously voted in favour of a bill to legalise and regulate crypto exchanges. South Korea led the world in the crypto craze of 2017 – with one in three workers buying into the market. The Government then banned ICOs and cracked down hardon exchanges. So the establishment of a properly regulated and legal market there is a very positive sign.

Source:
Independent Reserve - The Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Exchange in Australia and New Zealand

 

With Bitcoin halving just around the corner in a couple months, it's interesting to see what the trend is with regards to google searches the topic:

 

Perhaps one of the bonus of being involved in crypto is not freaking out about a 20/30/50 % crash in prices like we are seeing now in the share market. All seems pretty mild when compared to what goes on in the crypto markets!

 

Well case in point -30% in a DAY - stock market volatility looking like mere ripples

 

Mining coins at a loss into the halving

The price fall has made mining uneconomical for some (it costs an estimated A$11,000 to $12,000 to produce one Bitcoin) and the hash rate has fallen from its all time high of 136 exahashes a few weeks ago to around 97 today. It'll be interesting to see what happens when Bitcoin's block reward is halved again in May – for a preview see what happens after the Bitcoin Cash halving in three weeks. But there's no need to panic as the system is designed to cope, as market analyst Mati Greenspan points out: "Difficulty adjusts making it easier for new miners to enter the market. Bitcoin continues producing blocks uninterrupted."

Gold and Bitcoin doing the same thing

Bitcoin's safe haven status is looking decidedly shaky, but gold – the traditional safe haven asset - was also down by 10% this week. During the Global Financial Crisis gold fell by a third, and anyone who bought the precious metal from mid-2011 to the end of 2013 is still underwater. In his Off The Chain newsletter Anthony Pompliano tried to provide perspective and explained we're currently in a liquidity crisis where everyone is rushing to sell liquid assets for cash at the same time, resulting in a race to the bottom in price. Pomp pointed out that while gold went down during the first six months of the GFC, it almost trebled in value between 2006 and 2011. "Simply, gold served as a store of value and safe-haven asset over the full timeline of the crisis, but it succumbed to the liquidity crisis during the worst six months. This is what I believe is happening to Bitcoin right now."

DeFi struggles along with Ether price

Decentralised Finance adoption helped boost the Ether price this year, but the crash exposed its risks. The network overloaded as investors tried to liquidate and gas prices spiked by 900% – making DeFi prohibitively expensive to use. Oracles V2 and Chainlink (which feed price information) couldn't keep up and a flaw in Maker's system saw millions of dollars' worth of Ether picked up by bots for free. But other DeFi projects saw record volumes. Crypto staked in DeFi projects (mostly Ether) has halved in recent weeks and the Ether price has been hit harder than most of the other coins in the top ten.

Stock to flow model is immortal

The Stock to flow model, which predicts a US$100,000 (A$164,000) price due to the supply shock caused by the halving, is still intact, says creator Plan B. "Some people think the S2F model broke yesterday. Of course it did not. Bitcoin oscillated nicely around model value and stayed well within model bands … No extreme returns without extreme risk (volatility)." The S2F model is a great lesson to those new in the space - sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the weeds. When in doubt: zoom out!

Source:
Independent Reserve - The Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Exchange in Australia and New Zealand

 

Haven't had a chance to post for a while, sorry.


51% attain

Bitcoin is up 8% year to date – which isn't bad considering the financial turmoil. But Ether is up 51% on the price it recorded on January 1. Chris Thomas, head of digital assets at Swissquote Bank, says the reasons for the increase are obvious: "They’re drivers that we all know - DeFi, Ethereum 2.0 and more decentralized apps," Thomas said. The Grayscale Ethereum Trust is partly responsible for the price pressure, having snapped up half of all Ether mined in 2020 so far, or 756,000 ETH to be precise. In other bullish news, data from Arcane Research and Dune Analytics shows that 1.97 million smart contracts were deployed on Ethereum in March, 75% higher than the previous record month in October last year.

Crypto derivatives up 300%

Derivatives volume in the first quarter surpassed A$3.1 trillion, with the average daily derivatives volume $36.1 billion. That's more than 300% higher than the average for 2019 according to TokenInsight. Spot trading volume was reported as $10 trillion - though Token Insight said that if you take out wash trading the real figure was probably between $6 trillion to $7.13 trillion.

Pundits tip deflation

The US Federal Reserve's announcement it would print an unlimited amount of USD to help alleviate the financial crisis, has led to wide expectations of rampant inflation. If that occurs, Bitcoin's fixed supply should see it benefit. But the Reserve Bank of Australia, ING Bank, The New York Times, The Financial Times and UBS are all tipping deflation, due to falling energy prices, a slump in demand and a glut of products. On the flip side, CoinDesk believes deflation will also be good for Bitcoin, if it's used as a medium of exchange and as a safe haven.

Forbes and Bloomberg are bullish

Forbes and Mati Greenspan from Quantum Economics aren't buying the deflation thesis. In an article this week asking if 2020 was the new 2017, Forbes cited potential inflation, the Bitcoin halving and the crash in commodities and equities as reasons Bitcoin would outperform. "Bitcoin has been the best performing asset by far over the last year and over the last decade. With all the money being injected into the system at this time and the upcoming halving, I don't see any reason it wouldn't continue to outperform," said Greenspan. Bloomberg's Crypto Outlook concluded that increasing futures open interest, declining volatility and BTC's outperformance compared with stocks, as well as its record correlation to gold, suggest Bitcoin is turning into digital gold: "This year will confirm Bitcoin's transition from a risk-on speculative asset to the crypto market's version of gold."

Just 14 sleeps until the halving

The Bitcoin halving is just two weeks from today and Kenetic Capital co-founder Jehan Chu believes it was responsible for this week's price rise. "The rally is being sustained by the rapidly approaching halving," he said. The halving will see the reward per block mined drop to 6.25 BTC from 12.5 BTC. Searches for the term are at record highs and the topic is becoming more and more popular on social media and in crypto media coverage. Glassnode data shows hodlers are accumulating 75,000 BTC each day. But experts are divided: some say the effects are already priced in and it will be a non-event while others think the decrease in Bitcoin sold by miners will result in a significant price rise. On the insanely optimistic end of the spectrum, Coindesk cited historical data from Rekt Capital data which suggests we could hit a price above A$21,000 in the next two weeks, while Forbes thinks we'll all become millionaires.


SOURCE: Independent Reserve - The Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Exchange in Australia and New Zealand

 

@Ouga what is your theory for the upcoming halving? Supply being restricted in any asset class tends to have a positive effect on prices. I have some spare money right now that I feel like hedging, I’m just undecided on Etherium or bitcoin. I like the platform of etherium and how many applications it’s used for. I just don’t know the supply/demand metrics and bitcoin may be a better thing to buy first

 

IMO, it might be a case of buy the rumor, sell the news when it comes to the halving in the short term - although with the covid, there has perhaps not been as much ramping up than we would have normally expected. Long term, I am bullish on the top cryptos, both ETH and BTC are your best bets. I think if/when we see another crypto bull market, it'll start in BTC and at some point some will inevitably flow to ETH. If you beleive there will be a revisit of the all time highs, then perhaps ETH has more potential, but it's all guess work. You could perhaps place a bit in both? BTC is certainly seen as the "safest" one of the lot, so if you are just hedging your bets, you probably have less downside risk in BTC than ETH.

All this is not advice of course, this is all unpredictable, and I am no expert really!

 

Australian CMC users up 158%
CoinMarketCap's report on user trends for 2020 shows a whopping 158% growth in CMC users from Australia. ...

DeFi volume rising fast
Despite some high-profile hacks and attacks this year, Decentralised Finance (DeFi) is growing exponentially...

Good news
The yearly moving average price for Bitcoin is closing in on a new all-time-high. ...


SOURCE and more news items: Independent Reserve - The Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Exchange in Australia and New Zealand

 

Thanks for the insight @Ouga

Buy the rumour sell the news, do you think it may have all ready been priced In given we have had quite the increase off the bottom this last month? I know its not considered a bull run yet but if you got in a month ago..

One thing I find interesting is the "stock to flow" models - making sense of the data and aligning it to other trends helps make a clearer picture for me, whilst may not be 100% it at least helps with decision making imo

 

Anyone here still paying attention?
haven't posted news for a while as they just get so heavily edited it's not really worth the trouble

 

I still find it very interesting to keep up to date with - Bitcoin back above $10k now, can it hold?

It's definitely tempting to get involved with how overheated other asset classes look (US equities).

The following is a video from a generally reliable trading/investing source on Youtube who seems to think this is the start of something huge:



Interesting times ahead?

 

Thanks for sharing!
Certainly interesting times ahead.
Just yesterday there was an article on AFR about how gold and bitcoin were surging.
This kind of mainstream media coverage was unimaginable just a few years back.

Will we at some point see a repeat of previous patterns and mad speculation? I personally think we will, but really it's everyone's guess.

I do sometimes wonder how the new generations will embrace gold, its role and whether they'll be actually quite comfortable holding something entirely digital like Bitcoin.

 

Galaxy Digital took out a full-page ad in the UK's Financial Times telling readers - one in five of whom are millionaires - that "now is the time to invest in Bitcoin". Grayscale also started running TV commercialsin the US, and the company reports it subsequently took in $300 million in investments for the best fundraising week in its history.




Source: https://twitter.com/barrysilbert/status/1293882537492840449?s=20