Month: December 2020

Bitcoin News of the Week – All the important news at a glance

Bitcoin hits all-time high; Scepticism about Bitcoin in Germany; Federal Cabinet passes law for blockchain securities; IOTA 2.0 update approaches and Trump reportedly considers pardoning Silk Road founder.

Bitcoin hits new all-time high

Bitcoin has reached a new record high. Virtually overnight, the digital store of value broke through the wall at US$20,000 on Wednesday, reaching an interim high of US$23,600. An enormous leap, considering that the price was still below 17,600 US dollars a week ago. In concrete terms, the bitcoin price was able to gain over 18 percent on a 24-hour basis and even over 37 percent on a monthly basis. The price increase Anon System is no coincidence. Large investors such as MicroStrategy, Square or MassMutual are gradually making inroads into the crypto sector and making the previous private investors look old. Thus, it is mainly large stock exchange groups or asset management companies that want to participate in the market. But hedge funds like the Ruffer Investment Company (700 million USD in Bitcoin) are also jumping on the Bitcoin bandwagon. Billions are added daily, bringing the Bitcoin market capitalisation to over 420 billion US dollars.

Scepticism about Bitcoin in Germany

Despite the all-time high, many people in Germany are sceptical about Bitcoin and Co. As the latest representative survey by the German digital association Bitkom shows, only two percent of the over-16s said they had invested in cryptocurrencies. 18 percent could in principle imagine investing in the area. The remaining participants expressed scepticism about digital assets. Specifically, 66 percent of the respondents considered digital means of payment to be too complicated. 55 percent said that cryptocurrencies were more suitable for speculators. 47 percent of 16 to 29-year-olds see Bitcoin and Co. as safe alternatives to the traditional monetary system. The survey shows that especially the younger generation is enthusiastic about the topic of cryptocurrencies. However, if Bitcoin’s upswing continues, it is quite conceivable that investors in conventional assets will also open up even more to digital assets.

Federal cabinet passes law for blockchain securities

However, scepticism towards Bitcoin and Co. in Germany could diminish after the Federal Cabinet passed a law on 16 December to issue electronic securities. This marks an important milestone in the German government’s blockchain strategy, which could give Germany an important locational advantage. Consequently, digitally securitised securities could have the same status as their analogue, certificated counterpart. The chances that the Electronic Securities Act will also be passed by the Bundestag early next year are basically to be regarded as high. The law relates to the issuance of electronic debt securities. According to it, there will be two different types of registers. In addition to the well-known central securities depositories, the crypto securities register will now be added. According to the law, the register is to be kept “on a forgery-proof recording system in which data is logged in chronological order and stored in a manner protected against unauthorised deletion and subsequent modification”. A claim that is tailor-made for blockchain technology.

IOTA 2.0 update gets closer

The next milestone for cryptocurrencies is approaching. The IOTA Foundation announced on 14 December that the Chrysalis 1.5 public testnet is live. The update is an interim stage of IOTA 2.0, which is scheduled for release in 2021. The full implementation of IOTA 2.0 is said to be the biggest upgrade the MIOTA network has ever seen. It is even a complete rewrite of the protocol. The current plan is to put Chrysalis 1.5 through its paces with a series of alpha tests. If everything goes smoothly, the mainnet of Chrysalis will launch in the first two quarters of 2021, after which it will be possible to use Smart Contract on the Tangle network. This opens up various application scenarios that could also make Decentalised Finance (DeFi) possible on the Tangle network. In addition, the IOTA Foundation recently parted ways with David Sønstebø, one of the founding members. Strongly differing interests between Sønstebø and the board of directors were the reasons.

Bitcoin Cash was op weg om het $288-niveau van de weerstand te testen.

Dash had geen momentum toen het een cruciaal niveau naderde bij de $100 mark, en Bitcoin Profit vormde een bearish reversal patroon dat de prijs terug kon zien vallen in de richting van support.

Bitcoin Cash ]BCH]

Bitcoin Cash, Dash, Ethereum Classic Prijsanalyse: 15 december

In de afgelopen 24 uur, BCH gedoopt van $275 om het niveau van de steun opnieuw te testen op $267, bevestigen zijn flip aan weerstand, en begon te klimmen in waarde opnieuw. Het werd verhandeld op 279,1 dollar bij de pers.

De RSI klom ook boven de neutrale 50 en bleef er de afgelopen dagen boven. Dit kon het zien testen van de $288 weerstand, en mogelijk flip dat om te ondersteunen ook.

Het handelsvolume is nog niet opgepikt achter BCH, en een volumestijging zou wijzen op een sterke beweging in de maak.

Dash [DASH]

Bitcoin Cash, Dash, Ethereum Classic Prijsanalyse: 15 december

Dash klom boven het $93.5 niveau en flipte het om te ondersteunen. Hij slaagde er ook in om boven de 50 SMA (geel) te klimmen en kon dit voortschrijdend gemiddelde als steun gebruiken.

Deze licht stijgende ontwikkeling wordt ontsierd door het feit dat de MACD geen momentum vertoonde in de afgelopen paar handelssessies, omdat de MACD en de signaallijnen elkaar bijna overlapten en precies op de nullijn lagen.

Noch het handelsvolume, noch OBV zag veel activiteit. De afgelopen dagen is er meer verkocht dan gekocht voor DASH in de markt, ook al naderde de prijs de 100 dollar.

Het gebied bij $100-$104 zal cruciaal zijn. Een doorbraak naar de bovenkant is waarschijnlijker, gezien het feit dat de trend op langere termijn bullish is geweest.

Ethereum Classic [ETC]

Bitcoin Cash, Dash, Ethereum Classic Prijsanalyse: 15 december

ETC vormde de afgelopen dagen een opgaande wig, een bearish reversal patroon. De Awesome Oscillator toonde een bullish twin piek die was opgezet om de korte termijn bullishness aan te geven toen de prijs op de 11e $5,85 lag. De prijs heeft de lagere trendlijn tot nu toe gerespecteerd.

Er was de dreiging dat, als ETC niet binnen een dag boven de $6.2 zou klimmen, dat de AO een bearish twin peak zou presenteren. In combinatie met het stijgende wigpatroon zou ETC waarschijnlijk dalen naar $5.59 ondersteuning.

Een handelssessie dicht bij het patroon zou het bearish scenario ongeldig maken.

Increased social media surveillance could pose a threat to protest movements.

Yesterday, Friday, the prominent whistleblower Edward Snowden moderated an online conference as part of a fundraising campaign for the “Tor Project” anonymization service

In addition to Snowden, three other experts from the fields of data protection and human rights took part in the conversation. The four participants discussed the worldwide protest movements in the past year, whether in Belarus or the USA.

Alison Macrina, the founder of the Library Freedom project, said: “What we saw in the protests for ‘Black Lives Matter’ around the world this summer is that the police are also watching the protesters’ activities on social media monitor.”

Accordingly, the protesters would have been more careful about what they share and write:

“One thing that is already very common in the US is that fewer and fewer protesters are sharing photos or videos showing other people’s faces. It’s great that there is an awareness that the people who are photographed or filmed could otherwise face fines. ”

Berhan Taye, an expert on data protection and Africa, cites the ethnic tensions in northern Ethiopia as an example. “There is an armed conflict in the Tigray region, and then things got worse when the region was cut off from the Internet less than a month ago”.

As Taye goes on to explain, many residents of the region subsequently used Sudanese SIM cards in order to be able to continue to communicate with the outside world. When a massacre with 600 dead followed shortly afterwards, the population was not only killed because of their ethnicity, but also because the Sudanese SIM cards were found in their cell phones.

Snowden concludes with all Western viewers by noting that state surveillance “is not something that is very far away,” although he admits that there are gradations in scope between countries. Nonetheless, he cites as an example that during the BLM protests in Baltimore, planes were blown up to collect the protesters’ phone data.

“We have a two-tier system where the government can do what it wants while the people are oppressed,” said Snowden.

In the course of the worldwide protests, decentralization was discussed this year . BitQT technology could play an important role in this regard. In addition, cryptographically encrypted messenger services such as Signal and Telegram are becoming increasingly important for organizing protests.

Bitcoin is currently in a consolidation process and is struggling to control its short-term prospects.

The medium-term performance of the crypto currency is likely to depend on whether the bulls can push it back above $19,000, as this was a key level for BTC.

A trader explains in a tweet that Bitcoin Bank consolidation channel is running out of space – which could mean massive volatility is imminent.
A sustained trading boom down here could open the gates for serious losses, but many factors are strongly in favor of the crypto currency.
One trader believes that BTC’s consolidation channel is about to lose its place, which could mean that a massive upward push is imminent.
For this to take effect, the crypto currency must continue to set higher lows.

Bitcoin has been caught in an intensive sideways trading in recent weeks.

This is due to the fact that the resistance in the region of the upper 19,000 US dollars is still quite strong, while the buying pressure in the region of the middle 18,000 US dollars remains strong.

Bitcoin’s consolidation phase has narrowed considerably recently, which could be a sign that a massive movement is imminent in the near future.

One trader believes that a massive movement is imminent in the near future as the crypto-currency channel is rapidly narrowing.
Bitcoin struggles to stay above $19,000 with increasing selling pressure

Bitcoin is currently quoted at a price of $18,000. Overnight, the crypto-currency dropped rapidly before it could find some support.

The fact that there is support is positive and could mean that an upswing is imminent in the near future.

However, the resistance at $19,000 is quite strong and turning this level into support has proven to be a difficult task.

Bitcoin’s consolidation channel goes “out of control

He notes that BTC will remain in this channel as long as he continues to see lower highs and higher lows. However, this trend can only last for a certain period of time.

“BTC will continue to refine this area of consolidation… lower highs, higher lows, at some point we will run out of space.

Which direction Bitcoin takes after this consolidation phase is over will probably set the tone for its future medium-term trend.

Crypto security firm CipherTrace has issued an alert. Phishing attacks are on the rise among MetaMask users. Here’s how to protect yourself.

Beware of phishing if you install MetaMask

As this CipherTrace report details , complaints about this phishing method , or phishing, using the name MetaMask, have skyrocketed in recent days. The victims installed an extension that masquerades as the Bitcoin Legacy crypto wallet in Chrome.

Where the method is particularly effective is that it uses advertisements on Google . As MetaMask reported yesterday, a careless user might click without thinking on the first sponsored link that comes up:

“Google allowed a phisher to buy sponsored ads on their search results. If you are using crypto s , try not click on direct links , and if you use the search beware of sponsored links! ”

Fake site and recovery phrase

If you click on the fake advertisement, you end up on an additional site, called “installmetamask”. It looks like the official MetaMask website in every way:

Metamask phishing site

If the user clicks on the installation link, they are prompted to enter their recovery phrase . Its MetaMask wallet is then emptied by the people behind this phishing site.

MetaMask’s product manager, Jacob Cantele, explains that the company has tools in place to detect these types of phishing sites, but there are just too many of them :

“How can we improve ourselves? We currently have warnings posted in multiple places on our product, we maintain a phishing detector that alerts tens of thousands of malicious sites, we regularly run security-related marketing campaigns, and we have legal resources to try to bring down these sites. ”

So be careful where you click. We also remind you that you should never communicate your recovery sentences if you are not sure that your interlocutor is legitimate.

It was too good to last – Catastrophic Nouriel Roubini, nicknamed “Dr. Doom”, won’t have been kind to our poor Bitcoin (BTC) for very long. Between the insults at retail crypto investors and the hellish promise of BTC going back to zero, the Bitcoin pessimist is in great shape .

Summary: “Bitcoin is nothing at all”

We had a tiny ray of hope for Nouriel Roubini in early November, when our beloved Armageddon predictor made what almost sounded like a compliment to Bitcoin . Indeed, he then went so far as to say that the king of cryptos would be ” perhaps a partial store of value” .

But real life doesn’t always end as well as Christmas tales, like the Grinch . So, at the end of last week, instead of the traditional warm Thanksgiving messages, Nouriel Roubini started to openly criticize the cryptosphere.

Dr. Doom, visibly monomaniac of Crypto Nation Pro, has published no less than 12 tweets in a row to express his fierce hatred, including this one:

“Bitcoin is not an asset because it has NO intrinsic value. Assets provide either income, capital gains, or actual utility or use of some sort. Stocks, bonds, real estate and other assets provide both income (dividends, interest, rents) and capital gains (…). ”

In terms of interest generation , we see that Nouriel Roubini was really not at all interested in the very interesting rates of return that decentralized finance (DeFi) now offers .

Private crypto-investors, “manipulated idiots”

Obviously, it was the small drop in the price of Bitcoin (after all, a very normal correction after such a rise) at the end of last week that woke up the hellish flames of Nouriel Roubini.

“Today (November 26), as BTC moved closer to its all-time high (ATH), the price slumped 13%, following the same bunch of idiots of retail investors who, after having FOMO, were deceived by the manipulations of the whales (the big investors). (…) So, on the occasion of Thanksgiving, do not be a joke / turkey who is duped by manipulative whales (…). Stay away from this cesspool of thousands of worthless shitcoins! ”

When we told you that Dr. Doom was in great shape … But let’s not be kidding! The poor man must already eat his hat since at the time of this writing, the price of Bitcoin is once again approaching $ 20,000 on November 30 (at $ 19,494 per BTC to be more precise, on time to publish this article).