Month: March 2020

Is Staking the Answer to Cryptocurrency’s Mining Problems?

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For a tech that was supposed to be democratic and distributed in order to free financial systems from the grip of government-influenced banks and return control of the money supply to the people, cryptocurrencies have turned out to be pretty concentrated.  Some 66% of all Bitcoin (BTC) mining now takes place in China, with 54% located in the southwest province of Sichuan, as a recent study revealed. Three Chinese mining pools alone are responsible for nearly half of Bitcoin’s hashrate. The days when a single Bitcoin enthusiast could crunch numbers…

BitMEX Defends Insurance Fund Being ‘Barely Used’ in BTC Price Crash

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Bitcoin (BTC) derivatives exchange BitMEX continues to field criticism after attempting to explain a mass liquidation event during which BTC/USD crashed 60%. In a blog post on March 23, BitMEX addressed what it says were “a number of questions” from traders since the event occurred eleven days ago. BitMEX: insurance fund functioned as normal At the time, BitMEX appeared to suffer from what various sources have called a cascading margin call, forcing out traders and sustaining the price of Bitcoin plummeting in the process. The exchange then went offline for…

How Institutional Players Like CME, CBOE and Bakkt Influence the Bitcoin Price

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The introduction of institutional heavyweights like CME, CBOE and Bakkt to the bitcoin space was heralded by many as the key to solidifying bitcoin’s mainstream acceptance, and driving prices to a stabilized moon. While this hasn’t played out exactly as some predicted, it is still early in the game, and bitcoin futures markets do arguably exert an influence on spot price. The quality and degree of said influence is debatable, but in this article we’ll look at a few ways the still young BTC derivative markets can potentially push and…

More Monday Carnage? US Futures Plummet, Bitcoin Price Below $6K

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After failing to gain above the $6,400 resistance on March 22, Bitcoin (BTC) bulls spent the remainder of the day struggling to bring the digital asset back above $6,000. At the time of writing Bitcoin trades slightly below $6,000 and many traders anticipate further downside as the Coronavirus pandemic continues to worsen in the United States and Europe.  Crypto market daily performance. Source: Coin360 As mentioned by previous analysis last week, crypto traders, along with those in the traditional markets are keeping a close on how markets and investors respond…

Silvergate Bank Clients Experience Money Transfer Issues from Fedwire

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A cryptocurrency-friendly firm is having problems receiving money transfers. According to sources available to Cointelegraph, clients at Silvergate Bank have been experiencing issues with certain types of wire transfers since Friday. The firm has stated an outage by their payment processor, Fedwire, is responsible for the drop in service.  CEO Alan Lane confirmed the bank has been having trouble processing payments from some clients, but stated this did not affect users who already had money with Silvergate. “Our trading partners send us money on Friday so they have funds on…

Bitcoin Just Reversed and Its Vulnerable To A Drop Towards $5,200

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Bitcoin is down more than 5% and it broke the $6,000 support against the US Dollar. BTC price is now showing bearish signs and it could continue to move down. Bitcoin started a fresh decline after it failed to clear the $6,500 resistance against the US Dollar. The price is now trading below the $6,200 and $6,000 support levels. There is a key contracting triangle forming with support near $5,780 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair (data feed from Kraken). The pair could either decline sharply below $5,750…

Liquid Gold vs Digital Gold: Why Bitcoin Beats Oil in the Current Climate

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Extreme volatility. Sudden loss of value. A purported store of value. An economic hedge. An alternative to gold. On the face of it, bitcoin and oil have a lot in common. Both markets have been buffeted by the covid-19 economic downturn, but while bitcoin has stabilized, oil keeps plummeting. What does “digital gold” have that its liquid counterpart does not? Also read: Can’t Lock Down Bitcoin: Trump Ponders Halting Stock Trading, Grounding US Passenger Flights Oil Keeps on Slipping The oil market has been buffeted by three calamities that have…

Ripple (XRP) Is Plunging, But It’s Too Early to Say Bulls Have Given Up

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Ripple is down more than 5% and it broke the $0.1550 support region against the US Dollar. However, XRP price is still trading nicely above the key $0.1450 and $0.1420 support levels. Ripple price started a fresh decline from the $0.1620 resistance area against the US dollar. The bears were able to push the price below the $0.1550 and $0.1500 support levels. There is a key bearish trend line forming with resistance near $0.1540 on the hourly chart of the XRP/USD pair (data source from Kraken). The price is likely…

Ripple (XRP) Is Plunging, But It’s Too Early to Say Bulls Have Given Up

boss

Ripple is down more than 5% and it broke the $0.1550 support region against the US Dollar. However, XRP price is still trading nicely above the key $0.1450 and $0.1420 support levels. Ripple price started a fresh decline from the $0.1620 resistance area against the US dollar. The bears were able to push the price below the $0.1550 and $0.1500 support levels. There is a key bearish trend line forming with resistance near $0.1540 on the hourly chart of the XRP/USD pair (data source from Kraken). The price is likely…

Baidu and Google Trends See Increased Interest in Purchasing Bitcoin

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Don’t worry — this time there’s news coming out of China that isn’t connected to the coronavirus outbreak. With so many people around the world working from home, social distancing, and self-quarantining after possible exposure to COVID-19, online searches surrounding cryptocurrencies have gotten a bump. According to a report available to Cointelegraph, the Chinese search engine Baidu has seen a considerable jump in searches for “Bitcoin” (BTC). The data index shows searches for BTC increased by 183% over the past thirty days, while the number of those looking for information…