Crypto Currencies

1.

What does the Forex market look like?

The Foreign Exchange market deals in international government-issued currencies, is open 24 hours a day, five days a week, and consists of decentralized, over-the-counter trading.

The Forex market is the largest trading market in the world, with a daily trading volume of about $5 trillion. The market comprises financial institutions, banks, businesses and retail investors, all of which exchange national currencies either as a matter of doing business or as a means to make a profit. 

This market emerged out of the creation of the gold standard in the 19th century and the subsequent establishment of the United States dollar as the world reserve currency in the 20th century. It wasn’t until the 1970s, though, that a rise in institutional and retail investing began to create the type of system we see today.

Finally, the advent of internet trading in the ’90s has made Forex more accessible and more automated than ever, which is what has allowed the market to blossom to its current size.As opposed to stocks, which are more often traded on exchanges, most of the Forex market is OTC.

This means that traders negotiate without any governing authority over them that guarantees the trades. Terms are agreed upon, and trades are made between the parties directly or through a broker, who is a middleman who facilitates transactions on behalf of clients.

The market operates 24 hours a day, Monday through Friday, though there are four main “sessions” each day that overlap based on the business hours of different global regions.Forex is known as a market that can move fast and be fairly volatile, which is exactly what has attracted traders over the last several decades.

It is just this volatility that provides opportunities for a lot of money to be made. Often, this volatility is derived from political and economic news, as the strength of a nation’s economy, as well as its international relationships, weigh heavily on the value of its currency against others.

For this reason, Forex traders pay a lot of attention not only to charts but to things like economic calendars, gross domestic product reports and updates on any conflicts unfolding on a global stage.

2.

What does the cryptocurrency market look like?

The cryptocurrency market is incredibly young — about 11 years old — and exclusively deals with digital assets. It operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and while OTC trading exists, much of the volume is channeled through exchanges.

Cryptocurrency trading started in 2009 with Bitcoin (BTC), though it would be a couple of years before the first exchanges would open. However, once they did open, and with the rise of many different altcoins, a vast ecosystem of trading different digital assets quickly blossomed.

Today, the market has a daily volume of about $100 billion, with most of that going through exchanges. These exchanges are open 24/7/365, however, trading regulations on many of these platforms can vary wildly due to different parts of the world having different rules and attitudes concerning cryptocurrency.

These markets are known to be highly volatile and open to manipulation. However, much like Forex, the volatility is seen by some as advantageous. While definitely susceptible to industry news and scams, in general, cryptocurrency markets are less affected by global events or traditional financial markets.

Traders are less likely to be scanning headlines and more likely to be paying attention to charts and technical analysis.


3.

What are the similarities between the two?

There are many parallels between these two markets, such as the fact they both deal in currencies, are fast-paced and volatile, and both rely on modern-day communications technology in order to operate.Maybe the most basic comparison to make between these markets is the fact that they are both based on currencies as opposed to other tangible commodities.

While not everyone actually grants digital assets the title of “currency,” it is this basic type of instrument that Bitcoin and others seek to emulate. Similarly, both markets are made up of a variety of players ranging from individuals to massive financial institutions, all of whom are either conducting regular business or attempting to earn a profit on volatility. 

One other major connection between these realms is the way that computers and internet technology play a role in the creation of their markets. While Forex emerged well before the IT age, it is no secret that it has exploded as a result, and today, the internet is the primary way that these trades are executed.

Cryptocurrency just takes this one step further, as it only exists in the digital realm, and in fact, couldn’t in any meaningful way be traded without computer networks.

4.

What are the differences?

Despite many similarities, key differences between these markets remain. One of the largest is the nature of OTC trading versus using exchanges but also how these markets respond differently to global economic pressures.

You’ve likely already picked up on many of these differences, and a major one is the nature of exchanges versus OTC trading.

OTC trading offers global liquidity, but trades often must be facilitated by a broker, as mentioned before. It is possible to get an account that gives direct access to the market, but this is highly regulated.

Going through a broker, however, is more straightforward for many investors and traders, but the broker is going to take a cut.

How much will depend on many variables, such as the actual institutions involved, the trading pair you choose and current market conditions. Cryptocurrency is most commonly bought on exchanges. An exchange, much like a broker, acts as a middleman and will take a cut.

Unlike brokers, though, the exchange acts as the singular authority over buying and selling and usually has a fixed rate (or rate structure) that will always apply to trades. There is no negotiating; there is just the exchange’s terms.

Therefore, this can simplify the process for users in some ways, but it does mean that user activity will be under the watchful eye of a central authority.Global currencies are also not the same as cryptocurrencies — a fact that proponents on both sides are usually quick to point out.

Traditional currencies (fiat) can be pegged to an asset, other currencies or nothing at all, but they are regulated by governments and central banks. The systems in the world that define their interactions are old and well established.

The value of a global currency will always be dependent on things: what commodities they produce and how their nations are doing against other global players.Cryptocurrencies, however, have very little of this.

None of them existed before a little over a decade ago, and none of them are tied to a particular nation or bank. While they can be pegged to other assets, most of them are not, and they rely on a combination of their own utility and speculative faith to derive value.

The intrinsic usefulness of a digital asset can vary wildly, and the market is fairly competitive, often with multiple projects vying to fulfill the same niche. Meanwhile, virtually none of them are well regulated, and the future of how legislation will play out is uncertain at best.

Some may speculate that fiat currencies can potentially collapse; however, they are much more tried and true investment vehicles on average than the majority of cryptocurrencies available.


5.

Which one is right for you?

Of course, this is a question that all traders have to ask themselves, but a lot of it comes down to which type of trading environment sounds better to you. Forex trading can offer more built-in stability, as well as an industry with deeper roots, more infrastructure and clear regulation.

However, the room for upside in this market may not be as extreme as cryptocurrency can offer. If you’re interested in finding a broker to get involved, check out FX-List for a comprehensive collection from around the world.

Also note that many FX brokers are now offering cryptocurrency options, though the terms on these trades will obviously vary case-by-case.

Cryptocurrency trading is certainly more of a “wild west” market, and the risks are greater, but there is potential for massive returns that would be unlikely to be found by investing in traditional currencies.

If this sounds better, then getting involved with one of the larger and more reputable exchanges is probably your best first step. Companies like Coinbase, Binance and Gemini all offer straightforward access for beginners, as well as more advanced tools for if and when you want to take your trading to the next level. 

Whichever way you go, or if you wish to dabble in both, the key is always going to be education. Staying educated will help you make the best trading decisions and hopefully stay ahead of rough times in the market.

With this guide, you should now be prepared to take your first steps onto either of these financial paths with enough information to find the type of trading you’re looking for.

Learn more about FX-List

• Bloomberg expects bitcoin to revisit its record high reached in 2017 and double to $20,000 this year, an analyst note published Tuesday said.
• The firm sees bitcoin breaking away from other cryptocurrencies and says the digital currency has increasingly favorable fundamentals and technicals.
• Bloomberg says that the same forces pushing gold higher also support bitcoin and that the coronavirus is accelerating bitcoin's maturity relative to the stock market.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Bloomberg is taking the opposite side of Goldman Sachs, saying in a note published on Tuesday that bitcoin could double to $20,000 this year.Last week, Goldman listed five reasons investors should avoid bitcoin.

The most popular cryptocurrency has so many favorable fundamental and technical factors that "something needs to go really wrong for bitcoin to not appreciate," Bloomberg said.


The company said history indicated that bitcoin should return to $20,000 in 2020, representing roughly double its current levels.

"Bitcoin will approach the record high of about $20,000 this year, in our view, if it follows 2016's trend," Bloomberg said.

Bitcoin's maturation, fueled by the growing acceptance of digital currencies, the ability to trade bitcoin futures, and a steady decline in volatility, should keep it tilted toward price appreciation, the research note said.

Read more: The head of BlackRock's $1 trillion ETF-investing business told us the 3 biggest growth opportunities on his radar - and explained how to start taking advantage of them now

Additionally, Bloomberg said it expected bitcoin to appreciate if the stock market rolls over.

Technically, bitcoin has solidified the $8,000 level as support and could move higher if it decisively breaks above the $10,000 level — that echoes recent comments from the technical analyst Katie Stockton.

Bloomberg said it thinks bitcoin is benefiting from the coronavirus pandemic, for several reasons.First, historic declines in equity markets because of the virus didn't spill over to bitcoin, as a brief dip in the cryptocurrency was "promptly rejected," Bloomberg said.Second, the virus is accelerating the shift away from paper currency toward digital.

And third, new quantitative-easing policies from central banks around the globe are "helping independent stores-of-value such as gold and bitcoin," Bloomberg said.

Read more: 'I'm buying the property with 100% of other people's money': Here's the creative real-estate investing strategy Josiah Smelser used to complete almost $4 million in deals over the past 12 months

But Bloomberg's bullish view on bitcoin doesn't translate to other cryptocurrencies like ether.

"We see little upside in the ETH price absent a rising tide from bitcoin," Bloomberg said, adding that bitcoin "is breaking away from the pack in terms of adoption and is supported by almost-ideal macroeconomic conditions for stores-of-value amid quantitative easing.

"Bloomberg joins other influential investors in being bullish on bitcoin, including the hedge-fund manager Paul Tudor Jones and the billionaire investor Chamath Palihapitiya.

Bitcoin traded up 1%, to $9,762, on Wednesday.

The price of Bitcoin (BTC) suddenly dropped from $10,000 to $8,600 on BitMEX as nearly $140 million worth of long contracts were liquidated. The pullback came merely 16 hours after BTC surged to $10,473, testing the dreaded $10,500 resistance level.

Bitcoin typically sees a heightened level of volatility when it approaches key dates. Crucial periods in the cryptocurrency market include CME futures expirations and the closure of a weekly or monthly candle.

The 14% price plunge, which happened within merely five minutes, occurred without any futures or options expiration dates on the horizon. Cryptocurrency trader Hsaka emphasized the abrupt spike in volatility coincided with “no daily, weekly, monthly close. No exchange maintenance.

No major options expiry. No CME futures expiry.

”The intensity of the drop of BTC at a pivotal area at $10,500 without any other catalysts such as news or key events indicates that Bitcoin simply broke down from a multiyear resistance level.

In the near term, top traders remain divided. Some state that the price of Bitcoin could fall to the $6,000 to $7,000 range.

The primary reason behind predictions of a continued downtrend is the fact that the recent price action destroyed the short-term market structure of BTC. Others believe that Bitcoin is likely to rebound at $9,400, which has historically been a strong support level, and retest $10,500 again.

The bearish scenario for Bitcoin

Technically, the fall in the price of Bitcoin from $10,000 to $8,600 was a perfect liquidity grab. BTC has ranged between $8,600 to $10,000 since May 14. In a single five-minute candle, BTC took both the high and low points of the range. Cryptocurrency trader Cred said:

“Still within daily range ($8600 support, $10000 resistance). Testing midrange + monthly S/R at $9300s. Failed breakout usually leads to opposite boundary, so I'll look to sell the underside of $9300s if it fails. Boring, but watching developments at $9300s before acting.”

The bearish scenario for Bitcoin in the short term is quite simple: Reject $9,400 and fall below $9,000 down to lower support levels. The $9,400 level has served as an important area of rejection or recovery since early May for Bitcoin.

A clear breakdown below it would indicate that the short-term trend of BTC has shifted.

Traders like Salsa Tequila noted that the price of Bitcoin will likely reject upper resistance levels such as $9,900 as it sees a relief rally following a brutal correction.

If so, it would mark a rejection of the $10,500 resistance level for the third time since mid-2019. It raises the probability of the start of a new bearish trend.

The Bitcoin trader known as DonAlt said that BTC is now close to falling to lower support areas, including $7,700 and $6,400. Since both attempts at a breakout in October 2019 and in February were stopped at $10,500, the trader emphasized the possibility of a “triple top” formation being printed in the near term.





Speaking to Cointelegraph, technical analyst Eric Thies said that he favors a bullish scenario in the short term. But if the price of Bitcoin rejects $10,000 again and drops below $9,000, Thies said a drop to the $7,000s is a possibility in the third quarter of this year:

“If BTC can not reclaim $10k, the ceiling will eventually lower to $9.5k and push us to potentially lower $7ks over the summer.”

The recent correction also put the monthly candle of June at risk of evolving into a bearish one.




If the price of Bitcoin falls further to the low $8,000s, there is a possibility that a similar monthly candle as occurred in February, which led to a drop to $3,600 the following month, can be printed.

That opens the possibility of BTC seeing a multimonth correction.Cryptocurrency chartist Dave the Wave suggested BTC could see a consolidation period lasting until September, similar to previous bearish trends in late 2019 and early 2020.





Historically, Bitcoin tends to see a strong performance in the second quarter of every year. In the third and fourth quarters, however, Bitcoin often pulls back and sees a three-month-long correction.

The bullish scenario for Bitcoin

The bullish scenario for Bitcoin in the short term is to establish $9,400 as a support level and remain above it to climb back over the $10,500 mark. Thies told Cointelegraph:

“If BTC should reclaim $10k in the short-term, without dipping below $8.6k, we will see $11k thereafter, and ideally retest $10k before continuing even higher. Given the technicals available to us at this time, I’m expecting [the bullish scenario], with the bulls regaining $10k shortly and then to gain momentum to continue onwards thereafter.”

Similarly, Bitcoin trader Satoshi Flipper laid out a bullish pattern for Bitcoin to retest $10,500. But it would require BTC to remain above $9,400 and show strength at a key support area.





Matthew Ficke, the head of market development at OKCoin, told Cointelegraph that the perception of Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation and government influence is increasing, which may make Bitcoin more attractive:

"BTC’s move back above $10,000 coincides with civil and economic unrest throughout the US. Some argue the environment reminds the market that BTC can act as a hedge against excessive government influence. As equities are near pre shelter in place levels, many seem to view crypto as relatively attractive."

Ideally, the volume of the Bitcoin spot market has to maintain its momentum for the uptrend to continue. So far, major spot exchanges such as Binance have seen a decline in Bitcoin-to-Tether (USDT) volume, which may hinder the possibility of a major breakout above $10,500.

There is a possibility that the rapid pullback was a move to shake out weak hands, and that is what buyers are relying on. Bitazu Capital‘s founding partner Mohit Sorout said:

“Market liquidated over-leveraged participants on bitmex. $123M in shorts $96M in longs, all in a span of 24 hours. A healthy $btc sentiment reset. Range a couple days, trap late bears then run it back up.”

All bullish cases in the near term require BTC to remain above $9,400 and initiate a swift move back to the $10,000 to $10,500 range, which so far seems to be playing out.

Variables that may affect the price

The entire move up from $8,800 to $10,440 was mostly futures driven, and the pullback to $8,600 on June 1 was also caused by a cascade of liquidations in the futures market, as economist Alex Kruger said:

“Many traders decided last night’s $BTC pump was a response to Trump’s speech. That was a leverage driven breakout. OI increased even as liquidations exploded while predicted funding and futures’ basis turned extreme. Then levered longs got nuked today. No need for narratives.”

As seen in the steep pullback, when the futures market is behind a major rally to a multiyear resistance level, the probability of a correction increases. 

Before the drop to $8,600, the open interest of BitMEX’s Bitcoin futures contracts was at $718 million.

The funding rate was also at 0.16%, which indicates the overwhelming majority of the market was anticipating BTC to go up in value.A study by Coin Metrics also found that the derivatives market is now much larger than spot markets.

For BTC to see a proper bull market, a balanced distribution of volume across futures, options, spot and institutional markets is ideal. The report read:

“The largest increase is observed when derivatives markets are added to the mix. Similar to other asset classes, derivatives markets in Bitcoin are several times larger compared to spot markets. If reported volumes are to be believed, gaining exposure through derivatives markets may be the most efficient path.”

The futures market accounting for the majority of Bitcoin trading activity is a variable that may leave BTC vulnerable to a continued downtrend in the coming months.

Related: Crypto Funds in Demand, Institutions See Bitcoin as Alternative Hedge

However, a big positive point for Bitcoin is its steadily growing institutional adoption. Since May 11, investment firm Grayscale has been purchasing 1.5 times more Bitcoin than is being mined, absorbing a significant amount of circulating supply of BTC.

• On Wednesday, Goldman Sachs released a report that outlined five reasons that cryptocurrency is not an asset class or a suitable investment.
• The report drew backlash from cryptocurrency fans, mostly on Twitter. 
• "Hey Goldman Sachs, 2014 just called and asked for their talking points back," Cameron Winklevoss, the co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange platform Gemini said in a tweet. 
• Watch Bitcoin trade live on Markets Insider.
• Read more on Business Insider.

Goldman Sachs just made new enemies in the world of cryptocurrency. On Wednesday, the bank released a report that outlined five reasons that crypto is not an asset class or a suitable investment, drawing the ire of those that support the digital currency. 

"We believe that a security whose appreciation is primarily dependent on whether someone else is willing to pay a higher price for it is not a suitable investment for our clients," said Goldman.

The bank also called out cryptocurrency's popularity with hedge funds, saying "while hedge funds may find trading cryptocurrencies appealing because of their high volatility, that allure does not constitute a viable investment rationale."It didn't sit well with supporters of cryptocurrency.

The Winklevoss twins, who co-founded Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange platform, responded with vocal backlash to the report. "Hey Goldman Sachs, 2014 just called and asked for their talking points back," Cameron Winklevoss said in a tweet. His brother, Tyler Winklevoss, also joined in the fray, tweeting, "the more I think about it, the Goldman report is probably a head fake.

" Read more: A Wall Street firm studied every crash over the past 100 years — and concluded that the unusual performance of 7 tech stocks is masking the risk of a prolonged meltdown

In addition, Goldman compared crypto's popularity and epic 2017 rally to Dutch tulip mania, which occurred in the 17th century and is one of the most famous examples of a speculative bubble. 

"Goldman Sachs served a cold dish to the crypto community, which was largely expecting them to come out with a bullish call on the world's number one digital asset," Mati Greenspan, founder of Quantum Economics, wrote in a note, Bloomberg reported. 

He continued: "Perhaps Goldman is just trying to jawbone Bitcoin to buy more for themselves at a cheaper price. Who knows?"

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency investors have been nervously eyeing the bitcoin price since its highly-anticipated supply squeeze earlier this month.

The bitcoin price took a big step down this week, dropping 10% to under $9,000 per bitcoin after failing to pass the psychological $10,000 level.

Now, with investors desperately seeking reliable returns amid the coronavirus crisis, one top wealth advisor has said it's the wrong time to bet on bitcoin.

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As Bitcoin Struggles, This Tiny Cryptocurrency Has Soared A Massive 230%By Billy Bambrough

Bitcoin has so far weathered the coronavirus crisis well though some fear the bitcoin price could be ... [+] NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES

"Every bear market presents opportunities and it's tempting, particularly for younger generations, to look for speculative assets," Peter Mallouk, chief investment officer at wealth management firm Creative Planning, told CNBC, pointing to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, gold and cannabis stocks.

"There is no need to go over into the speculative world," Mallouk said, warning speculative assets like bitcoin have "a lot more booms and busts.""It's a lot sexier to buy things like cryptocurrencies, gold and silver but ... they don't bring any income to the investor."


Bitcoin is famously volatile, gaining worldwide recognition in late 2017 after the price soared from under $1,000 per bitcoin at the beginning of the year to around $20,000 by December.Since then bitcoin has crashed to lows of $3,000 before bouncing back up to around $14,000 last year.

Mallouk, who defines "speculative" as "anything that doesn’t produce income and bring it to you as an investor," thinks bonds and certain company stocks are a lot more attractive than the likes of bitcoin in current market conditions, naming entertainment giant Disney, fast food chain McDonald's and consultancy Accenture as better bets.

"A bear market puts everything on sale. You have incredible companies that we know are not going anywhere, selling for half off," said Mallouk, who has previously warned bitcoin is a "dead man walking" and in a "death spiral.

"The coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdowns put in place to contain it sparked a massive stock market rout in March before central banks around the world, led by the U.S. Federal Reserve, promised to back the vast majority of markets.



The bitcoin price has climbed over the last 12 months but has swung wildly, soaring to over $13,000 ... [+] COINBASEThe Fed has pumped trillions of dollars into the U.S. economy over recent months in a desperate bid to prop up the market though some have warned the unprecedented action has artificially inflated stocks.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq is now in positive territory for the year, boosted by the likes of Google and Amazon, while the S&P 500 has almost recovered all of its March corona-crash losses.

However, bitcoin, as well as some smaller cryptocurrencies, have outperformed most other assets so far this year.Bitcoin is currently on course to be one of the year's best performing assets, though many bitcoin and crypto analysts have warned a planned bitcoin supply cut earlier this month could mean it's hurtling toward a sudden crash.

The bitcoin price had been holding up since its third supply cut, known as a halving, on May 11—although cracks began to appear this week when the price moved sharply lower, losing around $500 in a matter of minutes.Follow me on Twitter. 




Billy Bambrough

I am a journalist with significant experience covering technology, finance, economics, and business around the world. As the founding editor of Verdict.co.uk I reported… Read More

The price of Bitcoin (BTC) dropped to as low as $8,900 on May 21 following a strong rejection of the $9,800 level. Traders say BTC’s breakdown from the $9,200 support level may lead to a renewed downtrend.

Almost every macro indicator points to a correction

In the near-term, traders generally expect that a correction will occur in the Bitcoin market. Almost every macro trendline, indicator, and momentum oscillator points toward an imminent correction.

When the price of Bitcoin initially dropped below $9,200, it fell under a key Bollinger Band line, which often marks a key pivotal point. If a bullish trend is ongoing, then an asset is expected to recover at the middle Bollinger Band line.


BTC USD daily chart. Source: Big Chronis TradingBut, in the case of Bitcoin, it fell straight through it and dropped to $8,900 in quick succession. As such, it risks a fall to the lower end of the Bollinger Band, in the mid-$8,000 area.According to Bitcoin trader Jonny Moe, the Bitcoin price is at risk of falling below another trendline that dates back to March 12.Since the second week of March, the price of Bitcoin recovered strongly from $3,600 to over $10,000. After failing to reclaim the $9,800 to $9,900 range as support, BTC is now vulnerable to a deep pullback below the rising channel.

BTC USD daily chart. Source: Jonny MoeIf the price of Bitcoin closes under $9,000, Moe said that the $6,500 to $7,300 range is the likely next support for Bitcoin.Bitcoin trader TraderXO, who predicted a fall to $7,700 as early as last week, said BTC is showing a typical lower high set up and is at risk of a rapid correction to below $8,000.




Lower highs on the 4-hour chart of Bitcoin. Source: TraderXO

Why traders are bearish at the current level

There are two main reasons that supplement the bearish stance of many top traders in the cryptocurrency market: the lack of support between $7,700 and $9,000, and the potential upside of BTC above $10,500.

Bitcoin barely saw a minor pullback when it surged from $7,700 to $10,000. While it demonstrates the strength of BTC’s momentum at the time, it also leaves BTC vulnerable to a sizable decline.

The lack of resistance above $10,500 is also considered a factor that is preventing BTC from breaking above $10,000.While there is little resistance above $10,500 to major levels like $12,500 and $14,000, there exists strong overhead resistance in between $10,000 and $10,500.

In April hedge fund manager Mark Dow said that Bitcoin is a textbook short, even when BTC was in the $6,000s. Dow said:

Bitcoin on the chart is facing massive overhead resistance. Based on this chart, this right now is a textbook opportunity to short.

The confluence of heavy resistance in the $10,000 to $10,500 range and the lack of support in between $7,700 to $9,000 increases the probability of a BTC price drop to the $7,000 zone.

Multiple supercomputers across Europe have been infected this week with cryptocurrency mining malware and have shut down to investigate the intrusions.

Security incidents have been reported in the UK, Germany, and Switzerland, while a similar intrusion is rumored to have also happened at a high-performance computing center located in Spain.

The first report of an attack came to light on Monday from the University of Edinburgh, which runs the ARCHER supercomputer.

The organization reported "security exploitation on the ARCHER login nodes," shut down the ARCHER system to investigate, and reset SSH passwords to prevent further intrusions.

The bwHPC, the organization that coordinates research projects across supercomputers in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany, also announced on Monday that five of its high-performance computing clusters had to be shut down due to similar "security incidents." This included:

• The Hawk supercomputer at the High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS) at the University of Stuttgart
• The bwUniCluster 2.0 and ForHLR II clusters at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
• The bwForCluster JUSTUS chemistry and quantum science supercomputer at the Ulm University
• The bwForCluster BinAC bioinformatics supercomputer at the Tübingen University

Reports continued on Wednesday when security researcher Felix von Leitner claimed in a blog post that a supercomputer housed in Barcelona, Spain, was also impacted by a security issue and had been shut down as a result.More incidents surfaced the next day, on Thursday.

The first one came from the Leibniz Computing Center (LRZ), an institute under the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, which said it was disconnected a computing cluster from the internet following a security breach.

The LRZ announcement was followed later in the day by another from the Julich Research Center in the town of Julich, Germany. Officials said they had to shut down the JURECA, JUDAC, and JUWELS supercomputers following an "IT security incident."New breaches also came to light today, on Saturday.

German scientist Robert Helling published an analysis on the malware that infected a high-performance computing cluster at the Faculty of Physics at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany.

The Swiss Center of Scientific Computations (CSCS) in Zurich, Switzerland also shut down external access to its supercomputer infrastructure following a "cyber-incident" and "until having restored a safe environment."

ATTACKERS GAINED  ACCESS VIA COMPROMISE SSH LOGINS

None of the organizations above published any details about the intrusions. However, earlier today, the Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT) for the European Grid Infrastructure (EGI), a pan-European organization that coordinates research on supercomputers across Europe, has released malware samples and network compromise indicators from some of these incidents.

The malware samples were reviewed earlier today by Cado Security, a US-based cyber-security firm. The company said the attackers appear to have gained access to the supercomputer clusters via compromised SSH credentials.The credentials appear to have been stolen from university members given access to the supercomputers to run computing jobs.

The hijacked SSH logins belonged to universities in Canada, China, and Poland.Chris Doman, Co-Founder of Cado Security, told ZDNet today that while there is no official evidence to confirm that all the intrusions have been carried out by the same group, evidence like similar malware file names and network indicators suggests this might be the same threat actor.

According to Doman's analysis, once attackers gained access to a supercomputing node, they appear to have used an exploit for the CVE-2019-15666 vulnerability to gain root access and then deployed an application that mined the Monero (XMR) cryptocurrency.

Making matters worse, many of the organizations that had supercomputers go down this week had announced in previous weeks that they were prioritizing research on the COVID-19 outbreak, which has now most likely been hampered as a result of the intrusion and subsequent downtime.

NOT THE FIRST INCIDENT OF ITS KIND

These incidents aren't the first time that crypto-mining malware has been installed on a supercomputer. However, this marks the first time when hackers did this. In previous incidents, it was usually an employee who installed the cryptocurrency miner, for their own personal gain.

For example, in February 2018, Russian authorities arrested engineers from the Russian Nuclear Center for using the agency's supercomputer to mine cryptocurrency.

A month later, Australian officials began an investigation into a similar case at the Bureau of Meteorology, where employees used the agency's supercomputer to mine cryptocurrency.

Messaging app Telegram postponed the launch of its TON blockchain for a second time on Wednesday, pushing the new go-live date to April 2021 and triggering a costly clawback clause in its agreement with token-sale investors.


According to a letter to investors obtained by CoinDesk, Telegram is offering to return up to 72% of each investor's stake. The terms were agreed upon when Telegram first postponed TON's launch in October, following a lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charging Telegram with running an unregistered securities sale that raked in $1.7 billion in 2018.

At the time, Telegram set a revised launch deadline of April 30, 2020.

The company lost an initial court battle with the SEC, with a U.S. judge ruling Telegram can't launch its blockchain or issue its forthcoming "gram" tokens until the case was resolved. On March 24, the initial preliminary injunction was left in place.

On Wednesday, however, Telegram floated another option for those investors who choose to forego their 72%: They can lend their investment to Telegram until this time next year.

The letter states: "As a token of gratitude for your trust in TON, we are also offering you an alternative option to receive 110% of your original investment by April 30, 2021, which is 53% higher than the Termination Amount."

Read more: Making Sense of the SEC’s Case Against Telegram

Telegram is "continuing to engage in discussions with the relevant authorities," the letter continues. Depending on how the negotiations go, those investors could still receive "grams or potentially another cryptocurrency on the same terms as those in their original Purchase Agreements."

If regulators continue blocking the launch of TON, Telegram will repay the debt using equity. At present, the company is entirely owned by its founder and CEO, Pavel Durov.

Citing Telegram's recent growth to 400 million monthly users, the company believes its "equity value will exceed the aggregate amount of its potential debt resulting from this offer by at least several times."

Investor upside?

Sergey Solonin, the founder of payment processing firm QIWI and a $17 million investor in TON, said it's good news for investors.

"The terms are really good, I think a lot of investors will choose to keep their money in Telegram," he said, citing the promise of additional returns."There is definitely capital value there, and even if Telegram will ultimately not be allowed to issue grams, I think, in the course of this year [it] can find an investor and pay the money back [to the token purchasers]," Solonin said.

Two fund managers told CoinDesk last week that many investors, especially the Silicon Valley venture funds, would prefer to have their token allocations converted into Telegram shares.

For some VCs, the tokens have essentially been a proxy for Telegram’s equity, which the company was previously unwilling to sell. Selling equity had been not an option for Durov, they said.

After the March 24 ruling, Telegram went completely silent, making no communications with TON investors until the eleventh hour, according to several investors.

Almost launched

According to several sources close to the Telegram team, the company had been planning to launch the project just days before the final decision to postpone.

On Tuesday, fresh commits had been added to the Telegram Open Network (TON) repository on GitHub, including new documentation on running validator nodes.

Also around that time, the website ton.org went online, duplicating the information earlier published on test.ton.org, which contained code for the TON testnet. Meanwhile, TON Labs, a tech partner of Telegram that helped build the testnet, announced TON OS, "an end-to-end open source infrastructure designed to enable developers and users to work with TON blockchain."

Read more: Telegram Ruling Closes Another Door to Legally Compliant Token Sales

Several companies have been also planning to support TON and its tokens at launch, which, they believed was about to happen earlier this week, the sources told CoinDesk.

Seychelles-based Poloniex published an intriguing tweet Wednesday night announcing "new listings" with Telegram's signature paper plane icon.

However, according to Carlton Fields attorney Andrew Hinkes, doing so could have drawn additional ire from the U.S. courts. By launching, Telegram would have violated its injunction, which could lead to the judge appointing a receiver or external manager for the company.

"If the Court finds that the injunction was violated (whether intentionally or otherwise) it has broad discretion to fashion a remedy that would either coerce compliance or compensate the party seeking to enforce the injunction, including fines and incarceration," Hinkes said, though he noted the receiver appointment would be difficult to enforce for a non-U.S. company.

In the meantime, some TON investors and developers launched a TON Community Foundation, an informal group that has been preparing to launch its own fork of TON in case Telegram wouldn't be able to do so.

The group launched its own testnet version in mid-April, becoming the third TON testnet to go live following those rolled out by Telegram itself and TON Labs.

Telegram kept developing TON throughout the legal fight with the SEC, releasing code for TON blockchain nodes, a technical paper on TON's consensus protocol and a native crypto wallet.

Telegram even ran several contests for blockchain developers challenging programmers to code wallets, games and other applications for the TON blockchain. 

• The US Federal Reserve warns of a medium-term economic disaster as the COVID-19 curve remains uncertain.
• Bitcoin price could be taking advantage of the stimulus package to rally pre-halving.
• A prominent Bitcoin whale, Joe077 reckons that Bitcoin’s ‘one-week chart is the definition of an illiquid altcoin.

Bitcoin made a spectacular move on Wednesday and Thursday amid warnings from the United States Federal Reserve that the economy is staring into a "medium-term” disaster.

The regulator has decided to keep the lending rates near zero and urged that more stimulus be advanced if and when needed. Global economies are on the verge of collapse as governments channel most of the resources towards the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the Fed Chair, Jerome Powell, the US economy will fall further on the account of three factors including the uncertainty of the Coronavirus curve, reduced production capacity and the crisis’ global dimension.

Bitcoin lift-off amid the US Fed warning

The largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin made a remarkable move from levels under $8,000 to highs close to $9,500. The price action has left most investors in surprise because such a move was unexpected, especially two weeks before the halving.

However, Joe007, a renowned trader has brushed off the surge as a “definition of an illiquid altcoin.” Another trader, ZeroHedge’s Tyler Durden in regards to the rally said:

Hilarious cycle it’s been through. My hope is that the halving will financially destroy as many Chinese miners as possible and we can actually have a legitimate bull market instead of this pump and dump movie.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin has retreated from $9,476 (April high) to the current $9,164. Its trend remains bullish even as the volatility continues to increase. The earlier published analysis found that Bitcoin had the potential to correct above $10,000 before the halving. However, the price action will depend on buyers’ ability to support above $9,000.

Chart of the day: BTC daily

Ethereum and Ripple price update

Ethereum also soared to new monthly highs after stepping above the resistance at $220. The bulls extended the price action above $225 but the momentum hit a wall at $227. In the meantime, ETH/USD has corrected under $220 and exchanging hands at $218.

On the other hand, Ripple surged to highs above $0.23 amid the widespread bullish action. Although the bulls had their eyes glued on $0.25, a high was reached at $0.2357, marking the end of the rally.

At the time of writing, XRP/USD is valued at $0.2262 amid a growing bearish trend. If Ripple bulls can find support above $0.22 they will have the time to gather the energy to tackle the resistance at $0.24 and $0.25.

China is launching a national cryptocurrency. In this article, we’ll tell you what information is already known about the project at the moment as well as how it may change the financial world.

A couple of weeks ago, it became known that on April 25, 2020, China will launch its national blockchain platform called BSN (Blockchain Service Network).

Many believe this is the first, fundamental step before the launch of a global financial project - a government-backed cryptocurrency called DC/EP. And it seems that the country is taking this initiative more seriously than ever before. 

Based on the screenshots that appeared online recently, it is clear that the crypto-yuan will be launched soon enough. More and more experts are saying that this could change the entire global financial system. So, what is known at the moment and what conclusions can be drawn from it?

A bit of history

In October 2019, Chairman of the People's Republic of China, Xi Jinping, said that the development of blockchain technology is one of the priorities of the state and called for accelerated growth of the industry. By that time, it was already known that China had been developing its own cryptocurrency since 2014.

News about this periodically surfaced, although most crypto enthusiasts know China more for their strict regulatory actions — significant restrictions on cryptocurrency investment, the inclusion of mining in the preliminary stop-list of industries that should be banned, closure of blockchain conferences by the police, and so on.

Much has changed since Facebook published their initial plans for Libra. The prospect of a private company with 2.3 billion users worldwide issuing its own currency made the idea much more real to governments around the world.China took it as an incentive.

First of all, to compete with the dollar in the digital payments market and, ultimately, to change the entire global financial system.Looking at the example of China and understanding what the future may hold, many other countries have announced the development of their own CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies).

For example, central banks for the European Union, South Korea, Russia, Sweden and a number of other countries have announced their own developments in the field of state cryptocurrencies.

Reviewing the BSN screenshots.

In April 2020, screenshots of the first version of the digital yuan application appeared online. According to preliminary data, the tests began among the "white list" of clients of the Agricultural Bank of China (the 7th bank in the world in terms of net profit) in four pilot regions:

Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Chengdu, and Suzhou. In April, Suzhou enterprises even intend to pay 50% of transport subsidies to local workers in the new digital currency.



Several basic functions can be seen in the screenshots, and the interface is very similar to other Chinese payment platforms such as Alipay and WeChat Pay. Also, according to various statements of officials, it is already possible to understand many features and functions of the future cryptocurrency. I tried to gather all the information from different sources together.

So, what is known at the moment about the crypto yuan?

A list of all the important facts about the digital yuan:

• The Chinese cryptographic currency will be called DC/EP, which stands for Digital Currency Electronic Payment.

• The Central Bank has not yet officially confirmed the schedule for the introduction of the digital yuan, but many sources talk about a full launch in mid-2021.

• Besides the standard ability to receive and send payments, one of the main functions is called 'touch and touch' - it allows two people to simply touch their mobile phones to make a transfer.

• Transfers can be made without an internet connection on devices with NFC technology or Bluetooth. Offline transactions are likely to be saved and accounted for whenever the users next get online. But so far not much is known specifically about the settlement mechanism.

• Familiar features such as transfer by account number as well as generation and scanning of QR codes can already be seen on screens.

• The BSN payment system can process up to 300,000 transactions per second.

• The Chinese cryptocurrency is suitable for any financial operations because of its high throughput, including traditional retail transactions and even micropayments.

• Obviously, the crypto yuan blockchain will be centralized.

• Interestingly, the currency will not only work on the blockchain — it will be issued in two main stages: from the Central Bank to commercial banks, and from commercial banks it will already be put into circulation.

• Banks and organizations will be able to act as DC/EP issuers who can exchange the digital yuan with other fiat currencies and assets.

• Patents also indicate that DC/EP will use a two-tier architecture that allows licensed third-party payment institutions and banks to participate in the secondary issuance of digital currency.

• It appears that Alipay itself will participate in the implementation of this scheme. 

• All organizations licensed to participate in the DC/EP issue will have a reserve account with the People's Bank of China.

• China also sees its own cryptocurrency as a means of counteracting new digital currencies. According to the Central Bank, a domestically issued digital currency, supported by the government and expressed in the national unit of account, can help limit the issue of private currencies and reduce the risks of financial instability.

• According to China's plan, the crypto yuan will significantly expand financial infrastructure availability in the country. At the same time, as an international means of exchange, it could improve the efficiency of cross-border payments.

• Many sources say that on March 24, the Bank of China completed the development of basic functions and began drafting laws to implement the new technology nationwide.

• One of the main challenges for the Government is to ensure that the crypto yuan enjoys the same sovereignty as the fiat yuan. Strong liquidity guarantees are promised to its holders.

• The central bank said that DC/EP is also planned to be widely used during the 2022 Olympic Games to be held in Beijing.

Is this the beginning of a new financial era?

As can be seen from the information currently available, DC/EP is not the classic concept of a decentralized cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. The users themselves are unlikely to feel a significant difference in using the new system compared to WeChat Pay or AliPay. For the government, the blockchain data structure will ensure unprecedented traceability and control. 



It is important to note the advantage China can gain by being the first to release a government backed digital currency at scale. Meanwhile, competing projects like Libra and Ton have been held back and forced to change by regulators.

Today, China is the second economy in the world and the least dependent on oil prices. While there’s no doubt that the dollar reigns supreme today, the digital yuan is China’s best chance to compete with the dollar on the global scale in the years ahead.

There is no doubt that other governments will quickly follow China’s example. 

Perhaps we are entering a new era — the end of physical cash and the emergence of central bank cryptocurrencies. And there is a strong possibility that this will completely change the international monetary system as we know it.

South Africa’s top financial regulators, including the South African Reserve Bank, have jointly released a policy paper with 30 recommendations for the regulation of cryptocurrency and related service providers. They aim to be in compliance with the cryptocurrency standards set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

Top Regulators Publish Crypto Regulatory Policy

A number of top South African financial regulators published on Thursday a position paper to establish a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency. It contains 30 recommendations that are in compliance with the standards set by the Financial Action Task Force, the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog.

The position paper is a joint initiative by the South African Intergovernmental Fintech Working Group (IFWG) and the Intergovernmental Crypto Assets Regulatory Working Group.

The former includes the Financial Intelligence Centre, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), the National Credit Regulator, the National Treasury, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) and the South African Reserve Bank (SARB). The group explained:

The purpose of this position paper is to provide specific recommendations for the development of a regulatory framework for crypto assets, including suggestions on the required regulatory changes to be implemented.

A number of South African regulators have jointly published a set of recommendations to establish a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency in compliance with the standards set by the FATF.

30 Recommendations in Compliance With the FATF Standards

The position paper published by the IFWG outlines 30 recommendations for the regulation of cryptocurrency and initial coin offerings (ICOs). Stakeholders and the public are invited to submit comments by May 15.

The first recommendation ensures compliance with the rules set by the FATF as described in the guidance for crypto assets and crypto asset service providers (CASPs) that the money laundering watchdog published in June last year.

The FATF has since been actively enforcing its standards on member countries. CASPs include crypto trading platforms, ATMs, token issuers, funds and derivatives service providers, custodial wallets, and other custodial services. The policy paper adds:

It is recommended that entities providing crypto asset services be regarded as CASPs, taking cognisance of the revised Recommendation 15 of the FATF recommendations on new technologies and virtual assets.

South Africa’s financial regulators, including the central bank, have recommended in their policy paper that the crypto regulation adopted be in compliance with the standards set by the FATF, including the infamous “travel rule.

”The Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) will be the supervisory authority of crypto service providers. All CASPs will be required to register with it as an accountable institution and comply with AML/CFT requirements.

“This will include conducting customer identification and verification, conducting customer due diligence, keeping records, monitoring for suspicious and unusual activity on an ongoing basis, reporting to the FIC any suspicious and unusual transactions, reporting cash transactions of R25 000.00 [$1,329] and above,” the paper explains, adding:

CASPs will be required to implement Recommendation 16 (‘the travel rule’) of the FATF recommendations.

The regulators have also proposed that the Financial Sector Conduct Authority be “the responsible authority for the licensing of ‘services related to the buying and selling of crypto assets'” and “specific conduct standards should be developed for these services.

” The policy paper further states that “The Financial Surveillance Department of the SARB should assume the supervisory and regulatory responsibility for the monitoring of illegitimate cross-border financial flows in respect of crypto asset services.

”Further, cryptocurrency activities will continue to be monitored by the Intergovernmental Crypto Assets Regulatory Working Group.

They will “remain without legal tender status and not be recognised as electronic money” and “not be allowed for the conduct of money settlements in financial market infrastructures,” the paper clarifies. All 30 recommendations can be found here.

Cryptocurrency prices are quite susceptible to news, according to a recent paper. While, somewhat unsurprisingly, adverse announcements lead to immediate sharp declines, the establishment of clear regulations tends to mark serious market gains.

Crypto Reactions For News And Regulations

The report compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas initially questioned the efficiency of instituting actual regulations on cryptocurrencies. It argued that digital assets can “function without institutional backing and are intrinsically borderless.

”Thus, regulations, more specifically national, could not provide the necessary effect.

Yet, upon completion of the study, the report informed that “at the current juncture, authorities around the globe do have some scope to make regulation effective.”The paper examined what the consequences in terms of price developments following particular newsworthy announcements on the matter are:

“News indicating possible novel legal frameworks tailored to cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings (ICOs) coincide with strong market gains.”

The document specified that the introduction of a non-security legal framework generates even more favorable returns. “Most likely as those frameworks generally come with oversight rules that are milder than those under securities law,” the paper reasoned.



Bitcoin Price Reactions Following Regulations. Source: dallasfed.orgBitcoin, used as an example, sees serious gains in a one-day and ten-day period, as the graph above illustrates after news of clear regulations.

Although the cryptocurrency market operates under “no formal legal homes” and is available for international trading, it still relies on “regulated institutions to convert regular currency into cryptocurrency.” The paper’s conclusion estimated this to be the primary reason behind the price developments in light of regulations.

Negative News Is Always Bad

The report, rather expectedly, is quite clear on the matter. The cryptocurrency market marks a rapid adverse reaction on anything even remotely negative.

“Besides general bans on [cryptocurrency] usage for financial transactions, news events related to their possible treatment under securities market law have strongly adverse impacts, as do events explicitly signaling that they will not be treated as a currency.Regulatory news regarding anti-money laundering or combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) measures and limits on the interoperability of cryptocurrencies with the regulated financial system adversely impacts cryptocurrency markets.” – the paper explained.

For instance, back in 2019, when the Chinese government clarified that digital assets are (still) illegal, Bitcoin’s price dropped to a 6-month low almost immediately.However, the document also informed that unspecific general warnings and news regarding central bank digital currency issuance and regulation have no outlining effect.

Author: Jordan Lyanchev 

Facebook’s future cryptocurrency project scaled back this week. At the same time, local Chinese reports indicate the country is advancing notably on its CBDC.Summarized information from this past week alone suggests the nation could be pushing the digital currency release as a response to Libra’s change of plans.

Libra’s Less Ambitious Plans

Facebook shook the world last year, announcing a “single global digital currency” dubbed Libra. Per Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of the social media giant, “more than a billion people around the world don’t have access to a bank account.

But they could get through mobile phones if the right system existed… I believe that this problem can be solved, and Libra can help.”Those ambitions plan that he shared with U.S. Congress, however, raised red flags amongst world regulators.

They clamped down on the project, which had severe consequences on the Libra Association – the establishment behind the future cryptocurrency. Partners left, Facebook hinted Libra would be delayed and later announced a substantial change of the game plan.

Facebook unveiled the revamped designs officially last week, referred to by many as “Libra 2.0.” Now, instead of launching one single new currency, Libra considers creating a series of various digital coins. Each backed by a different government currency.

The multiple coins will fluctuate depending on the current market events for physical currencies.

Another alternation implied removing the “permissionless” idea whereby anybody could help run the network without a central authority control. Instead, Libra will be a closed system in which only partners with the approval of the association can operate.According to Christian Catalini, chief economist for the association, the new network serves as a “complement to traditional institutions.”

Libra Pressures China’s CBDC?

The latest developments surrounding Libra could be pushing China to act more rapidly in launching its own central bank digital currency (CBDC). For starters, the internet saw alleged screenshots of a test version application linked to the CBDC last week.

Local reports followed in the next few days hinting that the first public use case can occur next month.

The Xiangcheng district of Suzhou will reportedly pay half the travel subsidies given to public sector workers digitally.

Additionally, an unnamed state bank, which is a part of the testing committee of the CBDC, has allowed some Communist Party members to pay their membership fees with the CBDC.More confirmation of advanced testing developments came from the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People’s Bank of China.

The agency in charge of the project informed that it’s conducting trial programs with state-owned banks.The Institute added that pilot schemes would be held in four cities – Xiongan, Chengdu, Suzhou, and Shenzhen.

Moreover, the 2022 Winter Olympic venues in Beijing could also be utilized to test the digital currency.Despite those indications, the PBoC clarified that “it doesn’t mean that China’s sovereign digital currency is officially launched.”

Last year, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) assembled a consortium of companies to create an open-source cryptocurrency called Libra. Facebook planned to offer Libra as a payment option in a digital wallet called Calibra, then integrate those payments into Messenger and WhatsApp.

But shortly afterwards, leading members of the consortium -- including Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) -- abandoned Libra after government regulators expressed concerns about money laundering, tax evasion, and other illegal transactions.

Critics also argued that Facebook's spotty track record with privacy and security issues made it an unsafe platform for financial transactions.

For a while, it seemed like Facebook would abandon Libra. However, the Libra consortium recently revised its plans to address some of the biggest concerns. Let's see if those changes will help Facebook finally launch its digital currency.

A less disruptive approach: Libra 2.0

Unlike bitcoin, which isn't pinned to any fiat currencies, Facebook planned to pin Libra's value to a broad mixture of currencies and government debt. That approach prevented Libra's value from being pinned to a single currency and stabilized its price.



It would also turn Libra into an independent digital currency that could freely move across national borders -- and that freedom made governments and banks uneasy.

Facebook serves 2.5 billion monthly active users, more than the population of any single country on Earth, and a unified currency for all those users could undermine national currencies.In response, the Libra Association recently decided to issue different versions of Libra directly pinned to individual currencies.

It would also issue a "composite" version of Libra, which is pegged to several stable currencies, to facilitate cross-border transactions and serve countries that lack a currency-pegged version of Libra.

For example, Libra would be pegged to the U.S. dollar in the United States, and it must be converted to the composite version for overseas transfers.

Boxing in Libra prevents it from overwhelming national currencies and upending the banking system.Meanwhile, Libra can still accomplish Facebook's previous goals: to serve the 1.7 billion adults worldwide who lack bank accounts, to enhance Messenger and WhatsApp with new payment features, and to boost the stickiness of its ecosystem.

The consortium also scrapped its plans to turn Libra into a completely open platform, which would have prevented a single authority from controlling the currency.

Lastly, the consortium pledged to vet any digital wallet app that wanted to provide Libra payments, instead of leaving those approvals to local regulators.

Those changes indicate the consortium would bear more responsibility governing Libra, and would proactively address its privacy and security issues.

But did Facebook turn Libra into another PayPal?

The Libra Association clearly hopes to gain regulatory approvals with its concessions, but they also narrow its moat against widely used platforms like PayPal. PayPal is already available in over 200 countries and regions worldwide, with support for 25 currencies.

However, PayPal requires users to link a bank account or credit card before they can send or receive money.

The Libra Association will allow users to directly buy coins, presumably via methods which don't require bank or credit card accounts, then use them for purchases and peer-to-peer payments.

That's an interesting idea, but many individuals are currently "unbanked" because they lack enough cash to meet the minimum requirements for opening a new account.

Many of those lower-income individuals might not buy Libra coins instead of using cash -- even if there's an overlap between unbanked individuals and Facebook users.

Meanwhile, users who have bank accounts and credit cards will likely stick with established payment platforms like PayPal, which isn't tightly tethered to a data-mining tech giant like Facebook.

There was a biggie last week with the leaking of China’s much anticipated Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). The leak revealed extensive details of how the accompanying app works, a look at the visuals of the wallet, and a preview of what the currency would look like for the general public.

A digital coin from China has been much talked about, so this tease is exciting news as central banks launching digital currencies would help increase the widespread adoption of crypto assets, which in turn would show people the benefits that crypto assets can bring to the real world.

Clearly China is on the hunt for supremacy in crypto assets, as well as looking to usurp the US dollar as the world’s dominant currency.

Tie China’s digital currency with its intention to launch the Blockchain-based Service Network, which will help companies deploy blockchain technology in a smarter and more efficient manner, and there is no doubt the country with the world’s second-biggest economy is looking to take the blockchain bull by the horns.

However, for those of us who appreciate the decentralised nature of crypto assets, there is a fear that having the world’s most authoritarian superpower launching its own highly centralised digital currency could actually lead to more surveillance of its population.

Blockchain technology enables you to track transactions and for this reason, it will be harder for people to maintain privacy. Some people are unbanked for exactly this reason.

Facebook’s new approach could go well with the regulator – but not with the community
Mark Zuckerberg’s social media mastodon outlined the new direction of its heavily debated Libra project. The paper published by the Libra Association makes three key changes: Libra will be permissioned at first, it will only be stablecoins, and it will use regulated nodes (VASPS).

The crypto community could in fact fully disregard the Libra project, highlighting these three changes as the foundation ditching its decentralised ethos.

I think these are positive changes though, as it is important for projects from companies as large as Facebook to take a regulated approach, a view eToro CEO Yoni Assia discussed in eToro’s position paper on the matter, published last November.

Overall, it is important that firms looking to launch these sorts of cryptoasset ecosystems take their first step by supporting multiple currencies on-chain. Only then, once they have the trust of both the regulator and of the consumer, should they look to launch novel crypto tokens.

Bitcoin halving sparks search interest – and winners could span the whole sector Ahead of the bitcoin halving we have seen a massive increase in interest in the event.

Google Trends, which tracks increases in the frequency and popularity of specific search phrases, shows that ‘bitcoin halving’ is currently at 100% interest, which means it is at the peak of its popularity, garnering 28% more interest for the search term compared to the 2016 halving.

I’ve already talked about where I think the price of bitcoin is heading following May’s halving, and it is well-documented that other crypto assets follow the performance of bitcoin, to a greater or lesser degree. However, there are some crypto assets that could even outperform the original crypto.

One of these is Ethereum. Given that there are various DeFi applications being built on Ethereum that use bitcoin as collateral or as a means of bringing liquidity to decentralised exchanges, the overall Ethereum network would grow and develop, if bitcoin prices increase following the halving and we see greater bitcoin inflows into these applications.

Other winners from the halving could be application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) manufacturers, such as NYSE-listed Canaan. With the mining reward being cut in half, miners will have to operate more efficiently, placing an emphasis on having the most up to date ASICs.

UBI-based cryptos could be the vaccine for wealth inequalityMany countries are beginning to release data showing some positive signs with regards to controlling the coronavirus’ impact., Some of the world is also beginning to discuss how we solve some of the ills that the coronavirus has laid bare when it comes to wealth inequality.

With central banks now adopting helicopter money policies to directly put wealth into citizens’ pockets, the use of blockchain technology could help solve some of the logistical issues that come with such a grand scheme.

This becomes increasingly important when we think about the vast number of people across the globe that do not have  a bank account to receive such capital.

By giving everyone a crypto wallet central banks could directly deposit this money into them. It also removes the need for people to jump through the regular bureaucratic hoops of opening a bank account.GoodDollar itself is a research hub, funded by eToro, exploring how UBI principles could be deployed through crypto assets to address global wealth inequality.

Theoretically, everyone can receive a GoodDollar token into a crypto wallet.This is just one of the ways that blockchain and cryptocurrencies can help to build a better future if we choose to use them. And we should.Top crypto assets traded on eToro last week (UK clients only)

  BTC       41.6%  XRP       16.3%  ETH       12.3%  BCH      4.4%  XTZ       4.0%  LTC       3.6%
Top crypto assets traded on eToro last week (all clients – global)

  BTC       44.2%  ETH       14.7%  XRP       9.9%  BCH      4.9%  XTZ       4.6%LTC       3.1%
 This is a marketing communication and should not be taken as investment advice, personal recommendation, or an offer of, or solicitation to buy or sell, any financial instruments.

This material has been prepared without having regard to any particular investment objectives or financial situation, and has not been prepared in accordance with the legal and regulatory requirements to promote independent research.

Any references to past performance of a financial instrument, index or a packaged investment product are not, and should not be taken as a reliable indicator of future results.

All contents within this report are for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. eToro makes no representation and assumes no liability as to the accuracy or completeness of the content of this publication, which has been prepared utilizing publicly-available information.

Cryptoassets are volatile instruments which can fluctuate widely in a very short timeframe and therefore are not appropriate for all investors. Other than via CFDs, trading crypto assets is unregulated and therefore is not supervised by any EU regulatory framework. Your capital is at risk.

Key Takeaways

• Arthur Hayes believes that the global financial markets are poised for a further downturn that could have a drastic impact on Bitcoin.
• Tone Vays, a former Wall Street trader, argues that the current economic environment is perfect for the pioneer cryptocurrency to thrive as a hedging asset.
• Different technical patterns show an ambiguous outlook, making the current price levels pivotal for BTC's trend.

BitMEX honcho Arthur Hayes thinks $3,000 Bitcoin is realistic given current economic conditions. Tone Vayes, meanwhile, thinks BTC will show its colors as a safe haven. Who’s right?

Signs of a Further Decline

In a recent blog post, Arthur Hayes, CEO at BitMEX, explained that the global financial markets are poised for a further downturn. The former institutional trader maintains that the $2 trillion stimulus package the U.S. Senate passed to provide relief from the havoc caused by the ongoing pandemic may have little to no impact in the stock market.

Although the S&P 500 is up nearly 30% from the recent crash, Hayes believes this bullish impulse represents a dead cat bounce. He now expects a steeper decline across all major economies, bleeding over into the crypto markets.

“As the SPX rolls over and tests 2,000 expect all asset classes to puke again. As violent as the Q1 collapse in asset values was, we have almost 100 years of imbalances to unwind the ancien régime,” said Hayes.

The former Deutsche Bank market-maker affirmed that Bitcoin could retest the $3,000 price level before it is forced to rebound sharply and end the year at around $20,000.

Given the current state of commotion around the planet, the chances of the pessimistic outlook materializing are not small.

As the unemployment rate rises and investors rush to safe haven assets, the financial turmoil may intensify creating the perfect conditions for a deep recession, which would spill over into crypto.Nevertheless, Tone Vays, a former Wall Street trader and VP at JP Morgan Chase, argues that an economic crisis would likely be beneficial for Bitcoin since it could thrive as a hedging asset.

This type of environment is what makes the flagship cryptocurrency so resilient, according to the analyst.While the Crypto Fear and Greed Index continues sensing “extreme fear” among market participants, Vays said to be more bullish than ever. Who is right?

Bitcoin’s Pivotal Point

Based on its 1-day chart, Bitcoin broke out of an ascending triangle that was developing since the Mar. 12 crash. This technical formation is considered to be a continuation pattern that forecasts a 32% target to the upside upon the breakout point.

After moving above the horizontal trendline of an ascending triangle, most assets tend to return to the breakout point before continuing to trend. Currently, the pioneer cryptocurrency appears to be behaving this way.

A further increase in demand for Bitcoin around the current price levels could push it up to $9,000 or higher. This target is determined by measuring the height of the triangle at its thickest point and adding that distance to the breakout point.




BTC/USD on TradingViewNonetheless, if the current level of support provided by the 78.6% Fib fails to hold, the bellwether cryptocurrency could drop to the next demand barrier around $6,100.

This price hurdle would then be key to BTC’s trend.Breaking below it will add credence to Hayes’ outlook, while bouncing off from it will give hope to investors.



BTC/USD on TradingViewOnly time will tell whether Bitcoin will be able to thrive as a safe haven asset during the ongoing financial meltdown or plummet with the rest of the markets.

Cryptocurrencies have not made it to the mainstream in the real sense.  And, in the current scenario we are able to see that there is nothing called a safe haven asset.  For now, it is good to have cryptocurrency a part of being a diversification element in the investment portfolio.

Frisco d’Anconia, President, Africa Blockchain University tweeted an open concern:  “Will cryptocurrencies be a safe haven asset post-pandemic?”

Sydney Ifergan responded stating:  “The world will need cash for the post-pandemic… from my point of view we are doing a back step with crypto and getting a bit away from the real mass adoption.”

To speak the truth, it seems like “Bread” is the safe haven for now. Post pandemic, there will be a need to establish an overall cooperation between government, taxes, and businesses to set the business sail well past the storm and getting back to normal.

Managing a pandemic using decentralized blockchain technology can enhance the richness and reliability of information like contact tracing and other stuff.  However, when it comes to distributing funds, we are truly wondering because neither complete decentralization nor complete centralization would help. 

It just needs to be a mix of both.  There is nothing called a one fit solution for all and we will forever need to tweak solutions and bridge solutions from two different worlds.

Sydney Ifergan opined, “Cryptocurrency is going to make it to places and nations.  We need to recollect how Nicolas Maduro rolled out the first cryptocurrency that is functioning and state backed. However, it is not going to happen during the Covid-19 pandemic for other nations.”

Cryptocurrency A Free Market Thing

Cryptocurrency cannot be called a completely free market thing.  It is meant to lower the cost of transactions and to improve the speed of cross border transactions.

There needs to be a control system in place to ensure bad actors don’t dominate the race. 

However, the control system should not be that which eats up the users themselves and that is the reason for why we need things decentralized and immutable. 

The decentralized and immutable situations are not about control, but are about true facts sustained as is.  Any kind of manipulation is recorded and therefore we will be able to work with true data.

Some things like the pandemic need central control and a strategized approach. 

No system is completely fool proof.  We need to strike a balance between the best of both worlds. We need to see if Venezuela survives with crypto despite the sanctions! That might be the first ever use case we are looking at if it wins with Venezuela- the story begins.

Cryptocurrency is increasing in popularity with every passing day. Globally, cryptocurrency investors are taking advantage of the knowledge they have in this trading market to make a fortune.

However, some don’t know how to go about cryptocurrency trading but they would like to give it a try.

If you are one of them, the million-dollar question probably running through your mind is how much money you need to start investing in it. The information below will enlighten you as you seek to invest in cryptocurrency.

What Is The Minimum Amount To Invest?

This is a question that many people ask. Indeed, it is a valid question since you need to know where to start your investment journey. Essentially, there is no minimum amount of money that you should have to invest in cryptocurrency. Normally, the minimum amount of money is determined by the platform on which you will buy your cryptocurrency. For instance, if you are buying through Coinbase, you will purchase Bitcoin from £2. That being said, it is not prudent to invest such a small amount.

The reason why this is a small amount to invest in cryptocurrency is that the exchange platform you are using will charge you fees for trading. If your investment is not big enough, these fees can affect it negatively. It is for this reason that it is highly advisable to invest a minimum of around £42. This will be a good place to begin.

The Amount of Investment Capital You Should Invest In Cryptocurrency

The amount of your investment capital that you should spend in this market should be around 5% to 35%. For a beginner in cryptocurrency trading, 5% is recommended because it is safe. You don’t want to invest a large amount of your capital, yet you are not very sure about how to navigate through the trading environment.

Based on this, 30% can be risky if you are new in cryptocurrency or you are not comfortable with losing a huge amount of money. Remember, there is a lot of speculation in this investment, so you should be careful in your decisions.

For people who can afford to lose money and continue investing more, they can even put in as much as 50% of their capital.

Be sure to understand market factors before you invest since they contribute hugely to the number of returns you will get. At the end of the day, the decision lies with you.

Invest in Cryptocurrency with NowLoan

Consider NowLoan Investing in Cryptocurrency is a great idea, considering the potential it has to bring optimal financial returns. However, if you don’t have enough money to invest in it, what should you do?This should not be a problem at all.

If you would like to enter the cryptocurrency market and you don’t have money to invest in it, you can apply for a loan at NowLoan. The application process is fast, safe, and secure.

You will have access to short-term loans and payday loans to make your investment process simple. Moreover, it’s possible to get a guarantor loan at NowLoan. You can borrow from £100-£5000. 

All you need is to apply at NowLoan and be connected with possible lenders to make your cryptocurrency investment a reality.

Fidelity Digital Assets, the cryptocurrency division of Fidelity, a multi-trillion dollar asset manager, is reportedly planning to expand its range of products and services.

The firm’s decision to introduce new services has come at a time when it has been experiencing  a significant increase in trading volume, which may be related to the economic uncertainty resulting from the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The Boston-headquartered firm provides a regulated platform on which users can store and trade Bitcoin (BTC) across several different venues.These venues have only seen participation from large market-makers, which match customer orders internally after they’ve been routed from Fidelity Digital Assets.

Chicago-based firm ErisX has confirmed that Fidelity can now route orders to its online marketplace.ErisX is reportedly the first exchange that Fidelity Digital Assets has onboarded.

Fidelity is an equity investor in ErisX, which is presently working on enabling several other integrations with large brokers such as TDAmeritrade and Wedbush Securities.Thomas Chippas, CEO at ErisX, remarked:

“We believe in the crypto ethos of accessibility to all on equal terms and about leveling the playing field for everyone.”

The integration of ErisX to Fidelity’s crypto asset platform has come when the company has been experiencing a significant increase in its business activities, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Fidelity has reportedly received new requests from several pension funds, family offices, and hedge funds as clients are looking for reliable investment opportunities or safe have assets during these challenging times.A Fidelity representative stated:

“From a trading perspective, we continue to onboard new clients every month and are seeing significant pipeline growth. And in recent weeks, we’ve seen more momentum across our business, for example, discussions around store of value and digital gold are resonating more with investors.”

Cryptocurrencies are becoming a common alternative to trading and a great money management tool.

Are you interested in dipping your toes in crypto waters but want to check out how it works first? Or maybe it is your friend who is willing to try something better than a bank, Sofi or Paypal without taking financial risks? Try crypto simulators to safely trade multiple cryptocurrencies without investing real money.

First off, let us come down to the essentials and provide insight into how it works. A cryptocurrency simulator is a universal tool that was developed for learning how to trade on a cryptocurrency exchange.

It works in real-time, receiving the necessary information about current rates, orders and transactions for all cryptocurrencies that are available on the specific crypto exchange.

A crypto simulator makes it possible to use funds on a virtual account and will be useful for both beginners and experienced traders in working out trading strategies without the risk of losing a deposit.

Each transaction in the simulator is recorded in the diary, which allows you to analyze your trading history. Access to the diary can be open to all users or limited so that only you and your friends see it.

Game-design elements and smooth UX make many crypto sims a perfect way to learn to trade from your phone or laptop. We have searched high and low for the best software developed by the leading crypto exchanges and ranked them according to users’ preferences. 

HitBTC

HitBTC is a global trading platform supporting digital assets, fiat currencies, tokens and ICOs since 2013. Here you can practice trading Bitcoin and Litecoin and you don’t even need to register to use the demo. Like many competitors, HitBTC offers a demo account.

However, HitBTC’s demo account stands out. What is good about this educational and training platform? It enables users to trade manually or via the API.

Relying on HitBTC’s blog, “the test mode is as fast and responsive as the regular exchange platform.” Besides the 0.1% fees, 800+ pairs, over 500 spot instruments supported and powerful APIs, HiBTC has a standout element that is not always the case with competitors.

You don’t need to provide other personal information than email and password before using the demo account, which helps potential clients protect their privacy.

Some users dislike high withdrawal fees for several tokens. You should keep in mind that HitBTC has flat fees that don’t change no matter how many coins a user wants to withdraw.

Over the years there were cases of unexpected delisting which caused problems with traders. Since then HitBTC has warned about its reactions to market changes in social media. Users can check the status of each coin at the System Monitor page. 

Multi-factor authentication might seem a problem but it actually grants security. “I like that the company is striving to protect user’s funds to keep their account disabled until they enable 2fa protection. It saved me when some hacker tried to steal my funds but he couldn’t since the team took care of it” - a CryptoCompare user says. 

 

eToro

eToro is an interesting notion in global Fintech. Starting as a small brokerage company, it grew into a social trading network with crypto coins, currencies, stocks and commodities among its instruments. 

The strong point of the exchange is that it allows traders to learn from each other. Its products OpenBook and WebTraders enable users to watch trading strategies of others and copy them.

Also, you can get a demo account with 100.000 virtual USD to check out trends and understand how the system works. Besides the demo eToro offers a marketplace where you can commute with other traders. The downsides are that you have to enter private data like your email address and telephone number.

Alternatively you can login with Facebook or Google+, which doesn’t sound secure as well. Copy-trading that was marked as a good feature also is quite controversial as it can’t guarantee newbies either gains or losses.

If you consider using this demo for trading on eToro in the future, mind the pitfalls of the exchange. The fees are higher than average.

The majority of retail investors dealing with CFDs are put off from this provider because of the 75% money loss cases. What also disappoints is the lack of a standalone version and connecting technology for third-party software. Also, eToro is said to be “designed for people that never leave their country.” So be mindful of this quirk if you are planning to trade from different IPs. 


 

OKEx

This Malta-based cryptocurrency exchange boasts a $1 billion trading volume per day. OKEx has 400+ trading pairs and one of the most impressive lists of supported cryptocurrencies.

The platform is often regarded as one of the largest ones, however, it only launched its options trading demo in December 2019. After registering, users are free to join OKEx options trading simulation contest. Each participant gets a simulation fund of 10 BTC and can win up to $150,000. Sounds fun if you like options.

But what is there to watch out for?UX is a questionable matter with the trading simulator. Some mechanisms like site navigation, transferring funds and settings menu differ from the industry standard, which weights OKEx demo down. 

As a potential user, you should know this old broker hasn’t established itself as the most reliable and trusted one. In 2018, $400 million was liquidated when OKEX froze the trader’s account. Looks like trading volume, the crown jewel of this exchange, is fake. This crypto enthusiast’s analysis of publicly available data about OKEx proves “up to 93% of its volume being nonexistent.”


 

Bitfinex

Bitfinex is as famous as its neighbours on the list. Before 2016, Bitfinex was called the “world’s largest Bitcoin exchange”. Now it is mostly popular with experienced seasoned traders.

The exchange is well suited for margin trading and lending. It supports crypto-to-crypto and crypto-to-fiat (only USD). It has a demo mode which can show users around the website without making them pass the login procedure.

With its help, you will be able to learn the main functions and the buttons. However, full demo functionality requires signing-up. Besides, as Bitfinex support section says, the website “doesn’t currently offer a demo account allowing for site-wide navigation or the placing of paper trade orders.

”Is Bittfinex a reputable exchange? In 2016, it lost trading volume after $70 million worth of coins were stolen from many accounts. Except for the hacker attack, Bitfinex experienced another throw down in 2017.

Like other brokers trading on margin, it was forced to stop serving verified users from the US. As a result, Bitfinex has lost the trust and the market cap it used to enjoy. A fun fact: googling Bitfinex reviews you only find advice on how to recover lost funds. 


 

Binance

Last but not least, Binance is the fastest high-frequency trading system. This Chinese giant offers users both a centralized and a decentralized exchange. Binance is famous for 500+ crypto pairs and increasing scope for deposits and fiat withdrawals.

The testnet sections are convenient and user-friendly. Binance provides users with a thorough guide on funding a testnet DEX account, creating and unlocking a DEX wallet. One of the key factors here is that you need to make a number of steps which might be confusing for a new trader.

Also, you only can obtain Binance Chain testnet funds if you have a Binance account with a minimum of 1 Binance Coin (BNB) in it. Only then you will be prompted to open a testnet wallet. 

This anti-spam measure might not frighten the customers. What’s scarier is the wake-up call from May 2019 when hackers siphoned off more than 7,000 BTC from Binance. On Trustpilot, only 26% of users rated Binance as excellent, while 38% think it is bad and call it a “shady company.”


 

IQ Option

These guys fall out of the top list and here is why. IQ Option started out as a binary options broker, but now it allows customers to trade cryptos, FX, Contracts for Difference (CFDs) on stocks, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and other digital options.

This company attracts the audience with jaw-dropping leverage ratios of 1:300 (which might as well cause x300 money losses). The demo is user-friendly and smooth. It offers $10,000 in virtual funds. The money can be replenished and the time of using the account is unlimited so that you could keep practicing.

IQoption has good video tutorials which are also a big win in the plus column.Here come the minuses.

A major part of the crypto sphere doesn’t have IQ Option down as a legitimate broker considering binary options a scam. Some of those who were lucky to earn money couldn’t withdraw their winnings. So disappointingly even though the demo itself is quite convenient users don’t recommend it.

 

Takeaway

When it comes down to crypto exchanges, the choice is never easy. And of course, it is safer to play around with a cryptocurrency trading simulator before actually starting to trade. Some Monday morning quarterbacks from the world of crypto are skeptical about simulators. On the web, you can find a ton of negative reviews, for instance:

• There is no precise technique to trade on crypto and all you need is luck. 
• There is no point in wasting your time on practice while you can directly play on your own risk. 
• Start small if you want to learn. Using real money is much better than practicing using fake money.

Opinions may differ. But novice traders shouldn't take internet criticism for a qualified opinion. It is safe to assume that strategy and experience are more efficient than the "just click up and down" approach.

That is why it is so important to choose a reliable crypto trading simulator with a realistic environment. Always remember to do your own research. And practice as much as you can to raise your trading game till you risk to spill some cash on a real deal.

TradeSanta is not a registered broker-dealer or an investment advisor. You must trade and take sole responsibility to evaluate all information provided by this website and use it at your own risk.

Key Takeaways

• There are no clear cut rules for identifying scams. Instead, users should equip a broad framework for measuring projects.
• Using a variety of back tests, thorough research, and public visibility, individuals can arrive at a degree of certainty about a project's legitimacy.
• Staying safe means staying skeptical, especially if someone is promising riches.

If you’ve been around in the cryptocurrency space for a while, then chances are you’ll have come across your fair share of crypto scams. Projects like Bitconnect, OneCoin, and CentraTech have become notorious for their role in duping unsuspecting investors into handing over money for little more than smoke and mirrors.

But how can you tell if a cryptocurrency is a legitimate project or just a scam? There are no hard and fast means for determining whether or not a project is genuine. However, there are several ways that investors can arm themselves with enough knowledge to make an informed and rational judgment.

Types of Cryptocurrency Scams

There are various types of cryptocurrency scams, so it’s worthwhile knowing what to watch out for.

Exit Scams

Unfortunately, exit scams are the best-known type of crypto fraud for a reason. In the days of the ICO boom, exit scams became all too common. Founders would generate massive hype about their project, only to disappear once investors had handed over their funds.

Often, these kinds of scams take the form of Ponzi schemes, using existing “investors” to help spread the word to more victims.

Unfortunately, fraud can be more difficult to spot when a fellow enthusiast is the one marketing it. OneCoin and BitConnect both illustrate how successful this tactic can be, having raised $4 billion and $2.6 billion, respectively.

However, other tactics may be used, as in the case of CentraTech, which used the marketing services of Floyd Mayweather and DJ Khaled to sell its services. Both ended up settling with the SEC for charges brought against them due to their role in promoting the scheme.

Exchanges have also provided fertile ground for exit scammers. Last year, the CEO of IDAX disappeared with user funds, and there are still some who believe that the death of Quadriga CEO Gerald Cotten was fabricated as part of an elaborate exit scam.

Twitter Scams

Twitter scams typically involve someone posing as an industry leader in an attempt to get people to send them cryptocurrencies. It doesn’t necessarily involve someone within the crypto sector either. Paris Saint-Germain footballer Kylian Mbappé has been targeted several times by crypto scammers using his name to promote their efforts, including having his Twitter account hacked.

Phishing Scams

In general, phishing scams aim to get people to hand over details that will give fraudsters access to their funds. In crypto, this could be private keys to your wallets, or perhaps login details to your exchange accounts. Scammers will pose as official representatives of a company or project in an attempt to appear legitimate.

Recently, phishing scams have become more elaborate. 

Crypto security expert Harry Denley recently tweeted a warning about the dangers of using QR code generators for Bitcoin addresses. Rather than generating a code for the address you provide, they’ll create codes for the scammer’s own addresses, and once funds are sent there, they can’t be recovered.

Tips for Spotting a Scam

Although scammers are notoriously good at creating an aura of legitimacy, there are a few lessons to be learned from previous schemes that can help you avoid the same pitfalls.

Who’s Behind It?

The principles of anonymity and privacy are held dear in the cryptocurrency space, but when it comes to handing over money, it’s better to know who you’re dealing with. Research the company, along with the founders and leadership team.

Check out their LinkedIn pages, and Google search them to find out if there are any reasons to be suspicious.It can also be helpful to find out whether or not the company is registered in a credible legal environment.

In some countries, company directors are required to disclose previously held directorships. Often, these disclosures may also indicate whether prior endeavors ended up in insolvency, or worse.

If you’re being approached on social media, particularly by anyone who claims to be involved with a project or other cryptocurrency initiative, then check the profile carefully.

Many founders or project leaders will link to their social media channels from the company website, so this is an easy way to cross-check if the handles match.

Never, ever, give out your private keys to anyone regardless of what they’re promising. If someone is asking for crypto deposits in exchange for even greater returns, the chances are you won’t see your funds again.

Partnerships

The word “partnership” tends to get thrown around with abandon in the cryptocurrency space, as projects attempt to piggyback on the success of better-known brands. Some are harmless enough, such as the many projects which claim to “partner” with AWS or Microsoft Azure when, in fact, they are simply customers.

However, in the case of CentraTech, the company was caught claiming a partnership with Visa, which a company spokesperson flatly denied.In a true partnership, both parties are willing to confirm its existence. If a small project is claiming to partner with a much better-known brand, then it’s worth searching to see if this checks out from both sides.

If there’s nothing on the company website, you could also search on Twitter or other social channels to see if there’s any confirmation that the partnership exists.In a similar vein, celebrity endorsements aren’t any indication that a project is legitimate. In many cases, these kinds of announcements demand even closer examination. 

After the CentraTech debacle, other well-known figures like Steven Seagal are also facing charges related to questionable crypto projects.

Check the Press

The crypto press is awash with paid press releases and sponsored posts that aren’t disclosed as such. Many projects will point to these pieces as evidence of their popularity. 

As part of any due diligence exercise, it’s worthwhile scrutinizing the type of press articles about a project to see if they’re objectively written, or published as part of a PR campaign. While there is nothing wrong with paid PR, an unbiased review from an independent third-party offers more weight in determining whether a project is authentic.

When Moon?

If someone is telling you that a particular investment offers guaranteed returns, or that a token is going to the moon, your scam radar should immediately light up. There is simply no such thing as guaranteed returns, and all investment decisions involve some degree of risk.

This fact is especially true for the crypto industry.All of these tips amount to the same broad piece of advice – do your research. You can’t scam-proof yourself completely, but you can make it more difficult for the scammers to get their hands on your money.

Since Brave launched its privacy-centric internet browser, many have found themselves holding on to the native Basic Attention Tokens (BAT). But should users buy these tokens from exchanges or earn them by using the browser?

Key Takeaways

• Brave and BAT work together to create a new media economy that prioritizes users.
• 70% of advertising revenue on Brave is paid to users who opt-in for advertisement rewards.
• There is no organic demand for BAT as the token has no use case outside of Brave’s ecosystem.
• A stablecoin would’ve provided better functionality to Brave than a speculative token like BAT.

Brave took the world by storm by introducing an internet browser with a native token. The Basic Attention Token (BAT) allows the browser to function as its own mini-economy. The browser also offers value as a privacy-enhancing web tool in the age of surveillance. But the real utility of BAT demands further inquiry. 

Synergy: Brave and BAT

It’s becoming more challenging to keep one’s online affairs private. Almost every website tracks users and sells their data in what’s has become one of the most robust marketplaces on the internet.In a world where people can longer trust their browser, Brave built a product that tackles this very problem. By blocking all third-party advertisements, the Brave browser has a native ad-blocker installed. 

Brave doesn’t just block ads; it also blocks trackers. If you’re a frequent visitor to financial news websites, you may notice that you often see a lot of online ads from financial companies. This is because a tracker from the news sites passes on your interest in finance to similar companies, allowing for targeted advertisements.

While Brave doesn’t eradicate the concept of advertisements, it restricts the data abuse inherent within advertising. Encrypted user data is leveraged to run targeted ads, but the data never actually leaves the user’s device; not even Brave has access to this data.

BAT is a cryptocurrency native to the Brave browser. Using Brave’s integrated wallet, users can earn the token for viewing advertisements or use the token to “tip” their favorite content creators. BAT can be tipped to creators on various platforms, including Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, Vimeo, and many others.

The default setting is for advertisements to remain blocked. Users have to opt-in for advertisements to view them and reap their BAT rewards.

The Value Proposition of BAT

As the primary currency for the Brave ecosystem, BAT is used as a medium of exchange within this niche economy. The browser now has a crypto wallet that supports Ethereum-based assets. Still, this wallet doesn’t offer the same functionality that the standalone BAT wallet offers. 

For example, users cannot tip their favorite content creators or earn rewards with a token other than BAT.Advertisers currently dominate the landscape, rather than the users, whose attention creates all the value. On the contrary, BAT and Brave denounce this hierarchy and, instead, allow users to dictate who gets compensated. 

Advertisers and intermediaries no longer get to hoard mountains of user data, sell personal information, or keep the lion’s share of the revenue. Nearly three-quarters of what advertisers pay Brave to run their ads on the browser goes to users; Brave keeps the remaining 30%.

This, in turn, gives rise to a new source of monetization for those making YouTube and Vimeo videos. Twitter and Reddit content creators also have an actual source of revenue they can leverage directly from their social media accounts. 

Overall, this creates a user-driven source of monetization for platforms via Brave’s tipping feature. Brave and BAT are creating a distributed media economy where rewards flow from token holders to recipients of their choice. These rewards only make up a small economy, but the vision is grand. 

BAT’s Token Economics

Realistically, Brave may have been better off integrating a BTC or ETH wallet to run on its platform. A widely-used cryptocurrency has clear advantages, the primary being network effects. Users that receive BAT typically liquidate the token for fiat or a widely-used cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. 

To move BAT from the Brave wallet to another wallet to sell it, however, the user first needs to submit KYC to Uphold, Brave’s wallet partner. 

BAT is used as compensation and includes over 250,000 e-commerce and brick and mortar partners with whom users can earn the token. This is thanks to Brave’s partnership with the TAP Network. 

TAP Network will allow Brave users to use their BAT to pay for services or convert tokens into gift cards offered by partner brands. The company’s app, Hooch, has over 50,000 downloads on the Google Play Store. However, this partnership was announced over a year ago.

The TAP Network was only just integrated into Brave’s Nightly version, meant for developers and users that are willing to experiment with new features. Another inherent issue is the lack of value capture. Popular staking tokens, like Tezos (XTZ) and Cosmos (ATOM), capture value through staking yields and transaction fees.

BAT has no such feature. It is merely an incentive for Brave users to view advertisements and a medium of exchange within the “Brave economy.” Brave controls BAT issuance and supply.

As a result, they do not need to worry about risks that arise from using third-party tokens. Risks introduced by a token that Brave cannot control, such as BTC, ETH, or LTC, could cause unnecessary hassles for users. 

If Brave wanted to launch a token to ensure no third-party asset could produce unmitigable risk, a smarter choice would’ve been to introduce BAT as a stablecoin. At current, the price of BAT fluctuates according to speculation on the asset.

This may affect user behavior when using Brave and BAT.Thus, investing in BAT may not be the best option. And, despite the KYC barrier, earning BAT is likely the better alternative. This is because users would need to switch to a privacy-centric internet browser to begin earning. Excluding the small monetary rewards inherent with Brave, being in control of one’s privacy is advantageous.

Is BAT Worth Investing In?

Since there is no organic demand, there is no real fundamental or narrative-driven investment thesis for BAT. The only thing one could rely on is technical analysis and other price-centric metrics. 

BAT gained much attention from the crypto community because it introduced a new dimension of functionality for crypto. But these plaudits should be directed at the Brave browser instead. 

Overall, the case for Brave as a private browser with an inbuilt economy is compelling. But the value proposition of BAT within this economy could undoubtedly be called into question.As mentioned above, it’s better to earn BAT than to invest in the digital asset.

DEA, a “PlayMining” (mine while playing) platform, is dedicated to creating a substantial digital entertainment economy by utilizing blockchain as the underlying technology.

DEA platform consists of DEA Bank, Gaming Company, Digital Art Auction, PlayMiner (user) and Creator, where users are able to earn DEP, the only circulating native token on DEA, as rewards of spending time to enjoying free entertainment, for instance, games and cartoons, etc.

The roles and goods within will be sold as the cryptocurrency and used for the second transaction among users through Digital Art Auction. In addition, users can manage their digital assets on the DEA Bank.Alysa Xu, Chief Strategy Officer of OKEx, said:

“We are delighted to reach a partnership with DEA and become the only platform to sell DEP token. DEA shares the same vision with us that blockchain technology will be massively adopted as an essential tool for many industries. In the future, OKEx will also work harder to expanding our international influence in a variety of sectors, especially in promoting the integration of blockchain technology with existing industries to generate larger synergies, and enable blockchain technology to push forward the development of different industries.”

Subscription Details

DEP has a total supply of 30,000,000,000 DEP and will be available on OKEx Jumpstart at $0.0025 USDT per DEP, while the private sale price from DEP is $0.005 USDT per DEP, with an individual minimum subscription amount of 120,000 DEP. OKB is the only token accepted for the subscription and settlement.

The exchange rate of OKB/USD will be confirmed on the sale day. There will still be 2 subscription sessions on 8 April. The OKBelievers Exclusive Allotment Session will open at 4:00 (UTC), and the OKTraders Privilege Allotment Session will open at 5:00 (UTC).

• OKBelievers Exclusive Allotment Session: 400,000,000 DEP

Individual Cap: 1,600,000 DEPOver-subscription Limit: N/A

• OKTraders Privilege Allotment Session: 400,000,000 DEP

Individual Cap: 1,600,000 DEPOver-subscription Limit: N/AFollowing the token sale, the DEP/USDT and DEP/USDK spot trading pairs will be available at 7:00 and 9:00 April 8, 2020 (UTC) respectively.For more information, please refer here.

About OKEx

The world’s largest and most diverse cryptocurrency marketplace, OKEx is where global crypto traders, miners, and institutional investors come to manage crypto assets, enhance investment opportunities, and hedge risks.

We provide spot and derivatives trading, including futures, perpetual swap, and options, of major cryptocurrencies, offering investors great flexibility in formulating their strategies to maximize gains and mitigate risks.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong says he’s taking a ‘Google or Amazon’ approach to distinguish solid projects and tokens from those with low value that could tarnish the entire industry.In an ask-me-anything session for Coinbase Pro on YouTube, Armstrong responds to a question about why he decided to open up the leading US cryptocurrency exchange to more than just Bitcoin, and how he intends to spot low-quality coins and keep them out of the mix.

Armstrong, who first explored Bitcoin in December of 2010 when he read the white paper, founded Coinbase in June of 2012.“Coinbase started and we were just Bitcoin, and there was really part of me that was hoping – from a simplicity of the product point of view – I was like, ‘I really just hope everything is going to be Bitcoin’, because then we don’t have to give people this idea of choosing different ones or switching between them.”

But after input from customers, the Bitcoin-only model changed.“We’d always go talk to our customers, and we see what they want. And it became clear at a certain point that more and more of them wanted to use Ethereum.We kind of resisted for a while, but then we were like, alright, let’s put the second one in there. And then there was a third, then there was a fourth.

And now it’s getting into this place where – I don’t know how many – if we fast forward five years, I’m not sure how many protocols there are going to be globally used. That might end up being like fiat currencies, where there are five or six majors and a whole bunch of minor ones.

But I do think there will be millions of tokens.There could be a token for every company or side project or GitHub repo or nonprofit. So I think that ship has sailed at this point. We’re going to be in a world with many, many tokens… How do we add the ones that don’t tarnish the brand or the whole industry?

Because there are a lot of projects out there that are just probably outright scams. That’s not good for anybody. So here’s the way I think about this now. I think about it a lot like Google or Amazon.”Armstrong says the general idea is to list everything that’s not a scam or harmful to people, while also giving traders and investors the tools to evaluate different tokens and coins.“A good example is Amazon.

There might be a product on there that has two out of five stars, and you can choose whether or not to buy it. But if it’s not like a fraudulent product or something, they’re not actually going to remove it, right?Similarly, Google – they’re going to index the whole web. If they didn’t index the whole web and show results for the whole web, it would be an incomplete search engine.

But if there is some site that has malware or the HTTPS certificate has expired or whatever, they might show you a warning, and they’re not going to let you do something that actually hurts you.

But they’re not going to try to tell you what you should or should not look at or use on the internet, unless they think it’s really dangerous.

They just think it’s low-quality. They might rank it lower or give it a lower rating. So that’s, I think, the world we’re moving to with Coinbase, and hopefully that is the best of both worlds.”

Here in this guide, I will be explaining the difference between Staking & PoS in Cryptocurrency that will require a lot of details to talk about, so grab a cup of tea and enjoy the guide.

Crypto Mining Yields: Everyone knows that crypto is the booming currency since it got started, but a lot of you probably don’t about the mining process, which is quite popular in the blockchain. 

Crypto Mining Yields could be a long process if your new into you will get to know every about Mining and POS (Proof Of Stake).Getting Started with basics of Mining, its a process of creating new coins and rewarding those coins in the blockchain as they required some fee transaction to transfer in the block. Every crypto miner will need new blocks. 

What Is Staking?

The staking is all about having funds in our cryptocurrency wallet to encourage the blockchain network; many apps support the crypto wallet; one of them is Trust Wallet. The staking is quite similar to pos (Proof of Stake), it has been noticed in various blockchain networks. 

How Does Staking Works?

As we mentioned earlier the staking has a fund in a crypto wallet that helps to their operation as a support to keep active various blockchain networks; it uses the algorithm of Proof Of Stake (POS) for the various new cryptocurrency staking usually works on purchase of crypto coins and involve having funds in the crypto wallet for the particular time.

It gives rewards of your fixed deposit as non-digital currency; it’s similar to a fixed deposit which interest you will get at the end of the period contract.However, in pos (Proof of Stake) is different it also rewards you but with extra coins for holding coins for the period, you will get rewards for supporting more cons you have for more time in the wallet it will increase the number of the coins. 

Mining

You might have heard about it many times, but if you still don’t what Mining is? Then it would help if you did not skip this. The Mining required technical knowledge to understand its algorithm and computer knowledge is a must to solve algorithm stuff for the particular blockchain network.

Mining can be only performed by solving computational math problems.Once the math problems of computers get to solve, you will new coins on your blockchain network.  

What is Proof Of Stake (POS)?

POS is a different concept than staking its mine coins how much coins she or he holds in the crypto wallet, as we stated above the more coins you keep more power mining you will get according to the networks.If you know about Proof Of Work, then you need to know that the proof of stake is an alternative of it, its uses 1-megabyte capacity (maximum) to tackle duplicates multiple computer and nodes when the transaction is initiated.

Mining is a process to get it done correctly, but it requires a lot of power of electricity and computing high power which makes it very costly.According to an estimate in 2015, one bitcoin transaction cost electricity to power up to 1.57 American households each day.

So to run mining process miners will have to pay the huge electricity bill, and even the initial investment of Mining is also expensive that which could lead to selling awarded coins they get that can also lead down stats in the price of the cryptocurrency. 

How Does Proof Of Stake Work?

Proof-of-Stake works differently than others, and it doesn’t imply rewards you for finding blocks. There are also no miners work involves doing work for a reward. Instead, the system chooses a block creator deterministic-ally, depending on the power of stakes for a particular network.

As there are no miners, but there is validator which locks up their ether in the ecosystem of stake, it’s like adding validator in different blocks to get block rewards according to their stakes. 

Conclusion

If you want to save money, then the staking could be the best option, and its also an excellent way to earn coins and more rewards you will get. However, in POS you will need to spend your coins which can lead down movements in the rate of crypto or bitcoin currency.Article contributed by Hari babu!

Bitfinex, the 11th largest cryptocurrency exchange through daily trading volume, will remove dozens of cryptocurrency trading pairs later this week.According to a blog post from March 2, Bitfinex removes 46 crypto trading pairs on Friday, March 6 due to the low liquidity on the platform.

The cryptocurrency exchange noted that deleting the trading pairs is a common measure that is expected to improve liquidity on the Bitfinex platform and lead to a “more streamlined and optimized trading experience for our users.”

The majority of trading pairs that are removed on Friday contain a broad list of altcoins that trade against Ether (ETH), the second largest cryptocurrency per market capitalization. That list contains approximately 30 trading pairs, including altcoins such as OKEx token (OKB), Verge (XVG) and Nucleus Vision (NCASH).

A further 16 trading pairs include altcoins that trade against Bitcoin (BTC), including pairs such as Hydro Protocol (HOT) / BTC and Medicalchain (MTN) / BTC.

Other trading pairs are two altcoins traded against Dai (DAI): OmiseGO (OMG) / DAI, 0x (ZRX) / DAI and one trading pair with Japanese Yen, XVG / JPY.Bitfinex advised users to cancel pending orders with the above-mentioned trading pairs before 6 March 10:00 AM UTC, it being noted that all remaining pending orders are automatically canceled by the system.

According to information about CoinGecko cryptocurrency tracking service, Bitfinex currently supports around 350 trading pairs on its platform. At the time of the press, Bitfinex’s daily trading volume is around $ 118 million, according to Coin360 data.

Liquidity in cryptocurrency refers to the level of ease with which a crypto asset can be exchanged for cash without affecting the price of that asset. Delisting is a common measure for increasing liquidity for cryptocurrency exchanges.

In 2019, Binance canceled around 30 trading pairs in a move to improve the liquidity and trading experience of users, and noted that the choice of trading pairs was as requested by most project teams.

Key highlights:

• Hurun Report has published its latest Global Rich List, identifying 2,816 billionaires
• Hurun found 6 individuals from the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry with a net worth of over $1 billion
• With $2.6 billion, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao is the richest person in crypto

The richest people in crypto and blockchain

Chinese media outlet Hurun Report has published the latest version of their Hurun Global Rich List. From the list of 2,816 in dividuals that Hurun has identified as having a net worth of over $1 billion, six come from the world of blockchain. Here’s the six crypto billionaires alongside with the estimate of their net worth provided by Hurun.

1. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao - $2.6 billion

Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of the popular cryptocurrency exchange Binance, topped the charts of the richest people in blockchain by a rather comfortable margin. “CZ” was also at the very top of our list of the top 20 crypto influencers.Despite only being launched in 2017, Binance is a dominant force in the cryptocurrency industry – its flagship Binance.com trading platform regularly posts daily trading volumes surpassing $1 billion, and the company has expanded its operations rapidly.Among other things, Binance has helped launch fiat-to-crypto exchanges tailored for specific jurisdictions (Binance US, Binance Singapore, Binance Jersey and others), created their own blockchain platform (Binance Chain), and launched the Binance Futures crypto derivatives exchange.

2. Bitmain co-founder Micree Zhan Ketuan - $1.6 billion

Alongside Jihan Wu, Micree Zhan Ketuan co-founded cryptocurrency mining firm Bitmain in 2013. Bitmain has established itself as the biggest player in the cryptocurrency mining industry, selling purpose-made cryptocurrency mining equipment and operating some of the biggest cryptocurrency mining pools in the world. Despite earning him massive wealth, Micree Zhan Ketuan’s career at Bitmain has had its fair share of twists and turns. According to reports, Zhan Ketuan has an ongoing feud with Jihan Wu, and was ousted as Bitmain’s legal representative in 2019. 

3. OKCoin founder Xu Mingxing - $1.4 billion

Better known under the name Star Xu, Xu Mingxing is the founder of the OKCoin cryptocurrency exchange. He also serves as the CEO of OK Group. The company operates OKEx, which is one of the leading exchanges in the cryptocurrency industry.While he is not often at the center of attention in the Western part of the cryptocurrency community, Xu is much better known among Asian crypto fans. 

4. Ripple executive chairman Chris Larsen - $1.3 billion

Chris Larsen is the executive chairman and co-founder of United States-based fintech company Ripple. He co-founded the company in 2013 under the name Opencoin, but the company was later re-named to Ripple Labs. Ripple uses blockchain technology to improve the efficiency and speed of payments. The company has managed to attract over 300 banks and payments providers to its RippleNet network. The company has also created On-Demand Liquidity, a product that uses the XRP cryptocurrency to boost the efficiency of cross-border payments. A large portion of Chris Larsen’s net worth comes from his substantial XRP holdings. 

5. Huobi founder Leon Li - $1.1 billion

Leon Li is the founder of the Huobi cryptocurrency exchange and the CEO of Huobi Group. He founded the exchange in 2013 and the exchange has become one of the biggest players in the industry, particularly in Asia. In addition to its exchange business, Huobi is also developing its own blockchain platform in partnership with Nervos. Huobi’s blockchain platform will be primarily geared towards applications in the finance industry. 

6. Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong - $1 billion

Brian Armstrong co-founded Coinbase in 2012 and the company has since become the go-to fiat-to-crypto gateway for the Western market. Coinbase commands considerable influence in the cryptocurrency industry and offers a range of services including trading, institutional-grade cryptocurrency custody, OTC trading for institutional clients and a crypto payments processor for merchants. In addition to its consumer-facing cryptocurrency trading platform, Coinbase also operates a fully-featured cryptocurrency exchange called Coinbase Pro. The company’s suite products for institutional clients is called Coinbase Prime.

Top 20 crypto influencers

Entering the world of crypto can be overwhelming – there’s thousands of different coins, a lot of technical lingo, inside jokes and rivalries all over the place, making the cryptocurrency community difficult to navigate effectively. In this article, we’ll be featuring the top crypto influencers and explaining why they have reached a prominent status within the cryptocurrency community. 

1. Changpeng “CZ” Zhao – The CEO of Binance

• Nationality: China
• Position: CEO of the Binance cryptocurrency exchange
• Social media: Twitter

Despite significant progress on the fundamental side, the world of cryptocurrency still primarily revolves around speculation and trading. For this reason, it should come as no surprise that Changpeng CZ Zhao, the head of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency exchange, tops our list of the top 20 crypto influencers.

Before founding Binance, CZ was a software developer specialized in trading software. He worked for the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Bloomberg Tradebook and started his own company which provided tools for high-frequency trading.

He eventually moved into the cryptocurrency space, becoming the chief technology officer of the OKCoin cryptocurrency exchange.

With all of this experience under his belt, CZ decided to create a cryptocurrency exchange of his own and launched Binance in the summer of 2017 after raising the initial capital through an ICO.

Binance quickly became one of the largest players in the cryptocurrency industry and continues to expand rapidly.CZ is very active on social media and keeps users up to date with the developments at Binance. However, CZ also isn’t afraid to spark a debate, and regularly comments on the cryptocurrency space at large.

2. Vitalik Buterin – Founder of Ethereum

• Nationality: Russian-Canadian
• Position: Founder of Ethereum
• Social Media: Twitter

Vitalik Buterin came up with the concept for Ethereum when he was just 19 years old, describing it in a whitepaper released in 2013. Buterin a number of other co-founders held an ICO for Ethereum in 2014 to raise capital and help make the idea of Ethereum a reality.The Ethereum mainnet was launched in July of 2015 and less than 5 years later, ETH is comfortably positioned as the second-largest cryptocurrency on the market, second only to Bitcoin. Buterin remains highly active in the Ethereum community and also comments on various developments connected to cryptocurrency and blockchain on his social media accounts. Buterin is regarded as a highly intelligent individual and when he speaks, the cryptocurrency community tends to listen. 

3. Brian Armstrong – The CEO of Coinbase

• Nationality: United States
• Position: CEO of Coinbase
• Social media: Twitter

Brian Armstrong is the CEO of Coinbase, which is widely regarded as one of the most important companies in the cryptocurrency industry. Armstrong co-founded Coinbase in 2012 alongside Fred Ehrsam with the aim of providing a platform where users could buy Bitcoin. Fast forward to 2020 and Coinbase now has more than 1,000 employees and a valuation of $8 billion.Armstrong is an outspoken advocate for cryptocurrency as a tool for financial inclusion across the globe. He has also published a fascinating blog post in which he lays out his predictions for how the cryptocurrency space will develop in the next 10 years.

“By shifting cryptocurrency from being primarily about trading and speculation to being about real world utility, the 2020s will see a huge increase in the number of people holding and using cryptocurrency, and start to really move the needle on global economic freedom.”

4. Elizabeth Stark – CEO of Lightning Labs

• Nationality: United States
• Position: CEO of Lightning Labs
• Social Media: Twitter

In over a decade of existence, Bitcoin has proven to be a highly secure network for exchanging value in a peer-to-peer, decentralized manner. However, as Bitcoin grew in popularity, its shortcomings when it comes to scalability became more than apparent, with the network slowing down considerably during the height of the 2017 bull market. As the CEO of Lightning Labs, Elizabeth Stark is at the cutting edge of Bitcoin scalability efforts. As the name implies, Lightning Labs is working with the Lightning Network, a layer-2 scalability solution for Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies). The Lightning Network moves individual transactions off-chain, reducing the load on the Bitcoin network while allowing users to transact with each other cheaply at high speeds.

Stark is arguably the most important figure in the Lightning Network movement and regularly promotes and educates people about the technology at cryptocurrency conferences.

5. Justin Sun – Founder of the TRON blockchain project

• Nationality: China
• Position: TRON founder
• Social Media: Twitter 

While it’s no secret that TRON founder Justin Sun is a controversial figure in the cryptocurrency community, his influence is hard to deny. Sun founded TRON in 2017 and the platform’s native currency TRX is among the 20 biggest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization as well as one of the biggest platforms for decentralized applications (DApps). Justin Sun acquired BitTorrent Inc. in 2018 and the company is currently working on ways to integrate its products with the TRON blockchain. Sun was also among the investors that acquired the Poloniex cryptocurrency exchange from Circle. Notorious for his aggressive marketing tactics, Sun has ammassed both followers and critics. From what we’ve seen so far, it’s unlikely that Sun plans to change his approach anytime soon. 

6. John McAfee – Cybersecurity entrepreneur and crypto evangelist

• Nationality: United States
• Position: Entrepreneur
• Social Media: Twitter

John McAfee founded cybersecurity company McAfee Associates in 1987. He resigned from the company in 1994 and sold his shares when it went public, resulting in a considerable amount of wealth.These days, however, McAfee is primarily known for his antics on social media, where he regularly posts provocative content and also discusses various cryptocurrencies. McAfee is a particularly vocal proponent of “privacy coins”. McAfee received a lot of publicity in the cryptocurrency community for predicting that BTC would reach a price of $2 million in 2020. If he was wrong, McAfee said, he would cut off his private parts on national television. In early 2020, McAfee abandoned the prediction, saying that it was a “ruse” to gain new followers. He also criticized Bitcoin as “ancient technology”, saying that other cryptocurrencies will surpass Bitcoin. 

7. Brad Garlinghouse – CEO of Ripple

• Nationality: United States
• Position: CEO of Ripple
• Social Media: Twitter

Brad Garlinghouse is the CEO of Ripple, a US-based fintech company that leverages the XRP cryptocurrency in its products that are designed for making cross-border payments faster and cheaper. Before joining Ripple, Garlinghouse was the president of consumer applications at AOL and a senior vice president at Yahoo. XRP is the third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, and even though Ripple is keeping distance between itself and XRP to avoid running afoul of securities laws, Garlinghouse often advocates for the benefits of XRP at conferences and media appearances. His opinion also holds a lot of sway within the XRP community, earning Garlinghouse his spot in our list of the top 20 crypto influencers. 

8. Joseph Lubin – Founder of ConsenSys

• Nationality: United States
• Position: Founder of ConsenSys
• Social Media: Twitter 

Joseph Lubin was one of the co-founders of Ethereum and became incredibly wealthy as ETH grew from a niche idea to a multi-billion dollar asset. This allowed Lubin to substantially expand the operations of ConsenSys, an Ethereum-focused company he founded in 2015. ConsenSys backs multiple projects that are building on Ethereum, including household names such as MetaMask and Infura. ConsenSys might have expanded too quickly, as the company was forced to lay off a significant number of employees in 2018 and announced a fundamental strategy shift in 2020. Nevertheless, ConsenSys remains a key player in the Ethereum ecosystem.Lubin is one of the most vocal proponents of Ethereum and blockchain technology in general. His confidence in the technology can perhaps best be summarized in this quote:

“For those who understand the profound implications of blockchain technology, there is no turning back.”

9. Charlie Lee – Creator of Litecoin

• Nationality: United States
• Position: Founder of Litecoin
• Social Media: Twitter

Charlie Lee has earned himself a spot as one of the cryptocurrency community’s biggest stars by creating Litecoin, one of the first altcoins. Litecoin was launched in October of 2011, less than two years after Bitcoin’s genesis block was mined. Lee forked Bitcoin’s code and tweaked some parameters to make Litecoin a faster cryptourrency. Litecoin also uses a Scrypt-based proof-of-work instead of the SHA256-based proof-of-work employed by Bitcoin. In December of 2017, Charlie Lee publicly announced that he was selling almost all of his Litecoin holdings to avoid potential conflicts of interest. Lee’s decision turned out to be very wise from a financial standpoint as Litecoin was trading close to its all-time high prices when Lee sold off his holdings. Charlie Lee continues to be actively involved with Litecoin. Despite remaining in the shadow of its bigger brother Bitcoin, LTC is not to be taken lightly as the cryptocurrency has a market capitalization of almost $5 billion at the time of writing. 

10. Tyler & Cameron Winklevoss – Founders of Gemini

• Nationality: United States
• Position: Founders of Gemini
• Social Media: Tyler Winklevoss / Cameron Winklevoss

We’re including twin brothers Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss in this list as one entry since their business careers are inextricably linked. Known affectionately as the “Winklevoss twins”, the duo is a force to be reckoned with in the cryptocurrency industry.In 2014, the Winklevoss twins founded Gemini, one of the most respected exchanges in the cryptocurrency industry. Even before founding Gemini, the Winklevoss twins saw potential in Bitcoin early, investing a considerable amount of money in the world’s first cryptocurrency. The investment paid off handsomely, as their Bitcoin holdings reportedly exceeded $1 billion in value at one point. The Winklevoss twins gained publicity in mainstream media for their legal battle against Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The two alleged that Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook from them while the three were studying at Harvard, and eventually settled with Zuckerberg to the tune of $65 million. The Winklevoss twins were depicted in the award-winning movie The Social Network.

11. Jihan Wu – Co-founder of Bitmain and founder of Matrixport

• Nationality: China
• Position: Co-founder of Bitmain, founder of Matrixport
• Social Media: Twitter

Jihan Wu is one of the most influential people in the cryptocurrency industry thanks to his involvement with Bitmain, the largest manufacturer of cryptocurrency mining equipment in the world. The company was founded in 2013 by Jihan Wu alongside Micree Zhan and also runs major cryptocurrency mining pools. However, Wu is looking to expand his business career beyond cryptocurrency mining. In 2019, he founded Matrixport, a company that offers a wide array of cryptocurrency-related services including OTC trading, loans, cryptocurrency custody and crypto payments.Through his entrepreneurship, Jihan Wu ammassed a personal net worth of over $1 billion, making him one of the richest individuals in the cryptocurrency industry.

12. Roger Ver – Bitcoin Cash Proponent and Executive Chairman of Bitcoin.com

Nationality: United States
Position: Executive Chairman of Bitcoin.com 

Social Media: Twitter

Roger Ver was an early investor in cryptocurrency startups - Blockchain.com, Kraken and BitPay are just some examples of companies he backed at an early stage. He is also the Executive Chairman of Bitcoin.com, one of the most popular crypto-focused web platforms. The company offers a wallet, an exchange, mining pools as well as crypto news coverage. Roger Ver’s relentless promotion of Bitcoin even earned him the nickname “Bitcoin Jesus”, but he has since become much more controversial in the cryptocurrency community. The reason why Roger Ver is a divisive figure in the crypto community today is that he was one of the main supporters of the Bitcoin fork in 2017 that resulted in the creation of Bitcoin Cash. According to Ver, the developers of the “Core” Bitcoin protocol refuse to tackle Bitcoin’s scalability problems, which is why he is now supporting Bitcoin Cash.

13. Barry Silbert – Founder and CEO of Digital Currency Group

• Nationality: United States
• Position: Digital Currency Group Founder and CEO
• Social Media: Twitter

While he might not be as flashy and active on social media as some of the other people featured in this list, Barry Silbert is undoubtedly among the most influential people in the cryptocurrency industry. He is the founder and CEO of Digital Currency Group (DCG), a company that was established in 2015 and invests in businesses in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space. The list of companies backed by DCG is huge, and includes major industry names including the likes of Coinbase, Ripple, Kraken and Ledger.In addition to its investments, Digital Currency Group also has its own subsidiaries – OTC trading firm Genesis, crypto asset manager Grayscale and crypto media outlet CoinDesk. 

14. Meltem Demirors – Chief Strategy Officer at CoinShares

• Nationality: United States
• Position: Chief Strategy Officer at CoinShares
• Social Media: Twitter

Meltem Demirors is the Chief Strategy Officer at CoinShares, a UK-based company that provides cryptocurrency investment products and manages $750 million in assets. Before joining CoinShares, Demirors worked at Digital Currency Group.Demirors taught courses at Oxford and MIT and she is one of the go-to crypto experts selected by mainstream media when they’re covering cryptocurrency, playing an important role in promoting the technology to the mainstream audience. Demirors has an active presence on social media and is often outspoken about current developments in the cryptocurrency industry. Alongside fellow crypto investor Jill Carlson, Meltem Demirors is also a co-host of the crypto-focused podcast “What Grinds My Gears”.

15. Arthur Hayes – CEO of BitMEX

• Nationality: United States
• Position: CEO of BitMEX
• Social Media: Twitter

Arthur Hayes is the CEO of cryptocurrency derivatives exchange BitMEX. Hayes founded the company in 2014 alongside Ben Delo and Samuel Reed, and the exchange has since become a leading player in the cryptocurrency derivatives space.Even though platforms like Binance Futures, Deribit and others are posing a real challenge to BitMEX, it remains one of the preferred destinations for traders that want to try their hand at trading cryptocurrency with (high) leverage.While Hayes is not as active on social media as some of the other influential figures on this list, he does occasionally share his thoughts on Twitter and in articles sent to BitMEX users. In his posts, Hayes tends not to mince his words and knows how to get a response from the online crowd.

16. Michael Novogratz – CEO of Galaxy Digital

• Nationality: United States
• Position: CEO of Galaxy Digital 
• Social Media: Twitter

Michael Novogratz is arguably the most prominent individual to make the transition from Wall Street to crypto. Novogratz was a hedge fund manager at Fortress Investment Group, with Forbes magazine ranking him as a billionaire in 2007 and 2008.Nowadays, Novogratz has shifted his focus on crypto, founding Galaxy Digital in 2018. Galaxy Digital invests in cryptocurrencies as well as businesses that operate in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space. The company is listed publicly on the TSX Venture Exchange in Toronto.Novogratz is an active proponent of cryptocurrencies and often shares his thoughts on social media. In addition, he often appears on mainstream media to discuss the crypto markets, and isn’t shy about giving Bitcoin price predictions. 

17. Anthony Pompliano – Co-Founder and Partner at Morgan Creek Digital

• Nationality: United States
• Position: Co-founder of Morgan Creek Digital
• Social Media: Twitter 

In many ways, Anthony Pompliano is the definition of “influencer” - through his online presence, Pompliano promotes cryptocurrency (and particularly Bitcoin) relentlessly, ammassing a large following along the way. However, Pompliano is not just an online figure, as he is also a co-founder of Morgan Creek Digital, a cryptocurrency investment firm. The company has developed an institutional-grade investment product that tracks the performance of some of the largest crypto assets on the market. Pompliano is also the host of “Off The Chain”, a popular podcast series in which he interviews influential figures in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry. In addition, Pompliano also publishes a daily newsletter covering the most important developments in crypto. 

18. Jed McCaleb – Co-founder at Stellar

• Nationality: United States
• Position: Stellar Development Foundation co-founder
• Social Media: Twitter

Jed McCaleb has a fascinating past and has been a part of the cryptocurrency space since the very early days. Before entering the world of crypto, McCaleb was one of the key people behind the peer-to-peer file sharing networks eDonkey and Overnet.If you’re at all familiar with the history of cryptocurrency, the name “Mt.Gox” should ring a bell – in fact, the Mt.Gox website was created by Jed McCaleb as a way for users to exchange digital Magic: The Gathering cards. However, he later established the site as a Bitcoin exchange, and sold the business to Mark Karpeles in 2011. In 2014, the exchange collapsed in one of the most controversial sagas in cryptocurrency history. However, McCaleb’s deep involvement in cryptocurrency does not stop there – he was one of the creators of the XRP cryptocurrency and co-founded Opencoin, the company that’s now known as Ripple. McCaleb continues to own a large amount of XRP coins to this day.After his stint as Ripple, McCaleb co-founded the Stellar Development Foundation alongside Joyce Kim. The foundation is active in developing the Stellar protocol. Today, Stellar’s native asset XLM is one of the 20 largest cryptocurrencies by market cap. 

19. Andreas Antonopoulos – Author, Bitcoin and cryptocurrency educator

• Nationality: Greek-British
• Position: Cryptocurrency educator
• Social Media: Twitter 

In the entire cryptocurrency community, it’s hard to find a person that’s as universally respected as Andreas Antonopoulos. As a speaker and educator, Antonopoulos is introducing Bitcoin and cryptocurrency to audiences across the globe, and he has also authored popular books such as Mastering Bitcoin, Mastering Ethereum and the Internet of Money series. Currently, he is working on a book focused on the Lightning Network. His popularity has earned him appearances on mainstream media and popular alternative media platforms such as the Joe Rogan experience. Antonopoulos has an active presence on social media, sharing his thoughts on Bitcoin and world events. He also publishes a podcast called Unscrypted.

20. Tim Draper – Venture capital investor and Bitcoin proponent

• Nationality: United States
• Position: Venture capital investor
• Social Media: Twitter

Tim Draper is a venture capital investor from the United States and a very active proponent of Bitcoin. Draper has invested in companies such as Tesla, Coinbase, Skype, Robinhood and Twitch.Draper has been investing in Bitcoin for quite some time, as he participated in an auction in 2014, buying almost 30,000 BTC that was seized by U.S. authorities. At today’s prices, the 30,000 BTC stash would be worth $291 million. However, it’s unclear how much Draper paid for the auctioned Bitcoin. Draper is also known for his extremely bullish Bitcoin price predictions – for example, Draper predicts that Bitcoin will reach a price tag of $250,000 after the 2020 Bitcoin Halving. 

Conclusion

Whether it's by starting debates, pushing forward the adoption of cryptocurrencies or providing Bitcoin price predictions, these top 20 crypto influencers have a huge presence within the cryptocurrency community. Is there anyone you think we missed? 

Ripple Labs Inc. is being sued in a class-action lawsuit by investors who lost money investing in the company’s XRP cryptocurrency.

A judge in San Francisco today ruled that the lawsuit, filed last year, could proceed based on federal law while dismissing some claims under California state law, Coindesk reported.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit claim that they lost money after selling their XRP tokens because they were duped by Ripple’s promotion statements.

The lawsuit specifically claims that Ripple offered XRP in breach of Section 12(a)(1) of the Securities Act in that the tokens were offered as an unregistered security.

That’s a serious allegation because, in the company’s own words, if XRP is found to be a security, “it would upend and threaten to destroy the established XRP market more broadly — a market involving over $500 billion in trading over the last two years.

”Coin and token offerings have an established history when it comes to securities law. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission took action against a growing list of companies for initial coin offerings that should have been registered under securities law.

Notably, the SEC has never taken action against Ripple despite not being shy in targeting major firms such as Telegram Group Inc. and Kik Interactive Inc.That could change now, however.

Ripple Chief Executive Officer Brad Garlinghouse was quoted as saying late January that “we have been talking to the SEC for some period of time.

” Heath Tarbert, chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, also isn’t sure if XRP is a security or not, saying Jan. 19 that “It’s unclear. Stay tuned, I’d say. Part of the issue is that our jurisdiction we share with the SEC. If it’s a security, it falls under their jurisdiction.

If it’s a commodity, it falls under ours.”Should XRP be deemed a security, the impact would be severe. XRP is the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of more than $10 billion.XRP’s price dropped 5.8% over the last 24 hours, to 2.8562 cents as of 9:35 p.m. EST, its lowest level in a month. 

The drop may not have been influenced by the court ruling, since all major cryptocurrencies saw declines throughout the day. Bitcoin was down 5.8%, to $8,673.29, as of 9:35 p.m., also its lowest level in a month.

On Feb. 20 Bitcoin (BTC) price surprisingly dropped 8.85%, a move which caught many investors off guard as up to that moment the digital asset had recovered well from the President’s Day weekend correction and was trading sideways in the $10,200 range.

Citing data from CoinMetrics, ARK Invest crypto analyst Yassine Elmandjra tweeted that the $1,000 price drop was the fifth largest USD correction to occur on the hourly time frame since 2017.






Since the sharp downside move, traders, analysts, and crypto-Twitter have been attempting to pinpoint the source of the flash crash and a handful of theories have arisen. Some have attributed the volatility to the consecutive unplanned Binance exchange outages which halted trading on the platform and prevented many traders from being able to log into their accounts.

Others, like, Cointelegraph contributor and Bitcoin trader filbfilb speculated that a shortage of Tether (USDT) at Binance could possibly have contributed to the current market conditions.In his Telegram-based trading channel filbfilb explained that the USDT shortage possibly shows that the majority of traders were in long positions, an observation further supported by the decreasing pace of Bitcoin’s momentum and the liquidation of $120 million leveraged longs at BitMex.




BitMEX XBTUSD Liquidations. Source: Skew.comRegardless of the reason, the drop to $9,346 shook a lot of investors from their Bitcoin and altcoin positions and the current state of the market is negatively impacting investors’ bullish sentiment as they are choosing to wait on the sidelines for a clearer signal that a bottom has been reached.




Crypto Fear & Greed Index. Source: Alternative.meIs the current price action a buy the dip opportunity or is Bitcoin on the verge of a significant trend change? Let’s check the charts to see.

Excited traders overlooked the tweezer top

BTC USDT daily chart. Source: TradingViewAs shown by the daily chart, Bitcoin formed a tweezer top candlestick pattern at $10,250 after recovering from the previous weekend’s drop to $9,450. This should have been a signal that the likelihood of a pullback could occur but traders were probably feeling bullish after Bitcoin’s quick recovery from $9,450 placed the digital asset back above key support levels.

Despite the shock caused by yesterday’s correction Bitcoin price still found support at the high volume node of the volume profile visible range (VPVR) at $9,300 to $9,438.

While this is reassuring, some cautionary notes are low purchasing volume which highlights a lack of buyers interested in stepping into the current dip and the state of the two most frequently referenced oscillators by traders not yet registering oversold conditions.



BTC USDT 6-hour chart. Source: TradingViewOn the 6-hour timeframe, the relative strength index (RSI) has yet to manage an oversold bounce and the moving average convergence divergence (MACD) line continues to plummet, pressing on -100 at the time of writing.

Traders will also notice that the MACD histogram bars continue to elongate in negative territory (below 0) and the pattern of lower highs in the 6-hour chart is unbroken.

Bearish scenario

If buyers continue to believe the current price action is not a ‘buy the dip’ opportunity the price could drop below the VPVR high volume node ($9,438) and the 200-day moving average at $8,800 where there is another VPVR high volume node.

The shorter timeframe shows the price slowly making higher lows but the purchasing volume is not significant enough to hold the price above $9,600. Over the short-term, bulls need to defend the $9,500 support (black arrow on chart below) as the daily and weekly timeframe shows it to be a key level. A more significant trend change could push the price lower to $8,800 to $8,400.

Bullish scenario

If we zoom out to assess Bitcoin’s price action since reaching its 2019 top at $13,800 on June 26, 2018, we can see that the 38.2% Fibonacci Retracement level has been a frequent area where the price has bounced after strong corrections.




BTC USDT daily chart. Source: TradingViewSince June 26, 2018, the price has bounced here more than 10 times and yesterday’s pullback brought the price to the 38.6% level again. It’s crucial that the price stays above this level because the 38.6% Fibonacci retracement has also functioned as a strong resistance once the price dips below it.

On the flip side, assuming the price breaks out, we can also see that the last three Bitcoin rallies on October 12, 2019, February 12, 2020, and February 18, 2020, have failed to break above the 50% Fibonacci Retracement level.

Thus, Bitcoin price needs to secure a few daily closes above $10,250 (50% Fibonacci retracement) before any calls for $11,000 can be seriously considered.For the short term, Bitcoin price needs to knock out $9,630 and above this price, $9,750 is likely to function as a level of resistance.

A more convincing maneuver would be to see Bitcoin price overtake the 20-MA of the Bollinger Band indicator and sustain above $9,850.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.