International journalist and media defender of Bitcoin Max Keiser gave a presentation at Labitconf in Montevideo, Uruguay, in which he explained the impact that cryptocurrencies generate in the global scenario and particularly in the Latin American region.

With a talk entitled "Why Bitcoin Matters in Emerging Markets," Keiser took the stage in his casual style, with a sports jacket and shorts, but mainly with a very critical tone towards trust money and the traditional economic and financial system.

Keiser stressed that Bitcoin's first function is to clean up the mess left in the world by fiat money. One of the points he highlighted during the presentation was: "The inherent violence of fiat money must be replaced by the peaceful nature of Bitcoin."

On the other hand, he noted that politicians in the United States are beginning to take into account what cryptocurrencies are all about, and quoted Representative Brad Sherman, who had acknowledged that Bitcoin's purpose is to take their power away.

For Keiser, "Bitcoin is the currency of a global revolution and the nightmare of trust money," as he put it during Labitconf, it's resistance money."

On the other hand, he said that when we talk about regulations and regulators, we have to bear in mind that these regulators are paid in fiat money.

Keiser also took the opportunity to talk about Argentina, saying that Argentina is a good place to adopt Bitcoin as the country has lived through recurrent times of economic and social crisis in recent decades.

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Max Keiser: Bitcoin's First Function Is to Clean Up the Mess Left by Fiat - Cointelegraph

For the past few days, Bitcoin price (BTC) has ranged between $7,400 to $7,100 and it seems bears are keen to push the price back below $7,000 before this week closes.

Earlier in the week, MATIC made headlines after dropping more than 60% in the span of a few minutes and a few other Binance IEO tokens followed with double-digit losses.

Fast forward to today and many altcoins are back to producing double-digit gains on their BTC pairs. At the time of writing FunFair (FUN) is up 26.6%, WAVES 15.31% and THETA 12.36% and thats just pointing out a select few.

Crypto market weekly performance. Source: Coin360

Meanwhile, Bitcoin appears bearish on the 1-hour to the weekly timeframe and barring quick day trades the price action leans towards bears and pales in comparison to what is happening with altcoins.

Interestingly, despite Bitcoins bearish bias, Bitfinex longs have increased significantly (56%) since Nov. 22 and this shows that many traders believe the decrease in selling pressure and the last major drop to $6,530 on Nov. 25 was the bottom.

The current price action suggests otherwise, and savvy traders will recall what usually happens when either long or short positions skyrocket.

BTC USD Longs chart. Source: TradingView

In the event that BTC falls below $7,080 and $6,800, many analysts expect the price to drop to $6,500 where the price made a local bottom on Nov. 25. This would place Bitcoin price at the lower descending channel trendline. However, the volume profile visible range (VPVR) shows a lack of support in this area.

BTC USD daily chart. Source: TradingView

In the daily timeframe, the moving average convergence divergence histogram (MACD) shows momentum beginning to wane and the signal line has flattened as the price is pinched between $7,150 and $7,300.

As mentioned in the previous analysis, the VPVR suggests that demand does not really kick in until $6,000 and more so around $5,530.

Willy Woos Bitcoin NVT Signal shows Bitcoins realized price at $5,619 just a hair away from the $5,530 high volume node of the VPVR and $89 away from Bitcoins realized value at $5,619.

Bitcoin NVT Signal. Source: charts.woodbull.com

Regarding Bitcoins short-term price action, the digital asset continues to post lower highs and is capped below the 12-period exponential moving average (EMA).

BTC USD 6-hour chart. Source: TradingView

The $7,300 level is proving to be tough resistance to overcome and currently $7,150 and $7,080 are acting as support. If Bitcoin fails to hold these levels, the next expected step is a drop to $6,800.

Before opening a position, traders should look for the price to cross above the 12-EMA and the previous lower high at $7,400.

BTC USD weekly chart. Source: TradingView

A glance at the weekly timeframe also shows BTC/USD hovering slightly above the 100-WMA ($7,000) for the second week in a row. $7,600 is clearly shown as a point of challenge and any high volume breakout will need to sustain above this level.

The lower Bollinger Band arm lines up with the bottom descending channel trendline at $6,466 and as mentioned earlier, $5,330 appears to be the next strong level of support.

Throughout this week, traders should keep an eye on the $7,080 price level and the BTC/USD Longs at Bitfinex.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author (@HorusHughes) 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.

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Why Bitcoin Price Is Headed to 7-Month Low If $7K Support Fails - Cointelegraph

Bitcoin approached the support at $7,000 in a renewed downward momentum. The support expected at $7,200 failed to hold once again. However, a shallow recovery has pulled BTC above $7,100 and is dancing at $7,1450.

The cryptocurrency live rates show Bitcoin trading 0.72% lower on the day. The current trend is strongly bearish but volatility levels have remained low.

The confluence tool places the initial resistance at $7,189 as highlighted by the Bollinger Band 15-minutes middle, SMA 10 15-mins, previous high 15-mins, previous high 1-hour, Fibonacci 23.6% one-day, SMA ten 1-hour and the pivot point one-week support one among other indicators.

If the bulls manage to reclaim the lost ground above $7,200, further movement north will face a medium-strong resistance at $7,263. The indicators converging here include the SMA 50 1-hour, SMA 200 15-mins. Fibo 23.6% one-week and the Bollinger Band 1-hour upper.

The most prominent resistance is the zone at $7,412 and is home to the SMA 100 4-hour, pivot point one-day resistance three, BB one-day middle, SMA 100 1-hour, SMA ten one-day and the SMA 200 1-hour.

When support areas are considered, Bitcoin is in grave danger of sinking towards $6,000. To avert the potential drop, the bulls must ensure that they defend $7,000 support and focus on $8,000. Subtle support can be seen at $70,40, $6,817 and $6,594.

More confluence levels

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Bitcoin Price Prediction: BTC/USD faces one prominent resistance in the journey to $8,000 - FXStreet

EconomicsprofessorJohnGriffin recently rang alarm bells over the impact of Bitcoin whales on the Bitcoin market.

Griffin told Bloombergthat a few large players could easily push the BTC price down at a whim.

"The problem with a few large players holding crypto is that when they sell they can easily push the price down, which makes the market susceptible to rapid swings."

According to data released by CoinMetrics, the number of orange coins controlled by deep-pocketed Bitcoin investors reached its highest point in four years in 2019. As of December, a whopping 42.1 percent of Bitcoin's total circulating supply is stored in wallets that hold between 1,000 and 1 mln BTC.

While crypto exchanges are known to be the owners of the richest Bitcoin addresses, investorAaron Brown warms some of the new whales on the block are family offices andaffluent individuals who are not exactly keen Bitcoin believers who might be tempted to jump ship if things turn south.

I doubt they have infinite patience, and without significant growth in actual use, I would expect them to quietly withdraw to chase other promising technologies, Brown said.

Speaking of those who don't believe in Bitcoin, Griffin probably takes the cake as one of the most prominent naysayers. Back in June 2018, together with his colleagueAmin Shams, he published a paper that explores how Tether was allegedly responsible for propelling Bitcoin to new highs during the peak of the previous bull market in December 2018.

At the beginning ofNovember, the two academicscame up with an even more shooking claim-- the historic ascent of Bitcoin to its current all-time high of $20,000 was the deed ofa single whale on Bitfinex, the affiliated exchange of Tether.

Tether dismissed the updated study as a puff piece that was meant to back up a $1.4 trln lawsuit against the flagship stablecoin issuer.

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Bitcoin (BTC) Continues to Increase in Popularity on Dark Web - U.Today

Nothing seems to conjure up a more visceral reaction amongst investors than talk of cryptocurrency. Specifically, bitcoin.

The divide between those who think that bitcoin is a nefarious scam and the ardent HODLers a slang term the crypto community has bestowed upon those with a buy-and-hold approach is massive. Some say crypto is the way of the future and will revolutionize the world, while others see its implosion in the near future.

It's safe to say that Mark Yusko CEO and chief investment officer at Morgan Creek Capital Management, where he oversees $1.5 billion aligns his views with the former.

"Blockchain technology and bitcoin in particular, as the first manifestation of blockchain technology is really still in its infancy," he said in an exclusive interview with Business Insider. "It really is about the growth mindset and focusing on the venture capital upside or the asymmetric upside of the asset at this point."

It's important to note that Yusko didn't always have deep convictions in the cryptocurrency space. In fact, he started out extremely skeptical. However, when he started learning more about the space, growth metrics, and the potential bitcoin had to uproot the traditional finance system he became comfortable with an investment.

Today, he's all in.

"The key to bitcoin is the network," he said. "It grows in proportion to the inverse of the sum of the squares of the number of participants. That's Metcalfe's Law."

Put briefly, the network becomes more valuable as adaptation grows and bitcoin's network is exactly where Yusko sees pay dirt.

He notes that the number of wallets that own bitcoin has gone up every year for 11 years, the transaction rates along with the number and size of blocks have been increasing, and the annual low-price for bitcoin has been higher 10 out of 11 years.

"All of the fundamentals of the value of the network are rising and they're rising exponentially," he said. "And so you're getting this parabolic growth curve."

But that's not the end of his forecast.

According to Yusko, this network which he says is the most powerful and secure computing network in the history of mankind will help to reduce income inequality.

"The government and the elites want to have all the wealth, so they manufacture inflation and the wealth flows to top," he added. "And that's why we have the greatest wealth inequality in the history of mankind."

He continued: "Bitcoin helps solve that because now we can opt-out as an owner of assets from that fiat system."

With all of that under consideration, Yusko bolsters his thesis with a gold comparison. He says bitcoin "is even better than gold."

Theoretically speaking, since there are a finite number of bitcoins available 21 million it should serve as a better store of value than gold, which can be mined at any time. This additional level of scarcity makes bitcoin more valuable in Yusko's eyes and that's barring the cumbersome nature of hoarding physical gold from the conversation.

"Between now and 2021, we're likely to see $100,000 bitcoin," he said. "By 2025, we're likely to see $250,000 bitcoin, and then sometime out 2030 we could see $400,000 or $500,000 bitcoin as it reaches gold equivalence."

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Bitcoin price could hit $500,000 in 10 years, better than gold: Yusko - Business Insider

Amidst a grinding price slide, Bitcoin boredom has set into crypto markets. Interest indicators fell to levels not seen since March, according to Google Trends.

Yearly Google searches for Bitcoin peaked at the end of June, at a value of 100. They have been steadily falling since. Today, Bitcoin searches measured 23. They were last seen in the low 20s ranges in March, bottoming at 20.

A value of 100 represents the peak popularity for the period, with 50 indicating the search term is half as popular and zero suggesting insufficient data.

Courtesy Google Trends, 365-day search popularity for Bitcoin

When viewing the entire timespan of Bitcoins existence, its search popularity peaked at 100 in December 2017. It is now at 7, similar to interest levels in the April-May period of 2017 and toward the end of the 2018 crypto winter.

Courtesy Google Trends, Search popularity for Bitcoin since 2004

Similar Web shows a similar decline in traffic to key crypto metrics site CoinMarketCap. The 16th most visited finance and investing site in the world, CoinMarketCap traffic is at 6-month lows. The site had around 33 million visitors last month. In early June it saw 67 million views.

Courtesy Similar Web, 6-month CoinMarketCap traffic

Coingecko traffic has also fallen by approximately 40 percent since Summer.

Courtesy Similar Web, 6-month CoinMarketCap and Coingecko traffic compared

Google Trends clearly indicates that rising prices and rising interest in cryptocurrency are correlated. Whether prices drive interest or interest drives prices is hotly debated. It is widely believed that some events drive crypto market prices. That probably suggests that interest in crypto and crypto prices are both results of the same cause, at least at the earlier stages of a trend.

As CoinList president Andy Bromberg told Quartz earlier this month, The overall crypto markets have a tendency to be event-driven, and in the past few months there hasnt been news to send prices moving meaningfully.

In September, Bitcoin price volatility hit its lowest levels in around 6 months, according to Forbes. Crypto Briefing reported at the time that despite the much-anticipated launch of Bakkt, interest in Bitcoin failed to enjoy an uptick.

Twitter activity for the original crypto had flatlined. Now, according to metrics by BitInfoCharts, Bitcoin-related tweets have been in free fall since Nov. 26, when it was mentioned 25,000 times. Yesterday, that figure was at a mere 14,000.

Courtesy BitInfoCharts, Bitcoin-related tweets for the past 6 months

That data indicates that price volatility is at least one type of event likely to drive interest and price growth. Though wide price swings were long criticized as a problem for Bitcoin adoption, they may actually be its best friend.

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Interest in Bitcoin Returned to Crypto Winter Levels - Crypto Briefing

Amazons Ring cameras are now commonplace in homes of early smart tech adopters across the country, but just how secure are they? Recent reports from Ring owners read like a horror movie, with bad actors invading the internet-connected cameras and causing all manner of distress.

One of the most bizarre recent reports comes from Grand Prairie, Texas, where a couple says they awoke in the middle of the night to an alarm coming from their Ring camera. But thats not all they heard; After the couple came to investigate, a voice over the Rings built-in speaker claimed that the couples Ring account had been terminated, and that they themselves would be terminated if they didnt fork over a hefty haul of cryptocurrency.

The hackers demanded a whopping 50 bitcoins. Going by the current conversion rate, thats over $350,000. In a brief video of the incident posted by local ABC affiliate WFAA, the individual who accessed the camera and its speakers can be heard laughing, so its unclear exactly how serious this threat was.

If the bad actors had simply accessed the couples Ring camera, this would likely be a bit of a non-story, but what makes this whole thing scary is that they also gained control over the homes Ring doorbell. They used their access to the doorbell to spoof their presence outside of the couples home, making the homeowners believe that someone was actually stalking their property while demanding the ransom.

Ultimately the hackers plan was foiled when the couple decided to shut down their Ring doorbell by yanking its batteries. Without that line of communication and access to live video from inside the home, the hacker or hackers apparently called it quits and moved on.

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Ring hackers demand $350,000 in Bitcoin from Texas couple, but something so simple ruined their plot - BGR

The mood of the crypto market in these last hours moves between fear and depression, a journey that also involves stops at anxiety and doubt.

According to a recent study, the number of Google searches on Bitcoin and Ethereum has plummeted and dropped more than 94% in the week.

The crypto market has always been hyper-reactive to the price movements, with uncontrolled euphoria followed by disorderly panic, unreasoned hopes with senseless despair.

Now it is happening again, but from a trader's point of view, it is powerfully striking that despite this intense pessimism floating in the atmosphere, prices remain more than 100% above the lows of a year ago.

There are also bearish arguments based on opposite sentiment strategies due to the high number of bullish positions and also bearish targets for Bitcoin in the $5,000 zone.

But it's not all bad news.

As general public interest has declined this year, the number of developers involved with projects based on blockchain technology, mainly in Ethereum, has increased.

Moreover, almost at a daily rate, we have news about the involvement of governments and central banks in new projects on national electronic currencies and new regulatory proposals.

If it were not for the crypto hysteria evident in the media, mine first, I would say that the matter is not as bad as some would have us believe.

The ones that have the potential of the blockchain universe very clear are the Chinese politicians and industry leaders. The global giant certainly does not support anonymous cryptocurrencies, even though a whopping 66%! of the hash rate installed in the Bitcoin network is concentrated behind the Great Wall.

The Chinese government declared that they believe in the blockchain revolution and that they want to lead this new revolution, and for now, it seems that only Europe is reacting from the institutional point of view.

In the US, the legislative initiative remains in the hands of each state of the union. The Federal Government attacks Facebook aggressively for its Libra project and the advances in favor of the adoption of the new technology come from the private sector.

The ETH/BTC cross is currently rising above 1% and reaches the price level of 0.020051.

I have already stated in several articles my conviction that the next bull market of the cryptomarket will be led by the bullish movement of the ETH/BTC pair.

Earlier this week, I highlighted a necessary short-term move in this pair, so I will pay special attention to the cross between Ethereum and Bitcoin in the upcoming hours and days.

Above the current price, we can find two major obstacles. The first is at the price level of 0.0205, where the SMA100 and the EMA50 pass. The next key level is at 0.0222, where the SMA200 and the long term bearish line converge. Finally, and only above the resistance level of 0.0227, the ETH/BTC pair would move up very strongly.

Below the current price, the risks are obvious. The first support level is at 0.019, then the second at 0.018 and the third one at 0.017.

The MACD on the daily chart begins to show a full bullish cross, with a profile that augurs that the move will not be fast.

The DMI on the daily chart shows the bears recovering but not getting past the ADX line again, which takes away credibility from the bearish side. The bulls also do not increase their strength, so it seems that indecision is the guide of the current moment.

The BTC/USD pair is currently trading at the price level of $7,173and holds at the support level of $7150.

Above the current price and speaking exclusively of critical levels, the first resistance level is at $7,500, then the second at $7,930 and the third at $8,640.

Below the current price and speaking of crucial levels, the first support level is at $6,840, then the second at $6,500 and the third one at $5,000.

The MACD on the daily chart shows how the profile continues to be bullish, although with a little opening between the lines. The structure favors the resumption of the bullish momentum that began at the end of November.

The DMI on the daily chart shows bulls very well positioned to attack bear leadership.

The market is playing on paths that start together but end in opposite directions.

The ETH/USD pair is currently trading at the $144.12price level and it is recovering from bad times early in the day. At this point, he draws the figure of a hanging, a typical technical turning figure.

Above the current price, the first major resistance level is at $155, then the second at $161 and the third one at $175.

Below the current price, the first critical support level is at $130, then the second at $125 and the third one at $120.

The MACD on the daily chart shows an excellent bullish profile, although reducing the distance between the lines.

The DMI on the daily chart shows the bulls at the same lows as in recent weeks. The bears, on the other hand, gain strength again and get an excellent bullish profile, dominating the pair with ease.

The XRP/USD pair is currently trading at the $0.2205price level and recovers some of the losses early in the day.

Above the current price, the first resistance level is at $0.23, then the second at $0.245 and the third one at $0.255.

Below the current price, the first support level is at $0.21, then the second at $0.19 and the third one at $0.17.

The MACD on the daily chart shows the best bullish profile among the TOP 3. It has retained the slope and openness between the lines, so a change in the market that would bring in fresh money would be very positive for the XRP/USD pair.

The DMI on the daily chart shows the bulls at their lowest level since the last week of November, without any upward reaction. The bears gain a bit of momentum and stay a long way ahead of the buyer side.

Get 24/7 Crypto updates in our social media channels: Give us a follow at @FXSCrypto and our FXStreet Crypto Trading Telegram channel

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Top 3 price prediction Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple: Some roads lead to the moon, hysteria to hell - FXStreet