Bitcoins grim future indicates a retest of $6,515 and perhaps lower – AMBCrypto

Key Takeaways

As Bitcoins price lugs in the $7,000 region for the 3rd week in a row, the U.S. and other European miners are taking hits due to mining unprofitability. A few days before Bitcoin collapsed from the $8,000 region, a total of ~$17 million BTC moved out of miners wallet, indicating miner capitulation. Since its drop to the $6,515 on November 25, the price has not revived completely.

At press time, BTC moved sideways priced at $7,195 with a market cap of $130 billion. The next move for Bitcoin is as predictable as a coin toss: the chances are 50-50.

The 4-hour chart showed two strong overhead resistances for Bitcoin since October 28. At present, there are multiple supports and hence variable outcomes for Bitcoin.

The first outcome is a Symmetrical Triangle which could push the price of Bitcoin either way.

The second outcome is a Descending Trianglewhich has a higher chance of pushing Bitcoin further below, perhaps, even retest $6,515.

The price has consistently formed lower highs, which exudes bearish presence; there are, however, formations of higher lows, indicating resisting bulls. The bearish signs seen on MACD and RSI push the probability in favor of bears.

The Fibonacci Tool showed the price crawled up below the last second level, $7,433 [23.6%], indicating chances of the next drop retesting the $6,515 level.

The overhead resistances starting from October 28, 30, are presenting a challenge for the buyers, hence the lower highs for BTC. Moreover, tweaking the horizontal support, we get a descending triangle, which inherently has a bearish bias.

Factoring other indicators like the downtrend which has loomed over Bitcoin since June 26, the bearish case gets stronger. Another reliable indicator, VPVR, indicates that BTCs price is hanging by a thread and that further bearish pressure could cause it to slip further below.

For both of the above formations, BTC shows a bearish bias and hence converges toward an incoming dump in the near future. Supporting this theory and hence catalyzing these outcomes is the Death Cross, which has loomed over Bitcoin since October 25. The bearish scenario would allow the price of BTC to retest the $6,515 lows. Dipping as low as $6,200 in the next week. Further bearish momentum should logically cause a steeper move to $5,920.

Since Bitcoins rallies are out of the blue, there is a rather slim chance that could defy all the technical indications and could take BTC higher. Although unlikely, if it does occur, the price would be immediately stopped at $8,000.

View original post here:

Bitcoins grim future indicates a retest of $6,515 and perhaps lower - AMBCrypto

Bitcoin SVs situation in the German-speaking countries – CoinGeek

The crypto sphere is international, however differences in media coverage of certain blockchain projects can be observed from country to country. In the German-speaking countries Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Bitcoin SV (BSV) seems to be underrepresented in the crypto news. One could even argue there is quite a negative connotation in almost all German reporting about Bitcoin SV so far. Why would that be the case though? Time to ask someone knowledgeable.

CoinGeeks Michael Wehrmann had the chance to win Christoph Bergmann for an interview. Christoph Bergmann is a known German Bitcoin blogger who runs bitcoinblog.de since 2013 and recently published his book Bitcoin Die verrckte Geschichte vom Aufstieg eines neuen Geldes (title translated: Bitcoin a crazy story of the rise of new money). Furthermore, he is involved in the creation of the wordpress plugin Mediopay, which uses Bitcoin SV as an easy to implement payment solution for online content.

Michael Wehrmann: Hello Christoph! Kindly give our audience your opinion on Bitcoin SV in general and tell us about your promising project Mediopay.

Christoph Bergmann: Its very simple. BTC was not allowed to grow onchain. Then BCH started to fall in love with centralized capacity planning too. So Bitcoin SV is the only Bitcoin version left which allows massive onchain scaling. This was the design outlined by Satoshi and I want to know how it plays out.

MedioPay builds on this. The idea is to use micropayments to monetize all kind of user interactions on media sites: reading, commenting, sharing, liking and so on. Its not just a paywall. Paywalls are simple and boring. If you have a bit of imagination, you can do so much more to allow journalism to make money in the Internet.

Michael Wehrmann: How would you describe the perception of Bitcoin SV in the crypto communities of Germany, Austria and Switzerland?

Christoph Bergmann: Oh, its bad. Some are interested, and if you show people what BSV can do, they open up a bit. But its a hard road, and there is always somebody reminding everyone how bad Craig Wright is and that BSV is a scam.

Michael Wehrmann: Did this perception change in the last months?

Christoph Bergmann: Not really. For most people crypto is like soccer: Once you support a team, you support it forever. Changing peoples opinion is often close to impossible.

Michael Wehrmann: You keep your audience informed about Bitcoin SV on your blog. How did your readers react to your articles concerning Bitcoin SV so far?

Christoph Bergmann: Usually not that bad. Many are open and somehow know that BSV is that thing they wanted Bitcoin to become, before it was reengineered. But many just dont care for most crypto is just an investment.

Michael Wehrmann: If you were to write more often about Bitcoin SV on your blog, how do you think your readers would respond?

Christoph Bergmann: My readers expect me to cover topics they are interested in and which are relevant for the broader crypto market. Many are customers of the platform Bitcoin.de, where Bitcoin SV has a tiny trading volume. So it would be not a good representation of the market if I wrote too often about BSV.

Michael Wehrmann: How would you describe the crypto media coverage of Bitcoin SV in the German-speaking areas?

Christoph Bergmann: Maybe as non existent. Mainstream journalists dont even know about Bitcoin SV maybe about Craig Wright, but rather in a negative way and if they try to learn, they become confused about all of this.

The largest German crypto magazine, BTC-Echo, made some fair reports, but didnt go deep, while they also had published some heavy anti BSV stories. Other blogs and podcasts are usually very anti BSV or ignore it.

Michael Wehrmann: Would you agree there is a lack of media coverage concerning Bitcoin SVs technical and economical developments in the crypto media outlets of German-speaking countries?

Christoph Bergmann: Yes, definitely. They miss a lot of thrilling things.

For example, PayMail is the most user-friendly way to use cryptocurrencies with a nice level of privacy. It is lightyears ahead of everything else. I dont know how I lived without. But you dont find any article about it outside my blog.

Also, MoneyButton is such a great tool for all kind of payments. People waste so much time not using it. Its like they decide to slow down their internet connection. But again, you dont find anything about it.

I could go on and on. We have all those scaling records, proving all those blockchain cant scale buttcoiners wrong. But again, nobody reports.

Or take TonicPOWs P2P advertising: this is a perfect example of how to decentralize a terribly centralized market. Or Unwriter and MonkeyLord literally breaking the great Firewall. Everybody in crypto wants this. And FloatSV and Okex accepting zero conf BSV deposits.

But, again and again and again: No one writes about it, no one tries it.

Michael Wehrmann: Why is that the case though?

Christoph Bergmann: Its complicated. On one side, journalists have to be selective, as attention is a limited resource, and so they focus on coins which receive more attention by readers. This is not just a problem for BSV, but also for Bitcoin Cash, Monero and Dash.

On the other side, most of us crypto journalists are part of the community. We are basically not journalists, but cheap marketers for coin holders. We are sucked in those narratives, and for most, they are highly anti BSV. So they dont WANT to write about it.

Michael Wehrmann: You attend regularly Bitcoin Stammtische (translated: Bitcoin meetups) in Germany. Describe the perception of Bitcoin SV in those meetups for us. Is there anything different you notice in comparison to how the German-speaking crypto media covers Bitcoin SV?

Christoph Bergmann: Unfortunately, no. This must be a disappointing interview for you. Ive only met one single BSV fan on a South German meetup. Even people who highly respect my knowledge and want me to give talks dont want to even try BSV. But I dont give up to change this.

Michael Wehrmann: There is a new German newsletter about Bitcoin SVs Metanet called Metanet Weekly. Tell us about that. Who is behind it and how do readers respond so far?

Christoph Bergmann: Its a project of B2029, which is a Berlin based association for Bitcoin SV. It was founded by Stefan, Ekhard and me, after we organized the first Hello Metanet workshop. With Metanet Weekly we write about all the weekly news about BSV in German. I have very little reader feedback, but our visits and email-subscriptions are on the rise.

Michael Wehrmann: The German crypto market place bitcoin.de listed Bitcoin SV as soon as possible, whereas the Austrian exchange Bitpanda did not and still does not offer Bitcoin SV to this very day. Bitpanda enables way smaller projects than Bitcoin SV to be bought and sold though and made BCH tradable pretty fast. What are your thoughts on that?

Christoph Bergmann: Exchanges and Bitcoin SV is a difficult topic. Many in BSV dont realize how big the problems are. When exchanges list or delist coins they think about profits.

The BSV community has the very noble approach to not care about trading and gambling, but focus on building. I like this, but it has the effect that trading volume on exchanges is very low. After the delisting from Kraken and Binance I expected volume on Bitcoin.de to grow. But the opposite happened. All the arbitrage tradings bots relied on Kraken and Binance API, so they broke for BSV. This made price finding unreliable.

At the same time BSV scales the nodes. This increases the costs for exchanges. Some think they will create some kind of SPV. In reality exchanges will not invest many developer hours in a coin which produces a very low volume. They will just delist.

Michael Wehrmann: In your book you present a whole chapter called civil war of Bitcoin. Tell us how you personally experienced the BTC-BCH-BSV forks and give us an idea of how the German-speaking crypto community thinks about these events.

Christoph Bergmann: Oh, I had to write this. It was a very personal story.

I never got over it that the community was so much ok with large parts of it became censored. What did Bitcoin stand against if not censorship?

Let me tell you the secret fundamental law of crypto: You always get what you dont want to get. BTC wanted censorship resistent money, and they got censorship. They wanted decentralization so much, but they got a lightning system which hardly works without middlemen for non expert users. And Bitcoin Cash wanted anarcho capitalism, but ended with centralized production quotas.

It was also disturbing for me to learn how trolling can influence and fabricate opinion. This made me really pessimistic about the future of our society. A couple of keyboard warriors with some VPN switches and a good spin doctor can mass influence people much better than all media together.

The blocksize war itself is a very complicated story. Its technically too complex for most people, and if you finally understand the technology, you realize that it has never been a question of technology at all, but of politics.

But it is complicated, and I am impressed how good BTC exercised the digital gold narrative and how they have spun up Lightning.

Michael Wehrmann: Would you say there is a German-speaking Bitcoin SV community growing at the moment? If so, where and how exactly?

Christoph Bergmann: Not much, unfortunately.

Michael Wehrmann: In March 2019 you published an article with the title Bitcoin SVs Metanet: ingenious or just insane? Is there an answer yet?

Christoph Bergmann: Mh, hard question. We still dont really know what to do with the Metanet. There are many discussions, some only want to store metadata onchain, others want to put everything onchain and cry for even lower fees.

I think real data ownership can become a big issue. If you have your data encrypted onchain, it is always available for you, like its on your own disc, but you can access it from everywhere, and nobody can steal or destroy it. If you look at what all those big scary servers do, and how they get more and more influence over the lifes of people, we really need this. In some way the Metanet is our only chance to prevent the upcoming data tyranny.

But will people realize it? Will they get out of their beloved nanny zone under the hood of a scary server? Taking care of your own data is terrifying for most.

There are many other aspects. Take all the ransomware attacks. There have been large scale attack waves, disabling the systems of cities, public services, hospitals and many large companies. Its hard to fight it with conventional methods, and its reaching a state of permanent cyber terrorism. Data on the Metanet would be immune to it, while not being as hard to access as data on a cold backup.

Or take archives. Im a historian and spent a lot of time in archives, looking through 17th century papers. Many archivars are concerned that we will have a digital dark age, because electronic data is much less durable than paper sheets. The Metanet could be a solution for this, by making data durable and selecting data economically. WeatherSV does an awesome job here, also Twetch.

So, there are many interesting ideas. When I wrote the article I suspected it was madness technically to put all the data onchain. In this regard I have become less pessimistic. But Im still sceptical if people will use it, and if they will realize that BSV is the solution and not some other data chain or non incentivized networks like IPFS.

Michael Wehrmann: Thanks for your insights!

The situation for Bitcoin SV in the German-speaking countries does not seem to be bright at this moment. However, results will speak for themselves in the long run and will sooner or later be noticed, as well as covered by all crypto media outlets. We thank Christoph Bergmann for the interview and highly appreciate his efforts to spread information about Bitcoin SVs developments in the German-speaking areas.

To receive the latest CoinGeek.com news, special discounts on CoinGeek Conferences and other inside information direct to your inbox, please sign up for our mailing list.

Read more from the original source:

Bitcoin SVs situation in the German-speaking countries - CoinGeek

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Prediction: Expecting a Drop to $7,000 – U.Today

Cover image via http://www.tradingview.com

Disclaimer: The opinion expressed here is not investment advice it is provided for informational purposes only. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of U.Today. Every investment and all trading involves risk, so you should always perform your own research prior to making decisions. We do not recommend investing money you cannot afford to lose.

It looks that the cryptocurrency market is preparing for a sharp move either up or down. The general picture has not changed much as Tezos (XTZ) remains the top gainer. The rate for the cryptocurrency has increased by 5.24% since yesterday.

Looking at the Bitfinex exchange, the number of long positions for Bitcoin USD (BTC/USD) has rapidly increased to 41,261 BTC, indicating confidence of some traders in the growth area.

Below is the relevant data for Bitcoin (BTC) and how it is looking at press time:

Looking at the 4H chart, the depletion of sellers is noticeable, which speaks in favor of short-term growth to the $7,336 level.

In order for a bullish reversal to occur, buyers need to fix the price above $7,870 (November 29th maximum). The previous attempt failed, in which the price dropped to a 2-week low of $7,072.

The opportunity for growth on the hourly and 4-hour charts is supported by the relative strength index (RSI) divergence and prices, as well as the 4-hour Moving Average Convergence/Divergence (MACD) histogram.

Looking at the daily chart, everything speaks in favor of sellers. If the bears gain a foothold below $7,087, then we can expect a retest of the $6,500 mark.

At press time, BTC is trading at $7,217.

The rest is here:

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Prediction: Expecting a Drop to $7,000 - U.Today

When Might Bitcoin Be Ready To Resume Its Bull Trend? – Yahoo Finance

Two weeks ago, Bitcoin completed a 61.8% Fibonacci retracement ($7,231.40) off the June high as it fell to a low of $6,526. That low put it 52.9% below the 2019 peak.

Bull Flag pattern

The price correction since the June high has been normal and well-constructed, forming a potential bull flag trend continuation pattern. This can be seen as the falling parallel trend channel in the enclosed charts.

BTC/USD Weekly Chart

Given the significant advance in the first half of the year, and the related signs of a trend change from bearish to bullish, Bitcoin has a good chance of eventually triggering a continuation of the new bull trend. The 2019 rally exceeded several prior swing highs and the 10-week exponential moving average (ema) crossed back above the 34-week ema.

Have we seen the bottom?

The question now is, has the bottom of the retracement been reached or might Bitcoin pullback further than it has so far? Theres no way to know this ahead of time but we can identify some important price levels to watch going forward.

As long as price stays above the $6,526 swing low, there is a chance for an upside breakout of the bull flag. If the falling trend channel is to further evolve and retain its general shape, a move up to at least the top trend line seems possible in the near-term.

BTC/USD Daily Chart

A decisive daily close above the downtrend line is the first sign that a bullish breakout of the flag could be in the works. At that point, additional signs of strength will be needed. Watch for a daily close above the most recent swing high of $10,540.49 for confirmation of a bullish breakout. There is also a monthly high at $9,600 from November. Bitcoin has not had a move above a prior month high since the June peak. A move above a prior month high would be an additional sign of a change in the downtrend pattern, to an uptrend.

If we see further weakness

Alternatively, notice that the 10-week ema has just crossed below the 34-week ema, after being above it since early-May. By itself this is bearish, and supports a bearish scenario if Bitcoin falls below the most recent swing low, thereby triggering a continuation of the downtrend off the 2019 high. If that occurs, next watch for signs of support around the $5,900 to $5,427 (78.6% Fibonacci retracement) price zone, and then for indications of a bottom and subsequent bullish reversal.

Bruce Powers, CMT

This article was originally posted on FX Empire

See the original post here:

When Might Bitcoin Be Ready To Resume Its Bull Trend? - Yahoo Finance

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

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.

See more here:

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

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

Continued here:

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

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

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.

Read more:

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

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

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

See more here:

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

Interest in Bitcoin Returned to Crypto Winter Levels – Crypto Briefing

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.

Continue reading here:

Interest in Bitcoin Returned to Crypto Winter Levels - Crypto Briefing

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

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."

See the rest here:

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