Issued on: 21/12/2020 - 11:04

In this edition, aswe enter the holiday season - a time during which NGOs launch donation campaigns and people tend to ponder more on generosity - we look at how blockchain and crypto funds are now facilitating the actof donating. We speak to the executive director of Unicef France, an agency that has been a pioneer in launching its very own crypto fund.

We also take a look at the city transport of the future. The Urbanloop project, designed by engineering students from eastern France, is a pod-like system that offers agreener and cheaper mode of transport.With the ultimate aim of ridding towns of cars, it could see the light of day as early as 2024, but first it has to pass a test to beat the world energy-saving record for an autonomous vehicle.

Our tech editor Peter O'Brien also explains that while some may see these mobility projects as futuristic, we've actually been transporting humans in tubes, on and off, for more than 150 years.

Also, how can NGOs increase their transparency to regain people's trust? Indeed, NGOs around the world receive donations through various channels. But, like everyone else, NGOs also face corruption and money-laundering accusations. We speak to Sbastien Lyon, the executive director of Unicef France about why NGOs are looking to cryptocurrencies and blockchain in a bid to address thisissue.

In Test 24, we try a system by French developer Iod that will help you prevent your data from being harvested or correlated. An easy system accessible to all, even for people who aren't tech savvy!

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Tech 24 - Charities turn to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for donations - FRANCE 24

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Bitcoin has done it again the cryptocurrency topped $20,000 Wednesday to reach its second record in three weeks and its highest level since 2017.

The digital currency has been on a tear this year and is now up more than 180%, driven in part by new institutional support and low interest rates stemming from Covid-19.

Bitcoin believers see it surging even further. Galaxy Digital CEO Michael Novogratz, a longtime cryptocurrency bull, sees bitcoin skyrocketing to as much as $55,000 or $60,000 by the end of next year in a continuation of its epic rally.

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Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, also early bitcoin investors and co-founders of Gemini, a crypto-exchange, think the currency could someday hit $500,000 as more people use it as a hedge for inflation instead of gold.

But for a majority of investors, financial planners are hesitant to advise putting a large chunk of a portfolio into bitcoin.

"It's critically important to understand the risks associated with it," said certified financial planner Douglas Boneparth, founder and president ofBone Fide Wealth in New York, adding that bitcoin is a highly speculative asset despite encouraging headlines.

"You don't need to look too far back in time to see how volatile it can be," said Boneparth, who is also a member of the CNBC Advisor Council.

Many financial advisors get questions about bitcoin from investors that don't know a lot about the cryptocurrency and have just heard about it in the news.

It can be easy to have FOMO, or fear of missing out, on the latest hot investing trend, according to Roger Ma, CFP and founder of New York-based financial planning firmlifelaidout.

It's best to keep your goals in mind before putting money into a fad investment, which could be something like bitcoin, a commodity like gold or the latest hot stock that's taking off.

That includes understanding your net worth, living expenses and credit score, said Ma. From there, he recommends assessing where you are with other prerequisites to investing do you have an emergency fund, are you paying down debt, contributing to retirement and on track for other financial goals?

Bitcoin produces no earnings, it pays no dividends, it pays no interest, so it's not really an investment in the traditional sense.

David Oransky

founder of Laminar Wealth

"What does your portfolio need to do to be able achieve your short- and long-term goals and for you to be able to lead your rich life?" said Ma. "If your plan relies on your portfolio returning 50% to 100% a year, it might make sense to rejigger your plan to make it a little more feasible."

Also keep in mind that once something is making headlines or breaking records, it could be at the end of its run and be relatively expensive meaning it's not a good time to buy in.

"The problem is that everyone wants to buy when things are at all-time highs," said Anjali Jariwala, a CFP and CPA and founder of Fit Advisors in Torrance, California. "We should have investment decisions driven by things that we can control versus having it driven by emotion or feeling towards certain investments."

To be sure, some people will still want to invest in bitcoin.

Before putting money into bitcoin, it's important to do your research and understand as much as you can about the asset class.

"Bitcoin produces no earnings, it pays no dividends, it pays no interest, so it's not really an investment in the traditional sense," said David Oransky, CFP and founder of Laminar Wealth in St. Louis. "Its value is purely dependent on what someone else is going to pay for it in the future.

We should have investment decisions driven by things that we can control versus having it driven by emotion or feeling towards certain investments

Anjali Jariwala

founder, Fit Advisors

"It's very different than investing in stocks, where you're investing in the future earnings of the company that produces goods and services."

In addition, investors should research how to actually buy into bitcoin and withdraw money, as it's not something they can get through a traditional brokerage account.

"It's still kind of the 'Wild, Wild West' out there and that should scare people that don't know a lot about it," said Oransky.

Once you've done your research and know you want to invest, financial advisors say that bitcoin shouldn't be a major part of your portfolio. Instead, it should be a less than 5% position that's thought of more as play money to be allocated toward fun investing and not tied to a goal such as retirement.

"It helps a person get their fix without disrupting their financial plan and achieving their financial goals," said Ma.

If you do want to have a bit of play money in your investment account, make sure it's an amount you're comfortable with going to zero, said Oransky.

"If you want to buy a lottery ticket and this is the ticket you want to buy, that's fine," he said.

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Bitcoin just hit $20,000 for the first time ever. Should you invest? - CNBC

This weeks sustained rise in initial jobless claims will be concerning news for investors.

Despite brighter days on the horizon, the economic recovery has narrowed and economic growth in the near term is likely to struggle. While the terms of a potential fiscal relief package are still very much up in the air, it may not be enough to help some industries and companies survive through the winter.

Overall, there is optimism about the long-term outlook for the economy but caution still remains in the near term. The coronavirus continues to spread at a rapid pace, with an increase in hospitalizations and deaths unfortunately following close behind.

The success of vaccine trials has boosted enthusiasm about a sooner-than-expected rebound in economic growth. However, any rebound will likely not be allocated equally among all sectors of the economy, and many things need to go right, including a smooth distribution process, no manufacturing or supply chain hiccups and widespread adoption of the vaccine.

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Bitcoin hits record high over $23,000; US jobless claim surge as it happened - The Guardian

Many cryptocurrencies have been developed after the invention of bitcoin, but it is one of the most demanded and appreciated crypto assets. Crypto enthusiasts appreciate both bitcoin and blockchain, and this has inspired a lot of developers to invest time and efforts in developing a cryptocurrency like bitcoin. The bitcoin market is unstable and highly unpredictable, but the rise in bitcoins value has pleased investors and attracted them towards the mining process. To understand more about this digital currency, search bitcoin circuit, and learn about it for trading.

The increasing popularity and value of bitcoin have attracted investors and traders, and undoubtedly businesses and agencies have started accepting bitcoin as a medium of exchange. Still, there are some of the challenges that the bitcoin community needs to overcome, which are as follows:

List of Challenges that must be overcome includes:

Less supportive mobile platform

Undoubtedly many businesses and agencies have started supporting bitcoins, but it is quite shocking to see that the tech-giants companies still do not support bitcoin on mobile platforms. In fact, tech giants like Google and Apply are deciding to ban a bitcoin wallets applications on their App Store. Even after knowing that tech-giants are not supporting bitcoins, some developers are still creating bitcoin wallet applications and harming the economic ecosystem.

The popular and well-renowned companies are not participating in deals of bitcoin. They are a helping hand for the government as they are using their powers in not regulating bitcoin by not providing them a platform. This is quite a challenge for bitcoin users because bitcoin is an outstanding payment method that allows fast and easy transactions. It allows users to easily send and receive bitcoin using mobile wallets instead of going to bank accounts to carry out the transactions.

Dawdling Transactions

The biggest challenge that the bitcoin network is facing is the long time that is taken by the system to process the bitcoin transactions. This prevents businesses from accepting crypto tokens. The challenge of dawdling transaction occurs when the transaction is processed on the blockchain. The average time that a bitcoin transaction takes to get verified is around 43 minutes. The main reason behind the dawdling transactions is the transaction cost fee that is for people who want to get their transactions to verify first.

Users who dont pay the transaction fee need to wait for hours to complete their transactions. For instance, when you go to a retail store to buy something, you pay for that item with bitcoin. The transaction is required to be verified first on the blockchain, and miners do this task. The miners are the specialized computers that use specialized computing power to solve the complicated mathematical algorithms to verify the transactions and mine new coins.

Costly Transactions

The bitcoin transactions are subject to the transaction cost fee, which creates a pending line of transactions. The transactions are implemented according to the transaction fee that is paid to verify the transaction fast. Users who want to complete their transaction need first to pay an extra transaction fee to get it completed. This will, in turn, make the transaction expensive gratuitously. Businesses hesitate to accept bitcoin as a payment method because of the slow and costly transactions it offers. Due to this issue, people are switching to other methods or currencies to complete transactions quickly and easily.

Less privacy

Another major challenge that bitcoin users face is the lack of privacy. Each transaction is recorded on a distributed public ledger, i.e., on the blockchain, making users switch from bitcoin to other cryptocurrencies. People trust bitcoin because they have heard of a misconception that says bitcoin is a private system. But the reality is completely different, and users must understand that the bitcoin network is anonymous but not completely private.

In reality, bitcoin transactions are hashed and not encrypted, and this makes all the transactions available for analysis and public scrutiny. People consider it a privacy concern that must be linked to bitcoin transactions. Many wallets and other projects have reported less privacy, and therefore, it is important to know the wallets and choose the one carefully.

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What are the challenges faced by Bitcoin and its users and need to be overcome? - Blog - The Island Now

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Ritholtz and Brown are impresarios of the Twitterverse and the presiding geniuses behind the fast-growing Ritholtz Wealth Management. In a recent talk with Barrons, they talked about their market views and the charms of direct indexing. Here, in an edited outtake from the interview, the two discuss the allure of Tesla, Bitcoin, and special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs).

Barrons: In a wild year, some wild investments captured investors imagination. Tesla (TSLA) has shot up 731% so far this year; Bitcoin reached an all-time high of more than $23,000, and SPACsshell companies created to go public in order to acquire a private company, became the hottest mechanism in M&A. Whats going on?

Brown:Jack Bogle [founder of Vanguard and inventor of the index fund] has done more for the profession of asset management and individual investors than Warren Buffett, but one of the things that bothered me about his acolytes and the puritanical movement around indexing in general, its how it doesnt allow for the idea that sometimes people just feel like speculating, because they want to. Its their money. Its their life. We of course want to play around with Tesla. So I think that stuff has a place in portfolios.

Lets start with your thoughts on Bitcoin.

Brown: Whether or not Bitcoin increases in prominence among institutional investors and then trickles down into individuals wealth management accounts, remains to be seen. I can completely picture it. Bitcoin could be the next generation version of gold, but that part of the story is not as interesting, and were not building positions in Bitcoin [based on] that. Right now financial advisors are terrified to add cryptocurrencies, because nobody wants to be the first one to get sued for blowing up a clients account with Bitcoin.

And SPACs? These shell companies reemerged as a way to take private companies public without going through the traditional vetting an initial public offering requires. SPACs dont have a great track recordare they as risky as they used to be?

Brown: Theyre actually extremely conservative. Theyre basically piles of cash. So hedge funds can buy them and [say] theyre invested. But theyre not invested. They own cash with an option to become invested. They can flip it the day of an announced deal, or even vote against the deal. So its a clever way for managers who are expected to put money to work, but dont have ideas or dont want to take that much risk. SPACs are speculative if you hold them past the point that they make their acquisition, because then you are investing in a business that was vetted essentially by one investor, rather than a traditional IPO roadshow. Had Nikola (NKLA) tried to go public as a traditional IPO, it never would have made it.

Ritholtz: Why should SPACs follow any different type of performance distribution than mutual funds or ETFs or hedge funds? Ninety percent of everything is junk.

Brown: Their historical performance is atrocious. Its because the type of company that historically did the SPAC wasnt good enough to warrant their own traditional idea. Now, I am somewhat sympathetic to the idea that a SPAC is professionalizing. But not all of them.

Ritholtz: Theyre competing with each other for the same handful of things.

What are your thoughts on Tesla, which just entered the S&P 500?

Ritholtz: Everybody looks at Tesla wrong. Teslas already shifted the paradigm. Theyve already won. Whatever happens with the stock price of Tesla is almost irrelevant. I did an analysis recently that looked at the 10 most valuable car manufacturers. About half their value comes from the electric car side. Traditional automakers are thinking were not going to let Elon Musk do to us what Jeff Bezos has done to booksellers and retailers.

Tesla and Bitoin represented totally different things. Tesla is basically a recognition that no matter what the president says, the world is shifting towards renewable and green energy. Look at the price of coal under an anti-green president. Look at the price of oil. The market has already decided this new technology is the future. Ultimately its going to be Mercedes (DAI.Germany), BMW (BMW.Germany), Honda (HMC), Volkswagen (VOW.Germany), and Toyota (TM) are going to be worlds leading electric car producers.

Brown: I find it funny that a huge swath of the industry thinks its more conservative to have held ExxonMobil (XOM) over the last 10 years, [which is essentially] deliberate climate science denialand that actively trying to address climate science [via Tesla], thats the speculative play. As weve learned, Exxon is now a shell of its former self. The idea that it could hang onto oil forever was more speculative than the idea we could build batteries.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Continued here:
Ritholz and Brown Riff on Tesla, Bitcoin, and SPACs - Barron's

Bitcoin remains red hot. While the cryptocurrency was flat on Friday, bulls have to be happy with the way its holding up.

For a volatile asset like bitcoin, the word flat isnt often used to describe its price action. But thats what we have on Friday after a 9.9% rally on Wednesday and another 6.8% gain on Thursday. The move sent bitcoin to an all-time high.

Some investors expected bitcoin prices to unwind a bit. Thats after it rallied as much as 11.3% on Thursday before its gains were cut down.

It looked like an exhausted rally as bitcoin had rallied for six straight sessions into Dec. 17. The start of that rally can be traced back to the Dec. 11 low near $17,570.

Bitcoin promptly rallied more than $6,200 to Thursdays high, a gain of 35.3%.

Earlier this year, legendary trader Paul Tudor Jones called bitcoin the fastest horse as he was looking for investments to benefit due to money printing, low rates and other liquidity-boosting efforts made by the Federal Reserve and other central banks.

I guess he was right.

Weekly chart of bitcoin prices.

Chart courtesy of TrendSpider.com

I dont think Thursdays rally marked an exhaustive point in bitcoin - at least, not long term.

On the weekly chart above, we have a simple layout that helps explain the various rallies and pauses.

Bitcoin has been in a strong uptrend since bottoming in March. Ultimately the 200-week moving average wavered as support, but held up well under duress.

From there, we had a breakout over $10,000 and then bitcoin held that level as support. For a bullish trader, that is an excellent development in price action.

Bitcoin then flew higher, up toward the prior all-time high just below $20,000. Naturally, bitcoin stalled near this level as it approached the prior highs. Further, the 161.8% extension from the March low to the preceding 2019 high was in play near $19,800.

Upon pushing through this area with great force, bitcoin tagged the two-times range extension at $23,528.

So what now?

I dont know if well get it but a pullback toward $20,000 would be an excellent development. It doesn't have to hit $20,000, but just a notable dip could be an opportunity.

Not only would it give buyers another chance to load up the truck, but it could show that prior resistance is now support like we saw with the $10,000 level. Plus, it would allow bitcoin to digest a bit after a big run in a short amount of time.

If the $20,000 area fails as support, it will put the 10-week moving average in play.

If bitcoin can take out the current high up at $23,630, then the 261.8% extension may be the next target up near $29,562.

See the article here:
How Bitcoin Can Rally to $30,000 - TheStreet

After testing investor patience for three weeks, bitcoin surged past $20,000 to reach fresh all-time highs and is currently trading above $21,000.

The number one cryptocurrency by market value jumped over the key psychological threshold during the early U.S. trading hours, surpassing the previous peak price of $19,920 recorded on Dec. 1. At the current price of $21,123, bitcoin is up 8.8% over 24 hours, according to CoinDesks Bitcoin Price Index (BPI).

Bitcoins value has doubled in the past three months and the institutional-led rally looks sustainable. Meanwhile, other prominent cryptocurrencies such as ether, litecoin and XRP are still down 58% to 88% from their respective lifetime highs reached three years ago.

When this [rally to near $20,000] happened in 2017, there was a real lack of products for the new converts to experience, whereas today there are endless uses, protocols, services across farming, lending, standard trading, etc, Soravis Srinawakoon, CEO and co-founder of cross-chain data oracle Band Protocol told CoinDesk. Therefore, wed expect to see the new adopters hang around this time.

Breaking above $20,000, which represented a significant hurdle in the mindset of most traders, is entirely new ground for bitcoin and opens the doors for a climb to $100,000 over the course of 2021, according to some.

That rise would bode well for other crypto sectors as well, including decentralized finance (DeFi), according to DversiFis CEO Ross Middleton.

Bitcoin profits are partially recycled back into other smaller tokens later in the bull cycle. In 2017 that was other blockchains such as Ripple, Litecoin and EOS, said Middleton. However, this time around, funds are likely to flow into the new crop of DeFi blue-chip projects, built on Ethereum.

DeversiFis CEO pointed to DeFi protocols Aave, Compound, Synthetix and Yearn Finance as his picks of where the capital could flow.

And while bitcoin is now up over 180% on a year-to-date basis, gold has added just over 22%. Bitcoin, often touted as digital gold, has decoupled from the yellow metal this quarter with a more than 80% rally. Meanwhile, gold has suffered a 1% drop, with investorspulling money out ofexchange-traded funds.

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Bitcoin Tops $21K, Blowing Past $20K Record as Analysts Remain Confident of Future - CoinDesk - CoinDesk

Bitcoin prices neared $19,000 today, after climbing from roughly $17,600 yesterday. (Photo by ... [+] Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Bitcoin prices approached $19,000 today, moving closer to hitting a fresh, all-time high at a time when institutional investors are increasingly taking an interest in the space.

The worlds largest digital currency by market value reached as much as $18,956.34 around 5:45 p.m. EST, according to CoinDesk data.

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At this point, it was up close to 8% from the recent low of $17,593.17 it hit yesterday morning, additional CoinDesk figures show.

Further, the digital asset was trading roughly 5% below the all-time high of $19,920.53 it attained earlier this month.

[Ed note: Investing in cryptocoins or tokens is highly speculative and the market is largely unregulated. Anyone considering it should be prepared to lose their entire investment.]

Bitcoin has spent much of the last few weeks fluctuating between $18,000 and $20,000, and the latest rally took place after the cryptocurrency fell below $17,600 yesterday and then proceeded to climb.

When explaining these latest gains, analysts pointed to technical support and the impact of recent developments involving institutional investors.

Marouane Garcon, managing director of crypto-to-crypto derivatives platformAmulet, commented on the digital assets latest price movements, describing $18,000 as an accurate support level.

Tim Enneking,managing director ofDigital Capital Management, also provided some input, emphasizing that:

There is a lot of space between $13.7k and $19.8k with very little technical ammunition to determine support and resistance levels simply because, historically, the price has spent an immaterial amount of time in that range. Therefore, traders naturally gravitate toward numbers which end in a lot of zeros.

He noted that many of the fluctuations we have seen this month have involved bulls and bears pushing the digital asset between price levels like $18,000 and $19,000.

The cryptocurrencys latest price movements have taken place against a backdrop of institutional adoption, with the most recent example being insurance giant MassMutuals decision to buy $100 million worth of bitcoin for its portfolio.

To add to this, Ray Dalio, and founder, co-chairman and co-chief investment officer of hedge fund Bridewater Associates, recently generated headlines for taking a more optimistic stance on bitcoin.

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During a Reddit ask me anything session that took place on December 8, Dalio stated that:

I think that bitcoin (and some other digital currencies) have over the last ten years established themselves as interesting gold-like asset alternatives, with similarities and differences to gold and other limited-supply, mobile (unlike real estate) storeholds of wealth.

John Todaro, director of institutional research forTradeBlock, described these developments nicely:

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Institutional investors and traders remain open and interested in bitcoinarguably the most open they have been in the history of the asset, which continues to be a positive.

Disclosure: I own some bitcoin, bitcoin cash, litecoin, ether and EOS.

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Bitcoin Flirts With $19,000 As Institutional Interest Grows - Forbes

Photo by Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images

Bitcoin has slowed its roll since hitting 20,000. After surging 70% in two months, King Crypto is about 9% off the intraday all-time high.

It doesn't show signs of reversing just yet, but it is having some trouble breaking out through the 2017 record and that's notable. Bitcoin did in fact trade at an all-time record for a brief moment, but technical analysts like to draw lines with markers instead of pens for a good reason. Right now, the best way to describe the action is that bitcoin is testing its all-time high it hasn't broken out yet, and that means there is still some tension in this market.

In an article this weekend in Barron's, Niall Ferguson made the bullish case for bitcoin. He, like almost every other bitcoin believer I've ever spoken with, cites a critical piece of crypto canon:

You could argue, if you were a skeptic like my old friend Nouriel Roubini, that this is just another bubble. But the adoption of a new financial technology tends to be quite volatile, and each time Bitcoin rallies and then folds, it folds to a higher level than the time before.

In other words, bitcoin must trend higher. This is why the next move is so crucial. The bitcoin bible states very clearly that bitcoin needs to make a new high in this latest push after 2018's crash. Its already put in a higher-low, which is good, but failure to breach above 20k would be a major problem for the bullish bitcoin narrative.

It would also be a red flag to stock investors.

That's because bitcoin's strongest use-case is still as a gauge of risk tolerance in the marketplace. Even the most devout bitcoin believers will tell you to always be ready for a 10-20% pullback at any time, and that inherently makes it a risky asset, since most people cannot tolerate that kind of volatility. Bitcoin has the potential to one day be a store of value, and the believers argue this boom-bust cycle is a critical setup for that future. In my opinion, that future has indeed become more compelling lately. But the probability of it is still so low that we have to consider it a high-risk asset an effective lotto ticket for investors. Even if the odds of adoption doubled, say from 2% to 4% (dont hate me, coiners), it's still very low.

In this context, it's not surprising to see bitcoin trying to break through all-time highs, and having trouble, at the exact same time the Nasdaq NDAQ is doing the same. And equally no coincidence that this is all happening amid near-records in just about every gauge of investor sentiment or positioning right now.

So if 1) bitcoin fails to break out to new highs, it should make tech-stock bulls second-guess their own confidence. This most likely holds the other way around too if 2) bitcoin does take another leg higher, stocks are likely in the clear, too. If 3) bitcoin breaks down but stocks don't, it's likely a huge vote of confidence that the economic recovery is stable and strong. And if 4) bitcoin breaks out to new highs but stocks break down, that would be a huge event that I would argue makes bitcoin a must-own asset. More on that if we get there.

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Why Every Investor Should Be Watching Bitcoin - Forbes

Bitcoin on a mound of gold.

bodnarchuk | iStock Editorial | Getty Images

Increased appetite from institutional investors for bitcoin is set to boost inflows to funds that give traders exposure to the red-hot cryptocurrency to the detriment of gold, according to strategists at J.P. Morgan.

Bitcoin has been on a tear this year, rallying more than 150% year-to-date and outperforming a host of major assets including U.S. stock indexes like the Dow Jones Industrial Average and gold.

Cryptocurrency enthusiasts say it's down to unprecedented stimulus from the U.S. and other global governments.

Investors often look to gold as a so-called "safe haven" in times of economic turbulence, to hedge against potential losses in the event of a market downturn.

Several bitcoin bulls have described the virtual currency as "digital gold," given its strong performance in 2020 despite the Covid-19 crisis.

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JPMorgan: Gold will suffer as institutional investors flock to bitcoin - CNBC