Miner profitability metrics are based on a handful of factors regulating difficulty and emission, which are hard-coded into the blockchains attributes, making it predictable to work with. While predictability does not always immediately translate into profitability, it gives a blockchain certain parameters to rely on when predicting when mining cryptocurrency will become profitable, at which price level, and at which difficulty level during the emission cycle.

Some cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin (BTC), go through emission cycles with events such as the halving. In Bitcoins case, halvings occur once every 210,000 blocks roughly every four years until the maximum supply of 21 million Bitcoin has been mined.

This feature, self-adjusting difficulty, provides an incentive for an individual miner to join or leave the network depending on the current Bitcoin price level. Together, these incentives create a logarithmic price regression curve, which represents a probable Bitcoin exchange rate and, therefore, predictability of profitability in the current emission cycle. If Bitcoins price falls under this regression curve where the bottom line is roughly around the 200-week moving average in this emission cycle, nearly all of the miners should be at a net loss. If the price stays above this figure, at least some of the miners should be at a net profit.

Bitcoin mining difficulty is currently at an all-time high between 110 and 120 million terahashes per second, indicating that a lot of new mining capacity has been added to the network, but since the price hasnt fully recovered from the dip caused by the emergence of COVID-19, we should expect most of the miners being temporarily at a loss. However, should Bitcoins price rise back up again into the current emission cycle and go into a bull run, the economic risk miners would have taken at that point should be greatly rewarded.

Ethereum mining has been, for a while, among the most profitable in the altcoin space primarily because of the high average price of its token. However, Ethereum as a network has a primary focus on building a blockchain with a slightly different purpose compared to Bitcoin. Ethereum is a smart contract platform. While mining has previously supported the network in the phase where it isnt widely used for transactions, in the future, the network will be compelled to take on staking nodes as validators in order to provide sufficient transaction capacity. In the long run, this may have a positive effect on mining if we assume that mining will be phased out gradually. A substantial amount of coins are predicted to be locked in staking, which is going to drive up the price.

Staking is a mechanism that allows users to deposit some of their coins into a staking address owned by a validator node and locks them for a period of time. The validator node then secures the network by producing blocks relative to the number of coins deposited in it. The blocks are produced according to a hard-coded voting mechanism that calculates the staking reward from the total amount of coins staked in the network for each node.

Related: ETH Miners Will Have Little Choice Once Ethereum 2.0 Launches With PoS

The price of electricity is a defining factor in miner profitability. Currently, most industrial miners reside in countries with cheap electricity on power purchasing agreements with electricity producers ranging from hydropower to solar. However, most retail miners mostly depend on retail price fluctuations and have to calculate this factor into their investments. Moreover, the price of electricity isnt a factor when mining profitable altcoins with GPU rigs.

Equipment prices tend to fluctuate according to price cycles. At the bottom of each cycle, buying equipment is relatively affordable, but toward each cycle peak, equipment may not be affordable but also unavailable. At this point, it would likely be profitable to take a moderate risk in mining, especially in GPU mining. Regarding profitability alone, mining Bitcoin would probably require an investment beyond the reach of most retail miners on the initial cost to be remarkable at the peak of this emission cycle.

Apart from only turning a profit, mining is a way to produce coins with no prior history. For users who care about their privacy, mining represents economic freedom, making a means of payment with no ties to a specific entity accessible. This unique feature is only present in proof-of-work cryptocurrencies and connects many people on the fringes of society with often legitimate use cases to the wider world, acting as a guarantor of human and social rights.

For some organizations, maintaining a blockchain at a nominal loss can act as an investment either by supporting profitable services or by maintaining infrastructure to run services for public use. In legacy systems, this type of arrangement is comparable to public service, or a utility.

While utility provision can be an advantage for a network of entities running on a permissioned blockchain or a PoW blockchain intended for a well-defined use, on open public blockchains, in the long run, miners can be assumed to operate on a profit motive. With difficulty adjustments and profitability in public blockchains with significant utility value such as Bitcoin, mining can be seen as a profitable business in the foreseeable future.

The only credible factor that may upset the status quo in mining PoW cryptocurrencies at the moment seems to be the theoretical introduction of widespread quantum computing with enough accessible tools to create an incentive to attack public blockchains. However, this kind of risk can be exaggerated because quantum computing proof algorithms exist and are likely to be developed precisely to mitigate a risk arising from this quite predictable factor.

In this light, mining will probably not become profitable in the upcoming bull market, but more relevant in ways that are not only economically.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Iskander Khasanov is a crypto miner and trader. He established himself first as a real estate entrepreneur and then became involved in the cryptocurrency business in 2016. Iskander is the director at Crypto Accelerator community and shares ideas of mass adoption of cryptocurrency.

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Cryptocurrency Mining Profitability in 2020: Is It Possible? - Cointelegraph

Most people use either an app, an online platform, or a small hardware device as a wallet to store their cryptocurrency safely. The exchanges through which cryptocurrency changes hands, though, and other high stakes operations need something more like a massive digital bank vault. At the Black Hat security conference on Thursday, researchers detailed potential weaknesses in these specially secured wallet schemes, including some that affected real exchanges that have now been fixed.

The attacks aren't the digital equivalent of jackhammering a weak point on a safe or blowing up a lock. They're more like opening an old-timey bank vault with six keys that all have to turn at the same time. Breaking cryptocurrency private keys into smaller chunks similarly means an attacker has to cobble them together first to steal funds. But unlike distributing physical keys, the cryptographic mechanisms that underly multiparty key management are complex and difficult to implement correctly. Mistakes could be costly.

"These organizations are managing a lot of money, so they have quite high privacy and security requirements," says Jean-Philippe Aumasson, cofounder of the cryptocurrency exchange technology firm Taurus Group and vice president at Kudelski Security. "They need a way to split the cryptocurrency private keys into different components, different shares, so no party ever knows the full key and there isn't a single point of failure. But we found some flaws in how these schemes are set up that are not just theoretical. They could really have been carried out by a malicious party."

For the work, Aumasson, a cryptographer, validated and refined vulnerability discoveries made by Omer Shlomovits, cofounder of the mobile wallet maker ZenGo. The findings break down into three categories of attacks.

The first would require an insider at a cryptocurrency exchange or other financial institution exploiting a vulnerability in an open-source library produced by a prominent cryptocurrency exchange that the researchers declined to name. The attack takes advantage of a flaw in the library's mechanism for refreshing, or rotating, keys. In distributed key schemes, you don't want the secret key or its components to stay the same forever, because over time an attacker could slowly compromise each part and eventually reassemble it. But in the vulnerable library, the refresh mechanism allowed one of the key holders to initiate a refresh and then manipulate the process so some components of the key actually changed and others stayed the same. While you couldn't merge chunks of an old and new key, an attacker could essentially cause a denial of service, permanently locking the exchange out of its own funds.

Most distributed key schemes are set up so only a predetermined majority of the chunks of a key need to be present to authorize transactions. That way the key isn't lost entirely if one portion is accidentally eliminated or destroyed. The researchers point out that an attacker could use this fact to extort money from a target, letting enough portions of the key refreshincluding the one they controlthat they can contribute their portion and restore access only if the victim pays a price.

The researchers disclosed the flaw to the library developer a week after the code went live, so it's unlikely that any exchanges had time to incorporate the library into their systems. But because it was in an open-source library, it could have found its way into numerous financial institutions.

In the second scenario, an attacker would focus on the relationship between an exchange and its customers. Another flaw in the key rotation process, in which it fails to validate all of the statements the two parties make to each other, could allow an exchange with malicious motivations to slowly extract the private keys of its users over multiple key refreshes. From there a rogue exchange could initiate transactions to steal cryptocurrency from its customers. This could also be carried out quietly by an attacker who first compromises an exchange. The flaw is another open-source library, this time from an unnamed key management firm. The firm does not use the library in its own offerings, but the vulnerability could have been incorporated elsewhere.

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Flaws Could Have Exposed Cryptocurrency Exchanges to Hackers - WIRED

A new computing breakthrough may just save Bitcoin and cryptocurrency from powerful quantum machines that have the potential to breach public-key cryptography.

Researchers are following the development of a new measure known as lattice-based cryptography that promises to make crypto technology more quantum-proof, reports MIT Technology Review.

Lattice-based cryptography may neutralize the massive computational capabilities of quantum computers by hiding data inside complex geometric structures that contain a grid of infinite dots that are spread across thousands of dimensions. The security measure appears to be virtually impenetrable even with the use of powerful quantum computers unless one holds the key.

The emergence of quantum computing machines has grabbed headlines over the past few months as the technology poses a threat to cryptographic algorithms that keep cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin as well as the internet at large secure. The World Economic Forum explains how quantum computers can break current standards of encryption.

The sheer calculating ability of a sufficiently powerful and error-corrected quantum computer means that public-key cryptography is destined to fail, and would put the technology used to protect many of todays fundamental digital systems and activities at risk.

MIT Technology Review says that while the current iterations are not yet ready for implementation, the solution is promising, especially as a post-quantum future is fast approaching. Ripple CTO David Schwartz says he believes developers have at least eight years until the technology, which leverages the properties of quantum physics to perform fast calculations, becomes sophisticated enough to crack cryptocurrency.

I think we have at least eight years. I have very high confidence that its at least a decade before quantum computing presents a threat, but you never know when there could be a breakthrough. Im a cautious and concerned observer, I would say.

Featured Image: Shutterstock/archy13

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Will This Quantum Computing Breakthrough Save Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency? - The Daily Hodl

Crypto cards have become a must-have for many crypto services. Hoping to reduce the risk of blocking transactions, companies have been looking again and again for reason why their customers should use plastic. But a crypto card is a placebo that does not solve the problems of either users or fintech companies its only goal is to bring profit to payment systems and intermediaries.

Crypto cards are not needed in the same way that special financial instruments are not needed to buy gold, oil, precious metals or any other resource. The word cryptocurrency like dollar or euro indicates only the currency for transactions with which the card can be used and does not make the banking product any more innovative. However, until banks and payment systems recognize this, we will be forced to eliminate the consequences of cooperation with Wirecard, WaveCrest and other processors that arent the most conscientious, wanting to make money by taking risks but without being able to manage them.

Bank card technologies have gone through a rapid evolutionary path in a very short period of time. They are the fundamental and connecting element for all retail trade relationships. According to Nilson Report, there are currently more than 22 billion payment cards in circulation around the world debit, credit and prepaid. Taking into account that 1.7 billion people do not use banking services at all, for each of the remaining 6 billion people, there are on average 3.6 cards.

All cards are serviced by payment systems that create a closed consumption ecosystem. Heres what happens:

Banks and processor companies pay Visa, Mastercard, UnionPay, American Express and other international payment systems for the possibility of issuing cards.

Cardholders pay banks an annual fee or transaction fees.

Sellers transfer to banks on average 1%4% of the transaction amount for acquiring servicing.

Various intermediaries, aggregators, API providers, etc. also collect a commission.

The main thing is that in each commission payment between all participants, a share of Visa, Mastercard or another payment system is included. If we are talking about cryptocurrency transactions, then the commission of payment systems will be higher, since the traditional financial industry regards these transactions as high-risk.

And yet, bank cards are almost indispensable for transactions worth up to $5,000. This is the fastest and most convenient way to buy crypto from numerous wallets and/or exchanges. Therefore, it would be naive to think that fintech companies could quickly get rid of the intermediation of payment systems and stop paying them for every transaction.

Nevertheless, Visa and Mastercard can do a lot to make their native cards much friendlier to crypto and become a part of the solution, not part of the problem, which Wirecard has been trying to get around, making this kind of change seem inevitable.

Today, when the volume of non-cash payments in many countries has surpassed cash payments, any company wanting to issue bank cards under its own brand, in theory, has three options.

1. Become a principal (direct) participant in the international system. To do this, you need to meet a number of mandatory criteria: have the necessary technological platform and qualified personnel, meet information security requirements, provide security funds, etc.

For example, last year, a principal Visa participant had to have capital of at least $56 million directly with the Visa payment system. Therefore, you need to have an account in United States dollars in the U.S. or in euro in the European Union. The licensing procedure itself can cost about $1 million, excluding the funds required for the security deposit and direct royalties. This is not a realistic option for small and medium fintech companies.

2. Become an associated member of the payment system through the sponsoring bank. In this case, it is the bank that takes care of the compliance with the payment system requirements. The license fee is $200,000$300,000, plus a deposit of several million dollars.

However, even under such conditions, financial organizations do not want to directly cooperate with crypto companies since transactions with cryptocurrency are classified by payment systems as high-risk due to the lack of a unified approach to regulating this area. This results in higher fees and chargebacks for transactions that have been challenged by the cardholder.

3. Contact a processing company. Unlike banks, processors are responsible for issuing payment cards. Among such processors, crypto services usually find partners with a high-risk appetite that are willing to cooperate. Such companies are ready to use various tricks so that payments passing through them are not blocked by the payment system. For example:

Conceal or falsify before the payment system the main activity of the company for which the issue occurs.

Use incorrect Merchant Category Codes.

Issue crypto cards on their own Bank Identification Number, while according to the rules of payment systems, a separate BIN must be allocated for each individual product.

Issue co-branded cryptocurrency cards, which are, in fact, bank cards with an individual design and are then sold through a crypto service.

Expand the limits of card transactions, regardless of the requirements of payment systems and/or the regulator, etc.

All of these are often unjustified risks that processors like Wirecard take on, increasing the cost of issuing and maintaining crypto cards for both crypto services and end-users. Meanwhile, the value of these crypto cards continues to depreciate.

Until recently, people were forced to buy a fourth or even fifth payment card, only for the sake of the crypto prefix in order to save their money from being blocked during operations with cryptocurrency. However, regulated crypto services have already learned to tackle this problem differently by acting strictly within the framework of compliance requirements and forging links with traditional financial institutions.

High-risk processors like Wirecard or Wavecrest can be compared to microfinance institutions, or MFIs, that lend out at huge interest rates. Usually, people turn to MFIs after numerous and not always objective refusals by banks to issue a loan. Sometimes, the money is needed urgently, and the consideration of the application in the bank is delayed; sometimes the banks scoring system does not like the place of work, marital status or the gender of a person. There may be many reasons, but the result is the same: The bank does not want to take risks and people go to less discerning financial intermediaries. Crypto services are forced to do this, too.

A cryptocurrency card is a ridiculous, temporary and forced necessity because banks and payment systems do not want to manage risks on their own. All the risks that Wirecard once assumed when working with crypto companies are now easily eliminated.

Licensing of activities in the field of cryptocurrencies, the implementation of KYC/AML procedures, obtaining a compliance certificate of the payment card industry data security standards and other measures allow crypto services to successfully work with the traditional financial system.

Banks should have the courage to start making money by partnering with regulated crypto services. And for this, above all else, it is necessary to develop internal expertise in the field of compliance. As bank employees have had little motivation to deal with the peculiarities of high-risk transactions, it is easier for them to refuse service to potential clients and/or stop transactions.

However, if a banks compliance service monitors and skips high-risk transactions on a regular and systematic basis, this will create additional cash flow, from which banks could also receive commissions. I am sure that cryptocurrency users right to dispose of honestly received assets should be ensured in an absolutely transparent, legal way, and not by gray schemes. Any card can be crypto, and this is the reality we should all be living in sooner rather than later.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Alex Axelrod is the founder and CEO of Aximetria and Pay Reverse. He is also a serial entrepreneur with over a decade of experience in leading world-class technological roles within a large, number-one national mobile operator and leading financial organizations. Prior to these roles, he was the director of big data at the research and development center of JSFC AFK Systems.

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Cryptocurrency Cards: An Unnecessary Solution That Should Be Stopped - Cointelegraph

Down-in-class runners, CRYPTOCURRENCY, TOP SHELF and BASTUSROL, competing on claim tags for the first time ever, face in-form POLLY B at five furlongs round in Saturdays $850,000-800,000 optional claiming event at Caymanas Park.

POLLY B made all at the level,at five and a half furlongs, two Saturdays ago, beating MR UNIVERSE in fast splits of 22.2 and 45.3. However, at 118lb, POLLY B is too close in the scale with CRYPTOCURRENCY, TOP SHELF and BALTUSROL, runners who have been keeping better company.

BALTUSROL and CRYPTOCURRENCY, especially, are strong early runners. Oneil Mullings is aboard CRYPTOCURRENCY, who led super-fit run-on sprinter PRINCE CHARLES on June 27 before resorting to her habit of hauling up.

Last Saturday, CRYPTOCURRENCY was matching strides with FATHER PATRICK before being squeezed for space near the half-mile marker.

Should CRYPTOCURRENCY run an honest race, similar to her recent effort behind two return winners, 2000 Guineas champion, WOW WOW, and UNIVERSAL BOSS, she will be a tough horse to beat in the second of nine races scheduled.

First post is 1:00 pm.

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Cryptocurrency the one to beat in optional claiming event - Loop News Jamaica

If you are one of these traders who are looking for crypto exchanges, this article is for you.

The cryptocurrency market is having the best time of the year. Bitcoin keeps going higher, and many smaller-cap altcoins have been doing very well as well. Analysts predict that crypto exchanges and Bitcoin are ready for massive growth, and things start to get real this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Yes, there are not many industries that can grow during the time of the pandemic. When the mainstream economy looks worse as time goes by, the cryptocurrency space has been growing slowly but surely. After crypto big drop back in early March, things started to recover since then. In fact, BTC price has recently been doing better than before the infamous March drop.

Following the Bitcoin price, many altcoins are also enjoying the time of their life. Many crypto traders now start to look for alternative crypto exchanges to get a better deal out of their pockets. We have more Bitcoins coming into crypto exchanges more than coming out of them.

So, if you are one of these traders who are looking for crypto exchanges, you might want to read this article further. Here are the five most promising cryptocurrency exchanges in the world right now.

WhiteBIT is one of the most promising crypto exchanges right now. It offers fiat-to-crypto with Euro (EUR), Ukrainian Hryvnia (UAH), Russian Ruble (RUB), and Turkish Lira (TL) coming soon. It also offers a full-fledged derivatives trading market with 5x leverage (they plan to expand the maximum leverage to 15x in the near future). Its rare to see a crypto exchange that offers a full-fledged derivatives market while still allowing fiat-to-crypto at the same time.

Whats even better is that their crypto withdrawal only takes minutes to process even though they store 95% of all crypto assets in cold wallets. They care about their users security while still honoring withdrawal requests as fast as possible. As of now, WhiteBIT has over 180,000 users, around 35,000 of which are trading actively every day.

Level01 is a P2P exchange that is working on decentralizing the vast derivatives market. The platform allows users to trade in a fair and secure environment using its revolutionary artificial intelligence algorithm known as FairSense.

The algorithm helps users trade like professionals by estimating the actual market value for the contracts they seek to trade and providing them with real-time fair price value for all that are participating in the asset market. The exchange allows for quick trade executions that are settled by smart contracts using a hybrid trading engine that matches trades on cloud serves. Users can trade derivatives and options in Forex, digital currencies, stocks, commodities, and indices on the platform.

Users need a Tradeline within the level01 app, which allows them to add assets from their private wallets into the platform to fund trades. Currently, the app accepts ETH, stablecoins USDT, TUSD, DAI, and its native token LVX. The token is now on offer on Digifinex with a USDT pairing (LVX-USDT), with a BTC pairing coming soon. LVX was added on CoinMarketCap.com last month and has been one of the best performers with an ROI of 68% since publication on CMC.

Nominex is a fast-growing crypto exchange that allows users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies with minimal risk. Registration on the platform is quite simple, and the platform requires no KYC to trade up to 3 BTC. On the exchange, users can buy crypto using credit cards with fast deposits and withdrawals. The platform stores 99% of all funds using multisig cold wallets, and users can set two-factor authentications to secure their accounts.

Also, users have access to advanced order types and can trade 13 coins with 31 pairings. The platform charges low commissions with 0.02% for limitless trading, 0.01% for market makers, and offers discount cards for active traders. There is also an excellent referral program with eight types of bonuses for users. To make trading more fun, the platform features daily contests using demo accounts where winners can be awarded up to 1000 USDT as a prize. The exchange also has a native token NMX that acts as a utility token on the platform.

Another promising exchange is FTX. It offers up to 101x leverage, and it has many creative tokens that are not available elsewhere. FTX was the first exchange that offered 3x BTC BULL, 3x BTC BEAR, 3x ETH BULL, and 3x ETH BEAR tokens which means that your profit or loss could potentially go as high as 3x of normal spot trading. And as you can see from the name, 3x BEAR means that you would make a profit when the price of BTC or ETH goes down. 3x BULL means you would make a profit when the price goes up.

Unlike normal futures markets, you wouldnt have to worry about margin, interests, and all the other confusing terms with these leveraged tokens. Basically, FTX allows you to get exposed to leveraged trading without any technical knowledge. Besides leveraged tokens, FTX also offers standard derivatives platform, index, and even hashrate futures.

Another very promising crypto exchange is Digitex Futures. It is a derivatives platform with a strong user base. The Initial Coin Offering (ICO) of DGTX token was launched in January 2018 to fund the development of Digitex Futures. However, the development itself took more than 2 years to complete. Digitex Futures already has plenty of fans and loyal users, even before they officially launch.

The main strength of Digitex Futures is its zero-fee trading commission policy. Unlike other derivatives platforms where you have to pay hefty fees for every transaction, Digitex Futures does not take any commission from your transaction. If you are a scalper or high-frequency trader, you might want to take a look at it. The exchange itself makes money by selling DGTX tokens from their treasury account.

Andrey Sergeenkov is a digital entrepreneur with more than 10 years of experience. Assisted in raising of 90 mln USD investments for more than 150 crypto projects. He believes that actual usefulness is the best PR for any project.

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Five Promising Cryptocurrency... - Coinspeaker

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Cryptocurrency Mining Software Market Incredible Possibilities, Growth Analysis and Forecast To 2025 - The Daily Chronicle

This year marks Paxfuls fifth year in operation and its taking some time to reflect on its journey thus far.

Thats not to say the firm has anything to regret, quite the opposite.

Paxful now boasts 4.5 million registered wallets and recently reached a trading volume of $4.6 billion. On top of that, each year has seen one million new users signing up to the platform with an additional two million expected to join Paxful by years end.

On its journey, the firm has learned a few lessons and one of those lessons is that while there might be a few big players in the cryptocurrency sector, there is still room for newcomers.

We welcome seeing more players enter the space, as it raises awareness and educates the public on the crypto-economy and P2P finance. It contributes to the growth of economic opportunity and financial inclusivity for people around the world as more individuals are using bitcoin in their everyday lives, says co-founder and chief executive officer at Paxful, Ray Youssef.

So with opportunity seemingly available, what can Paxful share with others looking to get into the space.

It should be obvious that the safety of users should be paramount but above and beyond implementing safety measures, its about constantly investing in new safety measures, keeping up with compliance and managing risk.

Over and above that, many users are still very confused by cryptocurrency and incidents such as Silk Road and Dread Pirate Roberts, and robberies of cryptocurrency exchanges dont help the cause.

Its for this reason we see firms like Paxful and Luno embarking on education campaigns to inform users about what cryptocurrency is and why its rather safe.

Cryptocurrency is popular all over the world, but Paxful says that in emerging markets there is a growing appetite for financial tools.

Bitcoin continues to change the way people manage their finances. Our customers in Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia are getting around the limitations of their financial systems by realizing the full potential of the Bitcoin-economy, using it for both personal finance needs and entrepreneurial ventures including paying bills, purchasing goods and services, and building businesses, says Youssef.

But beyond just appetite from users, there is growing demand for professionals versed in blockchain.

Mindful of this, Paxful highlights how important investing in the next generation of talent is. We saw this last week with the announcement of several free webinars that the public can attend to learn about cryptocurrency, and blockchain.

In addition to nurturing talent, Youssef also says that partnerships in this industry are vital.

We are witnessing more industry collaborations that successfully play to each others strengths, adding value, increasing functionality and unlocking more trading options for customers. We are always excited to partner with businesses who share our passion and vision of economic freedom, a world where everyone has equal access to finance, no matter who they are, or where they are from, the co-founder says.

Partnerships of note include Paxful and OKEx, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world.

Locally, weve also seen partnerships between Luno and several firms which have made the platform more accessible or even earn interest on cryptocurrency holdings.

Its clear that rather than going at it alone, sometimes, especially when it comes to managing digital currency, a trusted partner may be a better avenue to pursue.

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What Paxful has learned over five years in the cryptocurrency space - htxt.africa

After finishing the month of July in incredible style, cryptocurrencies across the market have taken step back led by Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple. Bitcoin, for instance, is settling for consolidation between the support at $11,500 and $12,000. This follows recovery from a dip to $10,500. Although bulls desire to push above $12,000, they seem to lack enough volume to support the price action.

Bitcoin is exchanging hands at $10,800 at the time of writing. As reported in the price prediction earlier, the confluence resistance at $11,899 remains the biggest hurdle preventing action above $12,000. Technical levels are mainly positive with the RSI and the MACD sending bullish signals. BTC also trading above an accelerated trendline. Support is envisioned at $11,500, $11,000 and at the main trendline in the event of a reversal.

Ethereum like Bitcoin had a tremendous July and a good start in August; from trading around $230 to highs above $400. A yearly high was traded at $415 but bears gained traction perhaps due to some investors taking profits. At the time of writing. ETH/USD is teetering at $395 after recovery above $400 became impossible during the Asian hours.

Bulls are still relatively in chart even though gains remain limited. The Elliot Wave Oscillator has begun printing the first bearish session in August. This reflects the reversal from $415 to $395. The RSI is still above 70 but its downtrend shines the light on the strengthening bearish trend. If support at $390 fails to hold, buyers must endeavor to defend $380 and $350.

Ripple is nurturing a consolidation trend above $0.30. The sideways trading comes after a retreat from August highs traded at $0.3250. Support at $0.30 seems to have settled well in the last couple of days. All technical indicators including the RSI and MACD reinforce the sideways trading. However, with the 50-day above the 100-day SMA, it becomes apparent that bulls have anupper hand in the current session.

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Cryptocurrency Market Update: Bitcoin, Ripple and Ethereum begin consolidating - FXStreet

BTC/USD continues trading below $12,000 although bulls are getting closer to the crucial resistance level.

ETH/USD has stabilized around $400 which is the most important resistance point in the short-term.

XRP/USD has been able to stay above $0.30 in the past 24 hours while the daily 100-EMA and the 200-EMA are getting closer to a bull cross not seen since two years ago.

According to Genesis, a digital currency broker, and DeFi leader, Q2 marked around $2.2 billion in originations which is a 324% increase over the last year.

German police have seized around $30 million in crypto from movie2k.to, a streaming service that used to hold illegal movies. It seems that the revenue of the website was used to buy Bitcoin worth around $30 million today. The report alleges that the sites programmer has acquired more than 22,000 Bitcoin in total.

A new crypto derivatives exchange called Alpha5 has raised more than $1.5 million in their initial seed funding round. Announced around December 2019, Alpha intends to become an all-in crypto exchange with many unique features like a late liquidity pool and credit proxy futures.

What cant kill Bitcoin, makes it stronger.

Mark Wittkowski

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Cryptocurrency Market News: $1.2 billion in Bitcoin was withdrawn out of exchanges in the past week - FXStreet