Bitcoin (BTC) is primed for average gains of almost 200% over the next six months, one of its best-known supporters has told mainstream media.

Speaking to Yahoo! Finance on Feb. 4, Tom Lee, co-founder at Fundstrat Global Advisors, said one bullish technical factor, in particular, made him really optimistic about Bitcoins short-term potential.

Notably in January January is usually a week month, it was a great month for Bitcoin, up 26% but it also recovered its 200-day moving average, Lee explained.

Thats a big deal as you know, as anyone whos a trend follower knows when youre back above your 200-day, youre back in a bull market. Whenever Bitcoin breaks back into its 200-day, its average six-month gain is 197%.

As Cointelegraph reported, the 200-day moving average has traditionally represented a major area of resistance for markets.

Bitcoin price; 200-day moving average. Source: TradingView

Bitcoin, in fact, gained closer to 30% in January before continuing its growth to hit recent highs around $9,450.

For some analysts, the cryptocurrencys most successful January since 2013 is a sign that its next long-term bull cycle is already beginning.

Lee also considered 2020 to have larger returns in store for BTC investors than last year, despite 2019 delivering gains which at one point crossed 300%.

Like many, he highlighted Mays block reward halving as a catalyst for Bitcoin price expansion. Not only will the event reduce the new Bitcoin supply by 50%, it will also take its inflation rate below that of both gold and the 2% inflation target of the United States Federal Reserve.

A historically accurate price forecasting model, Stock-to-Flow, predicts the halving will trigger a bull run to around $100,000 by the end of 2021.

Last month, Lee said the halving event was nonetheless not priced in. At the time, before the moving average crossover, he said that he envisaged Bitcoins 2020 gains topping out at 100%.

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Bitcoin Price May Hit $27K All-Time High by Summer, Predicts Tom Lee - Cointelegraph

Bitcoin is down by more than 2.5 percent this week and one analyst believes it is due to face additional losses.

Prominent crypto trader Mac warned that the cryptocurrency could dump hard in the remainder of this week, stating that bitcoin futures linked to CME left a huge gap in the $8,500 range. The cryptocurrencys spot rate typically revisits the unfilled gaps, which prompted Mac to predict a crash towards the $8,500 level.

Bitcoinis gonna dump hard this week and over $100M in longs will get wiped, he stated.

The statement followed bitcoins explosive price rally in January 2020, wherein it surged 34.25 percent to $9,619.50. Nevertheless, the cryptocurrency went through a small downside correction heading February, mostly driven by profit-taking sentiment.

Imminent potential moves on bitcoins daily chart | Source: Mac

Mac noted that bitcoin needed to reclaim its local swing high above $9,600 to maintain its medium-term bullish bias. Else, the cryptocurrency would most likely move lower to fill the futures gap as shown in the chart above.

There is a 95 percent probability in favor of bitcoin filling the CME gap pointed out by Mac. As NewsBTC covered earlier, traders have left the gaps unfilled only 5 out of 100 times. That is because 50 percent of the unfilled positions get filled the next day and 37 percent, the next week.

The longer the gap is left behind, the lesser is the probability of traders filling it.

The $8,500 gap was formed on January 24. That is why Mac thinks the ongoing week is crucial.

Other prominent analysts also warned about a similar price dump. NebraskanGooner, known for his accurate prediction about bitcoin surging to $9,500, said bitcoin could fall either towards early $8,000 or late $7,000s if it breaks below $8,900. Nevertheless, the analyst didnt explain why $8,900 was such a bias-defining level.

Ezy Bitcoin, another top crypto analyst, meanwhile reminded traders of a technical bearish formation known as Rising Wedge. The traditional indicator hinted a potential bitcoin breakdown to as low as $6,300. Ezy coupled the Wedge with a bearish divergence formation to further strengthen his downside sentiment.

At the same time, bitcoins diminishing market dominance also hinted that traders within the crypto space are moving into altcoins. It fell to 65.48 percent on Wednesday. Earlier in January, the dominance was near 68 percent.

Bitcoin was trading in positive territory on Wednesday, rising 3.03 percent as of post-noon European trading session.

Bitcoin registering intraday gains ahead of US session open | Source: TradingView.com, Coinbase

The cryptocurrency is more likely to retest the Wedge resistance before the next pullback. The blued 200-daily moving average could offer support and an ideal accumulation sentiment for traders to refuel their upside strategies. The next bull target is $10,000.

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Bitcoin is Going to Dump Hard, Prominent Analyst Warns - newsBTC

Bitcoin has struggled to break back over the psychological $10,000 mark in recent weeks but not all cryptocurrencies are treading water, with top 15 token tezos soaringthough some think bitcoin could be about to "explode."

While bitcoin, the world's original and most valuable cryptocurrency, has risen almost three-fold over the last 12 months, tezos has rallied some 400%climbing from under $0.40 per tezos token in February 2019 to just over $2 today.

Bitcoin has failed to move much above its recent highs, falling back after surging higher over the ... [+] weekend. Tezos has, meanwhile, continued to climb.

Tezos, trading as XTZ, has risen by 10% over the last 24-hour trading period, taking its year-to-date gains to almost 50% and giving it a market capitalization of around $1.4 billion.

At the beginning of the year, tezos was the 15th most valuable cryptocurrency by market capitalization, according to CoinMarketCap data, but has now climbed to 11thand is in touching distance of the top ten.

Tezos, which styles itself as a "self-amending cryptographic ledger" and uses the so-called proof of stake consensus model, has emerged as a favourite blockchain and cryptocurrency for tokenized real-estate and security tokens.

Tezos holders, if their funds are stored in certain wallets, can "stake" their XTZ and receive additional tokens as a reward for creating and verifying new blocks in the chain.

The tezos rally, which began in November last year, has been pushed on by major partnerships with the financial world and the so-called Tezos Foundations Faucet, that awards users up to 0.01 XTZ every 12 hours.

Last year, Brazil's BTG Pactual bank and Dalma Capital, a Dubai-based asset manager, announced they would use the tezos blockchain for security tokens. Meanwhile, Elevated Returns said it would use tezos to tokenize its real estate in Aspen.

The tezos price has outperformed bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies over the last 12-months.

Tezos XTZ tokens began trading in late 2017 at the height of global bitcoin and crypto mania after the Switzerland-based non-profit Tezos Foundation raised $232 million in an initial coin offering.

At its peak, tezos was worth a little over $10 per XTZ token but lost over 95% of its value throughout the dire so-called crypto winter of 2018-2019.

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As Bitcoin Fails To Break Out, This Minor Cryptocurrency Has Surged By 400% - Forbes

Tesla's massive rally this week has provoked a flood of comparisons to bitcoin's epic 2017 price surge.

Tesla's stock price has doubled since the beginning of the year and either very brave or very foolish investors are saying it could double again over the next few days after one particularly bullish investor predicted the stock could rise more than seven-fold by 2024.

The bitcoin price is often compared to company shares in a way that no other currency or commodity is. But it shouldn't bestock prices are based on the promise of future investor returns. Bitcoin promises buyers nothing.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has previously praised bitcoin but he is unconvinced it is a sound investment.

Last week, the bitcoin-Tesla comparison was made by GLJ Researchs Gordon Johnson, who branded Tesla's stock market surge "effectively bitcoin on wheels," when speaking to Fox Business.

"We think this is a bubble," Johnson said. "We think a lot of people are scared to miss the upside," suggesting so-called fear of missing out (FOMO) is driving the Tesla share price higher and pointing to elusive profits and unreliable demand from China.

Bitcoin's 2017 bull run, which saw the bitcoin price surge from under $1,000 at the beginning of the year to almost $20,000 by December, was powered by FOMO on a global scaleand resulted in bitcoin's subsequent near-90% crash.

Analysis of how both bitcoin and Tesla have performed during in their respective bull runs shows other similarities.

The speed of Teslas recent rally exceeds bitcoin's at its peak, financial newswire Bloomberg reported yesterday, after it found Tesla's 14-day relative strength index, a gauge of the magnitude and persistence of price movements, topped bitcoin's in December 2017.

"Tesla at its current price is effectively the same as bitcoin at its all-time high in 2017," crypto trader Scott Melker said via Twitter, commenting on a bitcoin-Tesla price comparison chart shared by Mike Novogratz, the former billionaire hedge fund manager and chief executive of bitcoin and cryptocurrency investment company Galaxy Digital.

These cosmetic comparisons are where the similarities end, however.

Last week, Tesla reported earnings beyond Wall Street expectations, posting its second consecutive quarter of profitability and forecasting it should remain profitable.

This week, the market was set alight by analysts at Argus Research who raised their price target for Tesla from $556 to $808 and by Tesla cheerleaders at Ark Investment Management who believe the stock could be worth upwards of $7,000 per share by 2024calls based on market research and potential future returns.

"Despite past production delays, parts shortages, labor cost overruns and other difficulties, we expect Tesla to benefit from its dominant position in the electric vehicle industry and to improve performance in 2020 and beyond," Argus Research said in its note on Monday.

Many, meanwhile expect bitcoin to make the same kind of rises Argus and Ark have predicted for Teslabased only the expectation demand for bitcoin will rise.

One U.S. wealth manager has recently said he expects the bitcoin price to soar by almost 50-fold over the next ten years, meaning he thinks one bitcoin will be worth a staggering $400,000 by 2030giving bitcoin a market capitalization of around $8 trillion.

However, during this time bitcoin will give the market no updates, will pay no dividends and can promise no profitabilityit could, and very well might, be replaced by a superior technology.

Buying Tesla stock right now might be like buying bitcoin in December 2017 but the valuations given to even surging stock like Tesla are based on something more solid.

See the original post:
Bitcoin And Tesla Are Absolutely Nothing Alike - Forbes

A man passes in front of a Bitcoin exchange shop in Krakow, Poland.

Artur Widak | NurPhoto | Getty Images

Bitcoin logged its best performance for the month of January since 2013 driven by safe-haven buying as global equity markets remain shaky following the outbreak of the coronavirus from China.

The cryptocurrency was up over 29% in January as the market capitalization or value of all bitcoin in circulation rose by $39.7 billion. The percentage gain was the best since January 2013 when bitcoin was up 54% for the month.

Industry experts said a number of factors including the coronavirus and a return to work after the Lunar New Year holidays in Asia helped prop up bitcoin's price.

The coronavirus, which originated from Wuhan, China, has spread to other areas of the world. More than 360 people have died in China from the virus. Some airlines have ceased flights to China, companies have halted operations for longer than usual over the holiday period and fears are growing that global growth could suffer.

Nigel Green, CEO of deVere Group, a financial services and advisory firm, called bitcoin a "safe-haven asset in times of uncertainty" and said that is why it's seen a boost in the past month.

"The ongoing upward trajectory of the price of bitcoin correlates to the spread of the coronavirus," Green said in a note on Monday. "The more individual cases that are identified, the more countries around the world that are affected, and the greater the impact on traditional financial markets, the higher the price of bitcoin has jumped."

Meanwhile, trade is picking up following the Lunar New Year celebrations which are observed across a number of Asian countries. Some markets have had extra days off but many people returned to work last week.

"Post CNY (Chinese new year) also I think (played) a big role. Lots of money sitting on the sidelines with the long weekend and last week. We saw this in our Malaysia volumes as well on the weekend, lots of fresh money coming in post the CNY break," Vijay Ayyar, head of business development at cryptocurrency exchange Luno, told CNBC.

Aside from the coronavirus-related issues, traders are also looking toward developments on the technical aspect of bitcoin. An event that has been dubbed the "halvening" is happening in May and it relates to bitcoin's underlying technology blockchain.

Miners with specialist computers compete to solve complex math problems to validate bitcoin transactions. Whoever wins that race gets rewarded in bitcoin.

Currently, miners are rewarded 12.5 bitcoin per block mined. The rewards are halved every few years and that rule is written into bitcoin's underlying code. By May 2020, the reward per miner will be cut in half again, to 6.25 new bitcoin, essentially reducing the supply of the cryptocurrency coming onto the market.

Previous halving events have preceded big price increases in bitcoin.

"The bitcoin halvening as well as the recent surge fueled by pandemic fears and public market jitters is yet another reminder that bitcoin is much less risky and offers potentially outsized returns," Jehan Chu, co-founder of blockchain-focused venture firm Kenetic Capital, told CNBC.

He added that bitcoin "is poised for a breakout run to $15,000 by mid-2020."

Read more here:
Bitcoin logs best January performance in 7 years as value surges by nearly $40 billion - CNBC

Bitcoin price started a downside correction from well above the $9,550 area against the US Dollar. BTC broke the key $9,220 support and it is now trading in a short term bearish zone.

Yesterday, we discussed the chances of more downsides in bitcoin below $9,400 against the US Dollar. BTC did decline recently and traded below the key $9,220 support area.

Moreover, there was a close below the $9,300 level and the 100 hourly simple moving average. Finally, the price traded close to the $9,050 support area and formed a low at $9,079.

It is currently correcting higher and trading above the $9,200 level. Besides, bitcoin is testing the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the recent drop from the $9,609 high to $9,079 low.

More importantly, there is a major bearish trend line forming with resistance near $9,220 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair. Therefore, the pair must climb above the $9,200 and $9,220 levels.

Bitcoin Price

The next key resistance is near the $9,320 level and the 100 hourly simple moving average. Additionally, the 50% Fib retracement level of the recent drop from the $9,609 high to $9,079 low is near the $9,345 level.

Therefore, a clear break above the $9,345 level is needed for a push towards the $9,500 and $9,600 resistance levels. The next major hurdle is still near the $10,000 level.

On the downside, there is a decent support forming near the $9,100 area. The current price action suggests that the price might continue to slide below the $9,100 and $9,000 levels.

If there is a clear break below the $9,000 handle, bitcoin price might slide further. The next major support is seen near the $8,870 and $8,800 levels, where the bulls are likely to take a strong stand.

Technical indicators:

Hourly MACD The MACD is slowly gaining pace in the bullish zone.

Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) The RSI for BTC/USD is currently rising towards the 50 level.

Major Support Levels $9,100 followed by $9,000.

Major Resistance Levels $9,220, $9,320 and $9,345.

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Bitcoin Is Diving But The Bulls Wont Give Up Easily: Key Levels To Watch - newsBTC

Bitcoin's price volatility reached its highest since November 24th in January. (Photo by INA ... [+] FASSBENDER / AFP) (Photo by INA FASSBENDER/AFP via Getty Images)

Bitcoins price volatility rose considerably last month, attaining its loftiest reading since late November as the cryptocurrency enjoyed robust gains.

The digital currencys 30-day annualized volatility climbed to 61.33% on January 15th, according to analysis provided by asset manager Blockforce Capital.

At this point, the measure of bitcoins price fluctuations had risen 34% since the start of the month, hitting its highest since November 24th, additional figures from Blockforce Capital show.

The digital currency experienced this sharp increase in volatility as its price pushed higher in January, increasing more than 30% during the month, according to CoinDesk price data.

[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.]

Numerous Bullish Factors

Bitcoin appreciated in January as the digital currency benefited from multiple tailwinds, according to market observers.

Recently, analysts have pointed to tensions in Iran, concerns about the Coronavirus and anticipation surrounding the upcoming halving as helping drive gains.

Joe DiPasquale, CEO of cryptocurrency hedge fund managerBitBull Capital, weighed in on this situation.

January was very eventful for Bitcoin and the crypto space and saw a net gain in Bitcoins price despite volatility, he stated.

We can attribute this price action to various developments, starting from the US-Iran tensions in early January to the Coronavirus outbreak near the end, noted DiPasquale.

Add to these factors catalysts like the upcoming halving and the U.S. Fed leaving interest rates unchanged and it made sense for investors to turn towards BTC.

Bitcoins Continued Adoption

Kiana Danial, CEO of Invest Diva, also noted other potential price drivers, emphasizing bitcoins continued adoption.

Were seeing Bitcoin ATMs in more locations around the US than ever, including in airports and in shopping malls, so the Bitcoin branding is gaining momentum, she stated.

At the time of this writing, there were roughly 6,700 bitcoin ATMs around the world, according to data from coinatmradar.com. In comparison, fewer than 400 of these devices existed in early 2015.

Danial also noted that financial advisors are warming up to the digital currency, stating that they are slowly but surely allocating small portions of Bitcoin and other crypto-assets to their clients portfolios.

This view is supported by recent survey data, as a January poll conducted by Bitwise Asset Management and ETF Trends found that the number of financial advisors who put their clients money into cryptocurrency is expected to reach 13% this year, more than double last years figure of 6%.

Technical Factors

While several analysts pointed toward fundamental developments as helping drive bitcoins price gains, some market observers also cited technical factors.

Regardless of the current social and political climate that has contributed to the flight to safe assets, we also saw a very strong bullish indication beginning of January from a technical point of view, said Danial.

This was right after the launch of options on Bitcoin futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), which triggered the recent bullish momentum, she stated.

Bitcoin found support at $6,510 in December and broke above the daily Ichimoku cloud indicator mid-January, confirming the strong bullish signal.

Going forward, bitcoin faces significant resistance at $9,500, said DiPasquale.

He noted that $9,500 is a strong ceiling and we can expect the price action to lose momentum and possibly drop down towards $8,800, followed by $8,500, to affirm newly formed support levels, before it can realistically tackle the $10,000 barrier, he stated.

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

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Bitcoin Volatility Reached A 7-Week High In January - Forbes

The Bitcoin SV network is preparing for a hard fork protocol upgrade on Feb. 4, 2020, which is code-named the Genesis upgrade.

This significant upgrade is planned to include a set of protocol restoration changes that represent an almost complete return to the original Bitcoin protocol documented in the white paper in August 2009

This upgrade will restore the original Bitcoin protocol, keep it stable, and allow it to massively scale by removing the limits that can be set in a block. And its going to completely change the way that Bitcoin is used on the blockchain. The Bitcoin Association believes that Bitcoin SV is Bitcoin.

By removing the limits on a block and enabling scaling up to 2Gb per block, Bitcoin SV blockchain will be able to support significantly higher transaction volumes and more transaction fees for miners.

Fees for transactions across the blockchain will change too. For two parties without trust, the fee rate should remain at 1 satoshi/byte until after the Genesis hard fork of the Bitcoin SV network.

After Feb. 4, 2020, blockchain service provider TAAL predicts that there will be a change to the default fee rate to 0.5 satoshis/byte and a change of relay fee to 0.25 satoshis/byte. A satoshi is the smallest divisible unit of a Bitcoin charged per byte of data.

These tiny, insignificant transaction fees are predicted to entice enterprises to utilize the technology. it is far cheaper and more efficient to store data and transactions on the ledger than it is to store it in a data center - or the cloud.

Due to this upgrade Bitcoin usage is predicted to explode in late February as most network-wide limits are removed from the scripting language and network propagation rules.

There has been a push for several years to remove the limits due to the block subsidy "halving" event that happens in May.

Then, the reward that miners receive will be cut from 12.5 Bitcoin BTC to 6.25. Miners are in this to profit, and without the subsidy, mining BTC is not profitable and could reduce the chances of Bitcoin BTC success.

However, all are not happy with Bitcoin SV Genesis upgrade plans. Miners of other Bitcoin protocols such as Bitcoin BTC, seem to feel threatened by Craig Wright, who I think is indeed Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin BTC has completely changed, mainly due to the software soft fork Segwit (Segregated Witness), implemented on Bitcoin BTC in August 2017.

Anonymous tweeter and supporter of Bitcoin SV @Street5Wall reckons that these changes have fundamentally changed BTC -- so much that it is no longer considered Bitcoin anymore.

Many other changes were made to the original Bitcoin protocol that essentially made BTC unusable except as a "collectible," which is totally not what its creator Satoshi had in mind.

The Genesis upgrade to Bitcoin BSV completely restores the Bitcoin protocol to its original version on Feb. 4, 2020, and removes all block size caps (currently at 2GB on BSV compared to 1MB on BTC).

BTC is only capable of seven transactions per second compared to 140,000 transactions/sec on BSV. Genesis will increase that number dramatically. BSV can already handle more transactions/sec than credit card company Visa.

Bitcoin BTC transaction fees are already high. In 2017 there was a "bubble" where some transactions were costing upwards of $50. Because of the small block limit -- 1mb --for transactions, the queue became longer and made transactions significantly longer to confirm.

Bitcoin BTC could probably suffer as a result of the Genesis upgrade -- perhaps as early as May 2020, as the block reward for mining reduces from 12.5 to 6.25 BTC per block.

Being able to scale is really important. The BTC limitation of 1Mb blocks was always designed to be a temporary limit.

If the lost revenue can not be recovered with transaction fees, then miners will go away and BTC will suffer. By removing the limits, as Satoshi intended,

Bitcoin can be used freely by businesses and people. More transaction capacity equals more fees, even if those fees are only 1/3 of a cent.

As mentioned in the original white paper, Bitcoin was intended to be scalable from day one without side chains forming such as the 'Lightning Network' and others.

The upcoming Genesis upgrade on Bitcoin SV will remove these limits as originally intended by the designer of the original blockchain protocol and return Bitcoin to its original scalable state.

The problem with the Lightning Network is that it removes the economic incentive for miners to transact across the network as miners feel that revenue will go to the second layer not the miners themselves.

The Lightning Network does not seem to work successfully as it is an anonymous network with no public ledger of transaction recording.

The challenge is that people cannot send Bitcoin BTC. It is too expensive to use.

Perhaps large organizations will begin to announce Bitcoin integration into their business models once the Genesis upgrade has proved itself capable of scale.

Some enterprises could have been waiting for a long time to utilize the technology but have possibly been discouraged due to the high transaction fees and ever-changing protocol.

Enterprises want a locked, stable protocol and fee structure before they commit time and resources to build applications on top of it, instead of then having to constantly change their development process whenever the base protocol changes.

The Blockchain conference taking place in London on Feb. 20 has two well-known -- outside the crypto world -- speakers, which seems to validate Bitcoin SV's credibility and could encourage mainstream investors to stand up and take notice:

This could be the beginning for real large scale enterprise adoption taking Bitcoin BSV into uncharted enterprise territory.

The Genesis upgrade could signal a massive change in the way that people use Bitcoin. There could be very exciting times ahead for both Bitcoin miners and users.

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What would happen if Twitter or Facebook removed your account, deleted your posts, and silenced your communications? New app Twetch, built for the blockchain, aims to solve that issue.

From cryptocurrency to chocolate, where to spend your Bitcoin

So, you have invested wisely and now have lots of BitcoinSV to spend. But where can you spend your hard-earned cash? Here are some of the wide range of outlets that accept your cryptocurrency for real goods.

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Excerpt from:
Will Genesis upgrade signal the beginning of the Bitcoin financial powerhouse? - ZDNet

Google, the internet search giant that owns video-sharing site YouTube and the Android mobile operating system, has a fraught relationship with bitcoin and crypto.

Bitcoin services, websites, and apps have regularly provoked Google's ire in recent years, whether intentionally or not, causing some to cry censorship.

In its latest move against bitcoin-related products and services, Google suddenly removed bitcoin rewards game Bitcoin Blast from the Google Play app store, claiming it used "deceptive practices."

[Update: 7:25pm 02/03/2020] Bitcoin Blast was made available on the Apple App Store on January 24, 2020 only to be removed less than a week later, with an Apple representative pointing to specific policies the app had violated and welcoming it back if it can be brought up to code.

"We were not removed for being involved with cryptocurrency," Daniel Rice, cofounder and chief technology officer at Bling, wrote in a Medium post on Monday February 3rd explaining why Apple chose to boot Bitcoin Blast from the platform, adding the team will try to make the app available on iOS in the future but "its also possible that Bitcoin Blast will never return to an Apple platform."

Google, which controls some of the internet's most widely-used services, could make bitcoin ... [+] development and adoption very difficult if it wanted to.

Last month, the developers of Bitcoin Blast, a match-three puzzle game that rewards users with bitcoin-redeemable loyalty points and boasts a 4.5 rating from some 20,000 ratings and 13,000 reviews, complained Google had suspended their app without giving them a clear reason why.

The app has now been reinstated but only after its developers, Bling, made a public plea for help, echoing a similar situation late last year when Google's YouTube banned many of the most popular bitcoin-related creators on the platform only to, mostly, reverse the decision in the wake of the subsequent backlash.

Shortly after the YouTube crackdown, Google suspended the popular MetaMask crypto wallet and mobile browser app backed by ethereum incubator ConsenSys from the Play Store, only to eventually reinstate it.

The Bitcoin Blast ban caused Bling chief executive Amy Wan to question her company's future relationship with Google and she warned other bitcoin and crypto businesses to avoid doing all their business on Google's platforms.

"Googles suspension cited their 'deceptive behavior' policy ... but did not state exactly what behavior Google thought was deceptive," Wan wrote in an opinion piece published on a crypto industry trade site.

"In their last reply, Google stated that they were 'not able to provide any more information or a better answer to your question,'" Wan said, adding Google eventually allowed Bling to resubmit the app to the Play Store even though she still isn't sure what Google thought was deceptive about the app in the first place.

Google has not responded to a request for comment.

Some in the bitcoin and cryptocurrency industry have previously threatened to boycott Google over its treatment of bitcoin-related news, services and products, while others have called for an alternative to the internet giant.

The bitcoin price has soared over the last few years, leading to a proliferation of scams promising ... [+] to make people rich.

Meanwhile, Google,along with the likes of social media giant Facebook,has been increasingly looking to financial services to bolster advertisement revenue in recent years, with public opinion moving against ad-funded business models.

In November, Google, in partnership with U.S. banking giant Citigroup, said it's planning to launch its own fully-fledged "smart checking" bank accounts via Google Paypiling pressure on bitcoin developers to improve user experienceandadoption or face redundancy.

Thebitcoin price has climbed over the last 12-months,largely due to interest in bitcoin and crypto from the world's biggest technology companieswith others,including the likes of iPhone-maker Apple and online retailer Amazon, branching out into traditional financial services.

The soaring bitcoin price has meant that the cryptocurrency space has become overrun with scams and "get rich quick schemes" that falsely promise immediate, massive returns on investment.

Google is keen to protect its users from such practices, but its twitchy trigger finger and the speed at which the ban hammer falls is, understandably, making people nervous.

Continued here:
Is Google Trying To Kill Bitcoin? - Forbes

Bitcoin was heading lower on Tuesday as concerns over a potential $37 million dump grew over traders consciousness.

The benchmark cryptocurrency hit a new weekly low at $9,116.35 during the early European session, down 5.23 percent from its year-to-date peak of $9,619.95, established Monday. Meanwhile, CME Futures linked to bitcoin plunged by up to 6.13 percent to $9,190.

Bitcoin pullback in play after validating $9,600 as resistance | Source: TradingView.com, Coinbase

The plunge took place in the form of a wider bearish correction, after bitcoins wild upside price rally in January 2020. The cryptocurrency had surged higher against a series of geopolitical and macroeconomic events, starting with the US-Iran conflict, followed by the Coronavirus epidemic in China.

The virus fears led global stock markets to register fresh 2020 lows, with CSI 300 of Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed shares suffering its biggest daily sell-off in more than four years. The downside risks in equities helped safe-havens, including gold and bitcoin, to maintain their early January gains.

In a defensive measure, the Peoples Bank of China announced that it would inject Rmb500bn (about $71 billion) of banking liquidity via reverse repo. The move improved risk-on sentiments and caused havens to register corrective declines. Bitcoin, whose correlation with gold grew to a four-year high in January, fell likewise.

The cryptocurrency failed to breach a key resistance area near $9,500, signaling the possibilities of a deep pullback in the coming sessions. Atop that, traders are now weighing the possibility of a big bitcoin dump.

The United States Marshals Service (USMS) on Monday announced that it is going to auction about 4,000 BTC (around $37 million) on February 18.The announcement led analysts to consider that the trade would lead to a dump.

Youtuber Sunny Decree, for instance, ran a special coverage, implying the possibility of bitcoin losing at least $37 million worth of valuation on or after the auction. He feared that an undervalued bitcoin bid could lead the buyer to dump his/her entire stash on the retail market, on which the bitcoin is trading at higher rates.

Not everyone out there is a fundamental HODLER, reminded Mr. Decree.

As NewsBTC covered earlier, there was a higher probability that bitcoin is trending inside a Rising Wedge, a bearish continuation pattern.

Rising Wedge hints a bitcoin breakdown | Source: TradingView.com, Coinbase

The pattern suggests that the BTC/USD pair would continue its correction until it hits the Wedge Support. The same level coincides with the pairs 200-daily moving average, which makes it an ideal level to attempt the next upside retracement.

However, the price would break out from the Wedge range upon hitting its apex, to the downside. Such a move could crash bitcoin to approx $7,000.

On the other hand, a break above the Wedge would have bitcoin eye a close above $10,000.

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Bitcoin Hits Weekly Low as Fears of a $37M Dump Grow - newsBTC