While most of the crypto analysts across the market spent the bulk of 2019 overly optimistic and bullish, expecting Bitcoins bull run to have already commenced, one crypto analyst has remained cautious, waiting for Bitcoins parabolic rally to cool off and come back down to the buy zone.

That buy zone has been hit, although the analyst expects the leading cryptocurrency by market cap to remain within that buy zone for the bulk of 2020, putting Bitcoin in full accumulation mode.

The crypto market is a fast-paced, wild-west style market that never sleeps or closes, and is filled with outspoken and often eccentric individuals acting as analysts, hoping to make predictions about future market movements to both profit and grow their followings.

Related Reading | Bah Humbug! If Bitcoin Bulls Cant Reclaim $7,800 Its Coal For Christmas

Many of these short-sighted, fly-by-night analysts focus on short term swing trades only, giving them the appearance of being experts in space. However, they often fail to look at the bigger picture, or fail to take the approach of a long-term investor.

One prominent crypto analyst who almost solely focuses on long-term plays on assets like Bitcoin or precious metals, and even altcoins, has long shared charts that targeted the current price levels as an ideal buy zone. Some of the charts calling for Bitcoin to trade within this level were shared long before the crypto asset ever topped out in late June and early July.

The analysts theories are based on Bitcoins long-term logarithmic growth curve, which the analyst claims serves as ongoing support for the crypto asset, which typically returns back to the curved support line, acting as at the assets mean.

After Bitcoins 2019 parabolic rally got overheated a little too fast, the analyst has long expected a return to mean that would take Bitcoin back down to $6,700.

Related Reading | Perceived Bitcoin Value Outpaced Peak Crypto Bubble Mania

Now that Bitcoin price has reached the analysts targets for a low, he claims that while the first-ever cryptocurrencys price may drop lower than current levels, it wont stay there very long and instead will trade within this buy zone range for the majority of 2020, putting Bitcoin in accumulation mode according tot he analyst.

Bitcoin was accumulated very briefly at the start of 2019, but it resulted in a breakout and parabolic rally into an echo bubble. And while some are still holding out hope for Bitcoin to reach $55,000 by its halving according to the highly cited stock-to-flow model, staying within the buy zone for nearly a year before the bull market begins could be a financial opportunity of a lifetime.

Read more:

Bitcoin To Spend 2020 In Accumulation Mode, Ideal Buy Zone - newsBTC

A crypto enthusiast who lost four Bitcoin on the Lightning Network in October has now managed to recover most of the missing funds, according to an update post on Reddit.

One of the most interesting projects in the cryptocurrency space, in my opinion, is the Lightning Network protocol (LN).

Even though some traders and analysts have plenty of criticisms regarding the development of the LN, I argue the open-source P2P payment channel technology is here to stay.

The LN not only affects Bitcoin, but the technology can also gap bridges between projects.

In a way, the Lightning Network has the potential to achieve what many other projects can only dream of: to become an interoperable protocol between blockchains.

At the moment, the platform consists of over 10,000 nodes, 35,000 open channels, and over 850 BTC in network capacity.

As discussed in this article, the Lightning Network is a payments channel linked to the Bitcoin network, and is also being developed for use with other cryptocurrency projects such as Litecoin.

Instead of relying on hard forks to upgrade transaction storage per block (block weight), the LN allows for the integration of off-chain payment state channels between nodes.

The LN creates direct off-chain connections between nodes instead of validating all information on the main chain. These connections are opened up by storing Bitcoin on a Lightning channel.

In the graph above, we can see the amount of BTC being stored in Lightning channels, courtesy of bitcoinvisuals.

It is true that the LN had a major spike in adoption in late 2018 and then stabilised around the summer this year. However, in my opinion, this correction is directly linked to lower BTC/USD volumes, which fell over 50% in the same time span.

Just recently, crypto exchange Bitfinex announced it is launching support for the Lightning Network. It therefore seems that the P2P payments protocol is gaining traction by the day.

So what happened to the four Bitcoins that were lost in October?

The problem occurred as a result of a bug in a recently implemented functionality called SCB Static Channel Backup.

SCB is quite important to avoid users losing funds due to hardware problems.

Lets say you have some channels open with local-balance committed, so your BTC is locked in an open channel. Without SCB, you run the risk of losing these funds in the event of a hard-drive failure or the VM crashing.

Terrible issue, right? The LN developers agree, which is why they developed the SCB functionality. However, this implementation had just been released in April 2019. As it was brand new, some issues can be expected.

Even one of the main LN developers, guggero, wrote on GitHub when replying to the user regarding the buggy SCB implementation:

Yes, you are right. Thats why there still is a -beta suffix in each version that we release.

Essentially, the users Bitcoin got locked in a closed channel thanks to SCB as it hadnt been updated correctly.

After looking at the main discussion issue on GitHub, one of the contributors explained what the user had to do.

Simply put, the user had to let the nodes run for a while in order to find the missing outputs. Afterwards, they only needed a quick sweep to find the coins.

Let it run for a week or two if it needs to. Theres a lot of scanning your node has to do. Watch your logs, your listchaintxns and closedchannels, and see what happens, if you like. Because every now and then, it should find a closing transaction that it needs to sweep funds from.

Guggero concluded that theres still around 3.7 BTC that should be claimable by the users node, so it seems that most (if not all) of the lost funds have eventually been recovered.

The post Four Bitcoin lost on the Lightning Network finally recovered appeared first on Coin Rivet.

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Four Bitcoin lost on the Lightning Network finally recovered - Yahoo Finance

A Danish bank has successfully won a court case that means it can now prevent its staff from buying Bitcoin BTC and other cryptocurrencies.

That sounds fine on the surface, but a potential ban doesnt refer to buying cryptocurrency on the job, it extends into employees private lives.

According to a release made by Danish court yesterday, Nordea Bank is now free to prevent its staff from buying and trading cryptocurrencies in their own time, Bloomberg reports. They are also banned from buying crypto on behalf of others too.

How the bank will enforce a ban and what happens if someone breaches the policy remains unclear.

The bank will let its staff continue to hold any crypto they already own, but it is encouraging them to sell what they have and refrain from making future investments.

The dystopia is here.

Nordea bank has cited risks and a lack of industry regulation for its decision to advise staff against messing with the digital assets. But even so, a company dictating what staff can and cant do in their personal lives seems to be overstepping a boundary.

But thats not all.

Nordea will let its staff invest in the banks own cryptocurrency-based products and financial instruments. So thats ok? But regular Bitcoin isnt, go figure.

Product development staff at Nordea will be allowed to make minor investments in cryptocurrency if they have a legitimate business reason for doing so.

The irony doesnt stop there, though. As CoinDesk points out, Nordea bank has previously been investigated for money laundering. Reuters reported earlier this year that the banks headquarters were searched in relation to the claims.

The court-issued press release also says that staff should not conduct trades in financial instruments to the point that it puts their own financial position in jeopardy.

Sure it sounds bad, and the thought of a company dictating what its staff can and cant do outside of work makes my skin crawl, but it would look quite bad for a bank to have employees that appear to make awful financial decisions. It makes sense that a bank wouldnt want its staff taking risks on Bitcoin, it happens to the best of us.

Published December 3, 2019 16:01 UTC

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Danish bank staff banned from buying Bitcoin with their own money urged to dump holdings - The Next Web

Over the past decade, bitcoin has morphed from a relatively niche payments system to one of the world's most profitable investment assets. In its infancy, the return on investment for bitcoin has managed to surpass the returns of traditional assets and indices, virtually crushing them in its wake.

With the turn of the century around the corner, lets take a look back at how you would have done if you had placed $100 on each of these investments. Please note, this is not financial advice.

Within its 10-year nascency, bitcoin has gone from zero to veritable hero. Straight off the starting blockor should that be genesis blockbitcoin's gains were pretty astounding. Within the first few years of its price discovery, bitcoin managed to go from literally nothing to a peak of $1,047 in 2014, its first bubble.

What followed was a bear cycle, stretching all the way to the fateful 2017 bull run.

At its peak at around $20,000, bitcoin had returned an almost inconceivable 25 million percent from its earliest recorded price point of $0.08 per bitcoin.

Nevertheless, much like every other cycle in its life, the price of bitcoin came cascading down. A protracted bear winter in 2018, and a brief spate of parabola this year places bitcoin at a current price of around $7,200. This gives the price of bitcoin a prevailing 10-year return on investment (ROI) of 9 million percent.

That means $100 would have netted you $900 million. In theory. (You probably would have spent it by now, lets be real).

Given this, stacking up traditional investments against BTC seems about as reasonable as pitting a Chihuahua against a Lion.

Regardless, heres how other assets fared over the past ten years.

Regarded as bitcoin's physical counterpart, gold has had a similarly rocky decade. Citing a price of around $690 in December 2009, the precious metal climbed swiftly to a peak some two years laterclaiming a price high of $1,164.

The following five years didn't treat gold so well, as it retraced back to around $700. This was thought to have occurred due to a tapering of global monetary easing. With the global economy back on track after the 2008 financial crisis, gold's use case was faltering. It wasn't until 2019 that the yellow rock rebounded to its previous highs, settling at a current price of $1,131.

This provides gold with a 10 year ROI of 63.9%. So $100 would now be worth $163.9. Nothing particularly crazy, but it is supposedly a safe haven after all.

Unlike gold and bitcoin, the price of oil started off on a high.

In December 2019, black gold fetched a price of $70. After a few years of fluctuating and a short-lived, all-time high of $113, the price of oil came crashing down by 71% in 2016, hitting a low of $30a decline not witnessed since 1985.

Be the first to get Decrypt Members. A new type of account built on blockchain.

According to the World Bank, this collapse was caused by an overabundance of the black stuff, manifesting from a boom in the production of shale oil. However, the expectations of this excess supply were not met by the market. With demand for oil dissipating, the price plunged into the depths.

Today, oil is priced at around $58, giving it an ROI of -17%. So that $100 would be down to $83, after ten years of investing. Yikes.

This exalted and time-honored stock index was among the few US stock indices to claim the longest bull run in history. It rose from the ashes of the global crash, citing 10,471 points in 2009, to an all-time high (ATH) of 28,000 points this year.

The primary reason for this impressive rise appears to be due to the performance of the 30 major companies the Dow lists. The Dow 30 cites major players such as Apple, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, American Express, and JPMorgan Chase among others.

Over these years, the Dow marks an impressive 167% ROI. That $100 would now be worth $267.

The very same index cited in the infamous dotcom bubble, the Nasdaq's impressive rise and fall is often compared to bitcoin's own fall from grace in 2017. Much like the Dow, the Nasdaq has had a stellar decade, rising from 2190 points in 2009 to an all-time high of 8,665 points this year.

The main catalyst driving the Nasdaq's strong rally appears to be tech stocks such as Facebook, and Amazon, who expanded in the late noughties, continuing their parabolic streaks well into 2019.

The Nasdaq's ROI of 295% is more than enough to beat the Dow. Putting $100 into that back in the day would have netted you $395.

Yet another well-performing stock index, the S&P 500 shares the accolade of the longest bull run in history with the dow. Similarly, this famed index gained traction during the following the economic crisis, recording alargely uninterruptedrise from 1106 points to 3140 points in 2019.

Therefore, the S&P 500 comes to an ROI of 183%. While your $100 would be up to $283, topping the Dow, it would still be lower than both the Nasdaq and bitcoin.

Who knows what the next ten years will hold.

See more here:

Is Bitcoin a better investment than gold, oil and stocks? - Decrypt

The Ethereum major upgrade Instanbul is expected to happen on December 7, at block 9069000. Some of Ethereum core developers decided to answer the questions the ETH community may have and set up an AMA session on Reddit yesterday, on December 04.

They also had a video conference on Zoom and later on uploaded it to YouTube. Meanwhile, the major Binance crypto exchange has announced it will be supporting the approaching Ethereum hard fork.

The announcement on Reddit says:

The Ethereum Magicians decided to invite the Ethereum Cat Herders, core developers, and others to join the community call about Istanbul Hard Fork.

Image via Reddit

The community indeed asked an armfulof questions regarding practical issues of using Ethereum and its wallets after the hard fork is complete.

Image via Reddit

Earlier, U.Today reported that the majority of Ethereum clients (about 60 percent) have not been updated yet, so they seem not to be ready for the approaching hard fork on the second biggest blockchain platform that has been expected for a very long while and postponed a few times.

All Ethereum nodes must be upgraded before December 1. Otherwise, after the upgrade takes place, the clients that are not upgraded will roll back to the pre-fork Ethereum ledger and with not be compatible with the new Ethereum, will not be able to send ETH or work on the upgraded Ethereum chain, as reported by U.Today previously.

The biggest crypto exchange Binance took to its Twitter page to announce that it will support the Ethereum hard fork.

The team promises that ETH trading on the platform will remain unaffected during the upgrade integration.

Please note that trading of ETH will not be affected during the upgrade.

Binance reminds the community that no new coin will launch as a result of the hard fork, it will be a system upgrade.

Read the original:

Peter Schiff on Bitcoin Price Drop: "Pump-and-Dumpers Are Losing Their Mojo" - U.Today

Fundstrat Global Advisors co-founder Thomas Lee on how to invest in bitcoin, why he considers bitcoin to be a safe haven, the state of the markets and why he does not predict a recession.

Bitcoin is making waves again with its first TV ad in France.

The 18-second spot, which has been running multiple times a day on the countrys free-to-air station, TF1, advertises services from Paris-based financial firmKeplerk. The company allows people to exchange money for bitcoin at about 6,500 local convenience stores.

Customers can buy physical vouchers in the amounts of 50 euros, 100 euros or 250 euros, and, after a processing fee, convert them into bitcoin that appear in their mobile wallet.

Oh c'est sympa a! one Twitter user wrote, which translates to Oh, thats nice!

Digital currency has been gaining momentum in France, ranking on Bitcoinists top-20 countries adopting the tech. BeInCrypto, which reported news of the ad, said another campaign was launched months ago to allow bitcoin payments in 25,000 locations.

And other reports have predicted a bitcoin boom in the country on the news that more and more retailers there are preparing to accept the currency at some point in 2020.

This is not the first time bitcoin has appeared on TV, however. Earlier this year, in the United States, a national ad from New York-based crypto investment firm Grayscale Investmentsran urging investors to forgo gold and pick up bitcoin instead.

You see where things are going, it said. Digital currencies like bitcoin are the future.

THE FCC IS MAKING IT EASIER FOR POLICE TO FIND YOU

According to a report from Coincodex, the United States is among the top countries in terms of share of bitcoin users, making ita prime market for more digital currency TV ads.

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Strict state-level regulations, though, could make firms wary of launching new initiatives.

The value of one bitcoin is currently hovering around $7,700.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ON FOX BUSINESS

Continue reading here:

Watch the first-ever bitcoin TV commercial launched in France - Fox Business

The Ethereum major upgrade Instanbul is expected to happen on December 7, at block 9069000. Some of Ethereum core developers decided to answer the questions the ETH community may have and set up an AMA session on Reddit yesterday, on December 04.

They also had a video conference on Zoom and later on uploaded it to YouTube. Meanwhile, the major Binance crypto exchange has announced it will be supporting the approaching Ethereum hard fork.

The announcement on Reddit says:

The Ethereum Magicians decided to invite the Ethereum Cat Herders, core developers, and others to join the community call about Istanbul Hard Fork.

Image via Reddit

The community indeed asked an armfulof questions regarding practical issues of using Ethereum and its wallets after the hard fork is complete.

Image via Reddit

Earlier, U.Today reported that the majority of Ethereum clients (about 60 percent) have not been updated yet, so they seem not to be ready for the approaching hard fork on the second biggest blockchain platform that has been expected for a very long while and postponed a few times.

All Ethereum nodes must be upgraded before December 1. Otherwise, after the upgrade takes place, the clients that are not upgraded will roll back to the pre-fork Ethereum ledger and with not be compatible with the new Ethereum, will not be able to send ETH or work on the upgraded Ethereum chain, as reported by U.Today previously.

The biggest crypto exchange Binance took to its Twitter page to announce that it will support the Ethereum hard fork.

The team promises that ETH trading on the platform will remain unaffected during the upgrade integration.

Please note that trading of ETH will not be affected during the upgrade.

Binance reminds the community that no new coin will launch as a result of the hard fork, it will be a system upgrade.

Read more:

Bitcoin Blasts Past $7,500, but Bulls Are Not Out of the Woods Yet - U.Today

Editor's note: Seeking Alpha is proud to welcome M. Zack Norman as a new contributor. It's easy to become a Seeking Alpha contributor and earn money for your best investment ideas. Active contributors also get free access to SA PREMIUM. Click here to find out more

Editor's note: Seeking Alpha is proud to welcome M. Zack Norman as a new contributor. It's easy to become a Seeking Alpha contributor and earn money for your best investment ideas. Active contributors also get free access to SA PREMIUM. Click here to find out more

While Bitcoin (BTC-USD) and cryptocurrency prices have sharply corrected downwards, it may have already signaled a new bottom at $6,500, as it has bounced sharply to the $7,400 resistance point within hours, marking increased accumulation pending the +50% pullback.

Source: Coin360

The cryptocurrency market is experiencing a large market rout, with overall market cap dropping to below $200 billion for the first time since May 10th 2019 at the end of the months long crypto winter, talked about as the crash of November 2018.

Source: TradingView (Zack Norman)

Bitcoin dropped to below $7,000 for the first time since May 17th, 2019, touching a new low of around $6,500 on November 25th, 2019. This marked a +52% pullback from 2019's high of $13,800 on June 26th, 2019.

Source: TradingView (Zack Norman)

Just a month before in late October, Bitcoin along with other cryptocurrency pairs had risen +40% (Bitcoin rose to a high of $10,600) after positive comments by the President of China, Xi Jinping, as he endorsed China's development of the Blockchain industry, and sought to harness the abilities of its technology for China's industrial growth. However, no mentions were made then of any cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin.

Source: TradingView (Zack Norman)

Soon thereafter, Chinese citizens started to search the internet about "Blockchain", with search results reaching new highs, with a +1,382.79% daily surge on Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU).

Surging search volumes for "Blockchain", and modest increase for "Bitcoin" on Baidu and WeChat. Source: The Block

On November 11th, 2019, China's largest and most influential state news agency, Xinhua, published an article headlining Bitcoin, titled Bitcoin: The First Successful Application of Blockchain Technology on their newspaper. The article itself explained the various machinations of Bitcoin, such as how Blockchain works, currency mining, and P2P transactions. China had also lifted cryptocurrency mining from its blacklist, thus pulling it from a grey-area that long remained legal, but controversial.

1) As these developments were viewed as a positive sign forward for cryptocurrencies, it opened the doors for increased speculation. However, the overreaction was soon made aware by China's authorities, as they made attempts to further increase scrutiny of cryptocurrencies, as reported by CoinDesk and The Block.

Their crackdowns began targeting companies and projects related to cryptocurrency and Blockchain, citing fraudulent activities. The action undertaken by Chinese authorities is widely agreed to be the primary cause for the recent plunge to $6,500, as investors and traders are fearful of any potential ban as China plans on releasing its own digital currency soon.

2) Another reason to be concerned about is potential miner capitulation. As more cryptocurrency miners are losing their net worth due to market downturns, they are obliged to sell more of their cryptocurrency holdings to maintain their operations, and if necessary to upgrade their hardware. A market downturn, as is with the current +50% pullback, will push more miners to capitulate, and to dump their cryptocurrency holdings onto public exchanges, thus increasing supply with only moderate demand.

According to data from Blockchain.com, cryptocurrency miners' revenue have also dropped to its lowest level since May 2019. Source: Blockchain.

On TradingView, The Hash Ribbons indicator is a useful tool to identify potential miner capitulation, by also taking into account hash rate and momentum. Grey circles show a potential beginning to miner capitulation, while succeeding green circles mark a recovery period, with blue circles indicating good buying opportunities.

Historically, miner capitulations have not always had a significant impact on price. However, there are uncertainties now, as we are seeing more institutional entry into cryptocurrencies, and Bitcoin is only 6 months away from halving in 2020.

Source: TradingView (Zack Norman)

The capitulation may have already started, as analyst ByteTree has shown on Reddit; one cryptocurrency miner placed a large $17.6 million sell order, thus dumping into the markets just around the descending $8,000 mark, days before the current downturn.

Source: ByteTree (Reddit)

3) Next, the liquidity markets in the cryptocurrency space are at the lowest in recent months, with bid-ask offers widening sharply in the past 3 months, further exacerbated by the downturn, following miners dumping their holdings onto the open markets to maintain their operability. Here, VanEck director, Gabor Gurbacs, quoted data from Skew Markets, showing increasing bid-offer spreads on some cryptocurrency exchanges.

Source: Gabor Gurbacs, Skew Markets (Twitter)

The lack of liquidity has also been blamed on China's recent crackdowns, thus creating a negative sentiment for investors and traders, as they attempt to avoid trading on the markets until further news from China comes out.

From the low of $6,500 on November 25th, 2019, it took about 7 hours later for the price to rebound above $7,000, as investors and traders are buying the dip. As of December 3rd, 2019, prices have settled near the $7,400 mark, as it was rejected sharply at the $7,800 resistance.

It's worth mentioning, however, that prices dipped slightly on November 27th, 2019, under $7,000 after cryptocurrency exchange UpBit announced a cybertheft of $50 million worth of Ethereum tokens.

Source: Coin360

Historically, Bitcoin usually has a roughly 40-50% pullback after every rapid upwards surge. Since mid-December 2018 until late-June 2019, Bitcoin surged approximately +340% in that 6-7 month period. It has currently pulled back marginally more than usual, by approximately 52% from its late-June 2019 highs of $13,800.

Currently, there are 2 issues that could play critical to Bitcoin's price and the overall cryptocurrency market, which is what we need to look out for - 1) if there are any further negative news to come out of China, and what their crackdowns may lead to; 2) whether there is continued market illiquidity, and whether cryptocurrency miners are capitulating en masse.

Disclosure: I am/we are long BTC-USD. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

View original post here:

Bitcoin Corrects And What's Next - Seeking Alpha

BTC/USD is hovering around $7,300 amid expanding volatility. The first digital coin recovered from the intraday low of $7,154, however, the upside is limited bu $7,300-$7,330 area. BTC/USD has gained 1.7% on a day-to-day basis and 1% since the beginning of the day.

Looking technically, there are a lot of barriers both above and below the current price. However, most of them are not strong enough to reverse a trend when it starts. Lets have a closer look at the technical levels that may serve as resistance and support areas for the coin.

$7,330 - 38.2% Fibo retracement daily, the middle line of 1-hour Bollinger Band, a host of short-term SMA (Simple Moving Average) levels$7,400 - SMA200 1-hour, SMA50 4-hour$7,700 - 38.2% Fibo retracement monthly

$7,250 - 23.6% Fibo retracement daily and monthly, the middle line of 1-hour Bollinger Band, a host of short-term SMA (Simple Moving Average) levels$7,040 - 61.8% Fibo retracement weekly$6,500 - the lowest level of the previous week and the lowest level of the previous month

Continue reading here:

Bitcoin Price Prediction: BTC/USD recovery stalled at $7,400 Confluence Detector - FXStreet

Authorities have busted a call center in Thailand and arrested 24 Chinese nationals for allegedly running a Bitcoin investment scam.

Chiang Rai Times, anEnglish language news portal, says the scam has been operating since March this year.

Additionally, the portal notes that those arrested were tasked with luring citizens in mainland China to trade Bitcoin using cryptocurrency exchange Huobi Global.

According to a statement issued by Thailands Immigration Police, it appears the individuals had their passported confiscated when they arrived at a rented property in Bangkok, though this remains unclear.

A loosely translated version of the statement reads: The monthly salary is 5,000 yuan [$710.25]. There is accommodation [] with all meals, phone calls to deceive Chinese people. In order to conduct financial transactions in digital currency and to spin said digital currency on the website, starting from 09:00 hours to 22:00 hours.

The statement also says policeseized 61 notebook computers, 424 mobile phones, routers and 3 internet devices.

Thailands Immigration Police are reportedly working to identify additional Thai nationals also believed to be involved with the scam.

Published December 5, 2019 11:25 UTC

Originally posted here:

24 Chinese nationals arrested in Thailand over alleged Bitcoin call center scam - The Next Web