Recently, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) has been showing virtually zero volatility. This volatility decreased particularly as of late while Bitcoin was resting on the crucial support level of $9,000.

But on July 21 Bitcoin finally made a sudden move, as expected in the latest analysis, and the price surged from $9,100 to $9,400. So is volatility back or is this just nothing more than a blip? Lets take a closer look.

Crypto market daily performance. Source: TradingView

The price of Bitcoin held the crucial support at $9,000 and broke upwards. However, the price of BTC is still inside the ascending triangle structure.

This means that the price of the top-ranked cryptocurrency by market capitalization is continuously making higher lows since the March 12 crash. Since then, every previous resistance level got confirmed for support, initiating bullish support/resistance flips and further upwards continuation.

BTC/USDT 1-day chart. Source: TradingView

The crucial area to hold was the range between $8,900-9,000 (on smaller timeframes). The recent low at $8,500-8,800 flipped into support already, after which the same occurred with the $8,900-9,000 range.

Similarly, Bitcoins price is still acting above the 100-day and 200-day moving averages (MAs), which is a bullish signal. As long as Bitcoins price remains above these MAs, the market is in bull territory.

However, a sudden massive surge is unlikely to occur, given that Bitcoins price is still acting inside an enormous range.

BTC/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

The likeliness of a $1,000 candle is getting higher once Bitcoin reclaims the untested levels, shown in the chart.

Until then, the likelihood of continued range-bound movements persists. In this case, every previous level is likely to receive a test for confirmation of the breakout, after which the next level will likely get tested.

The yet-untested levels in the previous month are $9,650, $9,800 and $10,100. Once the price of Bitcoin breaks through the $10,100 barrier, massive continuation is likely to occur with a giant surge.

The $9,200 resistance broke earlier today, which immediately led to a surge to the $9,400 resistance zone.

BTC/USDT 4-hour bullish scenario chart. Source: TradingView

The bullish scenario would mean a continuation toward the $9,600 level in one-go or a corrective move before continuation.

In that regard, a retest of the previous level at $9,200 for support is not typical. If such a retest occurs, the next compression and breakout will likely open the door to $9,600 and possibly $9,800.

As the chart shows, these movements are the exact opposite of what the market has witnessed previously. In the past month, the market witnessed an overall slip, though now the opposite is more likely in the coming weeks.

Currently, the crucial support level to hold is $9,200 as this boosts the chances of more upside.

BTC/USDT 4-hour bearish scenario chart. Source: TradingView

The bearish scenario also has the critical pivot at $9,200. In this scenario, the price of Bitcoin cant break $9,400 and immediately loses the $9,200 support level.

If that happens, a further downward drop is likely to be expected as the ascending triangle becomes invalid.

The key levels to watch here include the crucial pivot at $9,200. Losing that level would warrant a test of the $8,400-8,700 area and possible continuation towards the $7,500 region.

Overall, the market should sustain upward momentum as long as $9,200 holds, which also increases the chances of testing new yearly highs.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.

The rest is here:
Bitcoin Price Holds Key Support and Is on the Verge of Testing $10,000 - Cointelegraph

In the race to become the dominant cryptocurrency platform, Ethereum is gaining on Bitcoin.

Take a look at the market capitalization of ether, the native token of the Ethereum blockchain. Currently, the value stands at about $26 billion. But that figure doesnt include all of the digital assets built atop the Ethereum blockchain, including some of this years hottest tokens:stablecoinslike tether and USDC and altcoins likeCrypto.coms CRO, Chainlinks LINK, CompoundsCOMPand KybersKNC.

Youre readingFirst Mover, CoinDesks daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in bitcoin and more. We follow the money so you dont have to. You cansubscribe here.

The combined value of those ERC-20-standard tokens is alsoaround $26 billion, according to the data provider Messari. That puts the market capitalization of the Ethereum ecosystem at more than $50 billion closer to bitcoins $170 billion than if ether were considered alone.

The comparison shows how the rapid pace of development this year on Ethereum has brought the blockchains ecosystem closer to challenging Bitcoin. The value gap narrowed overthe past month as bitcoins price stagnated,while demand for stablecoins and a flurry of activity in decentralized finance, known as DeFi, has ignited the value of Ethereum and the tokens that depend on it.

DeFi tokens continue their bull run, cryptocurrency analysis firm TradeBlock wrote Monday in aweekly commentary.

Messari, a digital-asset data firm, said in a report thatthe Ethereum blockchains daily settlement value recently surged to about $2.5 billion, surpassing Bitcoins for the first time since at least early 2019.

Ethereum has blown past Bitcoin, Ryan Watkins, a Messari analyst, wrote in the post on Monday. With the increasing amount of economic activity taking place on Ethereum, this trend is unlikely to reverse anytime soon, if ever.

Its the latest chapter in the competition among projects to attain critical mass in the cryptocurrency industry. For entrepreneurs and investors in the space, the goal is to establish networks and projects with enough name recognition, credibility and functionality to scale quickly if and when mass adoption comes.Bitcoin, the oldest and largest cryptocurrency, attracted most of the hype early in 2020 as some analysts predicted a once-every-four-years event known as the blockchains halving could send prices to $90,000. Bitcoin got another bluster of endorsements as the spreading coronavirus slammed the global economy, sending traditional markets plunging and prompting the Federal Reserve and other big central banks to createtrillions of dollars of freshmoney.

Many investors predicted that the money injections would debase the dollars purchasing power, driving up theprice of bitcoin. Yet over the past couple months, bitcoins price has stagnated below $10,000, and even its notoriousvolatility has withered prompting fickle crypto traders to seek faster-moving action.

Bitcoin has been stuck in a tight trading range for weeks, boring for a market that used to be known for itsthrills. However, there are signs Tuesday that an expected big move may be building.

Still, Ethers price is up 81% in 2020 to $237, almost three times bitcoins 30% year-to-date gain.

Steve Ehrlich, CEO of publicly traded cryptocurrency brokerage firm Voyager Digital, says bitcoin has accounted for about 15%oftrading volumes so far in July, down from about 60% prior to the May halving.

Weve seen a tremendous change in our retail customerbehaviors, Ehrlich said Monday in a phone interview. Whenbitcoin is extremely flat in the marketplace, people are looking at other tokens.

In terms of name recognition and popularity outside of the crypto industry, Bitcoin still dominates. According to a report last week from the trading platform eToro and data provider The TIE, only four stories about DeFiappeared in June in non-crypto news sources, versus some 200 about bitcoin.

There is a growing realization though that the 2020 DeFi hype may be overdone, Mati Greenspan, founder of the cryptocurrency and foreign-exchange analysis firmQuantum Economics, wrote Monday in an e-mail to subscribers.

Denis Vinokourov, head of research at the London-based cryptocurrency prime brokerBequant, said that ethereum risks becoming a victim of its own success, activity inthe tokens built atop the blockchain are driving up transaction fees.

This resurgence in the network performance has come with a raft of undesired consequences, Vinokourov wrote in emailed remarks.

And Jimmy Song, a well-known bitcoin developer and promoter, told the website CoinMarketCap in aninterview published last weekthat he thinks many DeFi projects will fail to live up to their decentralized billing because they almost always have to have some sort of back doorin case something goes wrong.

Its really just a form of gambling with limited upside for people that arent in control of the protocol, Song said.

For now, though, the Ethereum ecosystem is edging closer.

Jack Tan, of Taiwan-based quantitative firm Kronos Research, told CoinDesks Daniel Cawrey that he seesether hitting $500 by the end of this year. That would more than double ethers market capitalization, to say nothing of any potential increases in the value of ERC-20 tokens.

Ethereum the platform has done its job, the cryptocurrency investment firm Arca wrote Monday in a weeklyblog post.

Traders are apparently doing their jobs too following the action.

Tweet of the day

Bitcoin watch

BTC: Price: $9,347 (BPI) | 24-Hr High: $9,363 | 24-Hr Low: $9,152

Trend:Bitcoin is showing signs of life on Tuesday with prices trading above $9,340 at press time, representing a 1.9% gain on the day. Notably, the cryptocurrency hasnt witnessed an over 1% move since July 9.

The 4-hour chart shows the cryptocurrency has broken higher from the four-week-long narrowing price range. The breakout is backed by an above-50 or bullish reading on the relative strength index. Meanwhile, the MACD histogram is printing higher bars above the zero line, a sign the upward move may gather pace.

The immediate resistance at $9,480 a lower high created on July 9 could be put to test over the next few hours.

Acceptance above that level would confirm a Bollinger band (volatility indicator) breakout on the daily chart and may yield a rally to $10,000.

The bias would turn bearish if the cryptocurrency finds acceptance under $9,000. However, sellers have failed multiple times in the last two months to establish a foothold below that psychological support.

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

Read the original post:
First Mover: Bitcoin Shows Signs of Life But Ether (And Crew) Steal the Limelight - CoinDesk - CoinDesk

KATWIJK, NETHERLANDS - JULY 7: In this photo illustration, visual representations of the digital ... [+] Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Etheream and Litecoin, are placed with a gold chain necklace and silver coins atop Euro banknotes on July 7, 2020 in Katwijk, Netherlands. (Photo by Yuriko Nakao/Getty Images)

Grayscale announced yesterday that shares of their digital asset funds, Bitcoin Cash Trust and Litecoin Trust, have FINRA approval for public quotation under BCHG and LTCN.They will be the first digital asset-based funds to be publicly quoted in the U.S. market.

These funds will be open-ended trusts sponsored by Grayscale and are intended to enable exposure to the price movement of the trusts underlying assets through a traditional investment vehicle. The idea is to provide an accredited investor the opportunity to invest in digital assets while avoiding buying, storing, and safekeeping digital Bitcoin or Litecoin directly.

The trusts are not yet DTC eligible. Grayscale said in its press releases, There will be no trading volume in the Shares public quotations until the respective Shares are DTC eligible, which BCHG and LTCN are expected to receive soon.The company continued, The Trusts are not registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and are not subject to disclosure and certain other requirements mandated byU.S.securities laws.

Cryptocurrency exchanges, in general, are not yet fully regulated by FINRA and the SEC. The result has been limited adoption by large institutional investors and hedge funds.

But Grayscales achievement by moving in that direction signals that regulatory barriers can be resolved.Digital assets may become more commonplace in funds seeking alpha value opportunities and diversification.

Read the original:
FINRA Approves Names For Grayscales Bitcoin Cash And Litecoin Trusts - Forbes

Russia has dropped plans to criminalize bitcoin transactions for now, according to local media reports.

The Digital Financial Assets Bill (DFA), due to be read for the second time in the Russian parliament or State Duma on July 21, has removed references to administrative and criminal liability for dealing in bitcoin (BTC). A third and final reading will establish it as law.

There will be no liability in this bill, Anatoly Aksakov, head of the parliaments financial markets committee, told local news agency Ria Novosti. Aksakov, who is sponsoring the draft law, said the idea to penalize BTC investors with fines and jail terms had been set aside for the time being.

Theyve removed everything, theres only a link that the regulation of digital currency will be determined in another law, he stated.

An earlier version of the DFA bill proposed to levy fines of up to $7,000 or seven years in jail for individuals buying bitcoin with cash. It also planned to punish companies that issue or operate virtual currencies without approval from the Russian central bank, with fines of up to two million rubles or about $28,000.

Under the original bill, companies would have to pay the equivalent of one million rubles ($13,900) and individuals at least 200,000 rubles ($2,800) for violation of the rules for transactions with cryptocurrencies, if they are used as payment for goods or services.

According to Aksakov, the revised draft law, in its current format, now deals with issues around the definition of digital financial assets and establishes requirements for blockchain operations, among other matters.

He expects the proposed law to enter into force on January 1, 2021, once it is adopted in the second and third readings, in the spring session. The State Duma spring session ends July 23, Ria Novosti reported.

However, Russian lawmakers are planning another special law on crypto regulation that might reintroduce severe penalties for dealing in BTC, as originally proposed.

There will be a special law on digital currency, which can be adopted in the autumn session, Aksakov was quoted as saying. The autumn session ends in December.

Cryptocurrencies remain a grey area in Russia, with the legal status of smart contracts, initial coin offerings and mining not clearly defined despite a raft of proposals brought to parliament for this purpose.

What do you think about the Russias proposed crypto law? Let us know in the comments section below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

Continued here:
Russia Shelves Plans to Criminalize Bitcoin Transactions - For Now | Regulation - Bitcoin News

Bitcoin (BTC) uses the Proof of Work (PoW) consensus algorithm as the basis of its security. This means that like many other cryptocurrencies, a network of cryptocurrency miners is used to discover blocks and add pending transactions to them, to render them irreversible.

The block discovery process, which takes approximately 10 minutes per block, also results in the minting of a fixed number of new Bitcoin per block. This is currently set at 6.25 BTC per block, but halves approximately every four years (210,000 blocks), reducing the number of Bitcoin minted with each newly discovered block.

This BTC is provided as an incentive to the miner (or miners if using a mining pool) that discovered the block.

Although it takes 10 minutes to discover each block and each block yields a 6.25 BTC reward for the miner that successfully discovered it, it's important to understand that the entire Bitcoin mining network is essentially competing in this block discovery process.

This means that only a single miner in the entire mining network will actually successfully discover the blockand since there are potentially tens of thousands of Bitcoin miners in operation, the odds of single-handedly discovering a block is quite low.

For this reason, the vast majority of Bitcoin miners work together as part of a mining pool, combining their hash rate to stand a better chance of discovering a block. Then, regardless of which miner in the pool actually discovers the block, the rewards are distributed evenly throughout the pool.

Consequently, a miner that contributes 1% of a pool's hash rate, will also receive 1% of the block rewards it accrues.

F2Pool is currently the largest pool by hash rate share, contributing around 20.52 EH/s of the total Bitcoin hash rate of 123.39 EH/s. This 16.6% hash rate share essentially means that around 16.6% of all newly minted BTC are mined by this poolequivalent to 149.4 BTC per day.

An individual miner that contributes 1% of the pool's hash rate (~205 PH/s) would earn approximately 1.494 BTC per day. This means a miner would need close to 132 PH/s of hash rate to mine an average of 1 BTC per day at current difficulty levels.

To put this into perspective, this is the equivalent of 1,200 Antminer S19 Pro mining rigscurrently one of the fastest ASIC miners on the market. The total cost for this setup would likely be somewhere around $2.4 million, assuming a unit price of $2,000/ea.

For those with a smaller budget, it would take a single Antminer S19 Pro a total of 1,200 days to generate 1 BTC in rewards when working with a mining poolthat's the equivalent of generating 0.0000833 BTC/day in rewards.

To calculate how long it would take another mining rig to generate 1 BTC in rewards, you can simply plug its hash rate into the following equation: 1 / (hash rate (in PH/s)) * 0.0076. This result will produce the number of days it will take to generate 1 BTC in rewards at current difficulty levels.

Although most Bitcoin miners tend to focus their efforts as part of a mining pool, it's also possible to go it alone.

Unlike Bitcoin mining pools, which essentially guarantee smaller regular payouts and eliminate most of the risks involved with Bitcoin mining, solo mining is more of a gamblebut can also be more rewarding. Since solo miners don't need to pay any mining pool fees, the overall mining profitability can be slightly higher than working with a pool, particularly for those running a sizeable mining operation.

Statistically speaking, a solo miner looking to generate 1 BTC per day would need to contribute just over 0.11% of the total Bitcoin hash rate. As we previously mentioned, this is equivalent to around 132PH/s or the combined output of 1,200 Antminer S19 Pro mining units. On average this mining operation would discover a block yielding a 6.26 BTC reward every 6.25 days, which averages out to 1 BTC/day.

Because even gigantic 1,200 rig mining operations would take almost a week to discover a single block, miners with just a few machines would likely go years without discovering a block, making the practice extremely risky in most cases.

The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.

Read more:
How long does it take to mine a Bitcoin? - Decrypt

The number of applications built on Bitcoin SV is steadily growing, as more developers and businesses leverage the networks low fees and massive scalability. At the inaugural Bitcoin SV DevCon virtual event, the founders of Money Button, Codugh and Tokenized joined Brendan Lee to talk about how their services are being utilized by the Bitcoin ecosystem, their unique features and what the future holds.

For Codughs Shashank Singhal, his interest in blockchain technology dates back to 2016. While he and his fellow cofounder Andrew Snow built briefly on the Ethereum blockchain, its inability to scale proved to be a hindrance.

We need a blockchain that can handle a large volume of transactions. Weve seen from apps like WeatherSV that BSV can handle massive transactions on-chain. Low fees on BSV allow for micro transactions which is essential to us. The dedication to a stable protocol means we can be certain that we wont encounter any big changes or struggle in the future.

Money Button has become one of the most popular wallets in the Bitcoin space, but as founder Ryan X. Charles revealed, its more than just a wallet. Charles delved into some of the advanced features and how developers are exploiting them to develop their platforms.

Money Button now boasts of over a million button swipes and is now integrated into more than 150 active applications. Some of the renowned apps using Money Button include Twetch, Cityonchain, and PowPing. Charles singled out Baemail for its innovative use of Money Button, being the first app that made use of the advanced features such as the encryption of data inside a Bitcoin transaction.

Despite the platforms immense success, Charles believes that Bitcoin appsMoney Button includedare still very niche.

I dont think weve reached a mainstream audience yet. We still have a long way to go to reach a genuinely mainstream audience. Thats why we spend a lot of time worrying about user experience because we want to ensure that ordinary end users can use the app.

Tokenized CEO James Belding concurred with Charles, pointing out that we are just scratching the surface of whats possible with Bitcoin. Belding remarked, I think the concept of smart contracts has barely been touched in terms of where it needs to go to become a mainstream competing product.

Tokenized allows users to tokenize any ownership certificate, from high value assets like stocks and bonds, to loyalty points, tickets and gym membership.

The three founders also shared the advanced features their firms have been working on. Money Buttons invisible button has opened up a world of possibilities, allowing app developers to customize the user experience. Codugh has been in a closed beta, with Singhal calling on developers to sign on to the waitlist. The wider release is scheduled to take place in three months, he revealed. For Tokenized, the focus has been on e-money, with the company submitting a whitepaper to the Bank of England that lays out how e-money on the Tokenized platform would function.

New to Bitcoin? Check out CoinGeeksBitcoin for Beginnerssection, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about Bitcoinas originally envisioned by Satoshi Nakamotoand blockchain.

Continued here:
Bitcoin SV DevCon 2020: Leveraging Bitcoin services to thrive - CoinGeek

It has been an established statement that cryptocurrency or the bitcoin runs in a decentralized network.

The term decentralization has been there is the society for quite long now. It is an important term which is actually something greater than what we actually know. The concept of decentralization has always been an important idea that has never been very clear. Here we will try to clarify the idea of decentralization.

A Trustless System

Well, this is one of the best systems, as there is no authority linked to it and no one is responsible for anything. You can withdraw and deposit whatever amount you want easily in your crypto wallet.

A trustless system is a system that allows you to do anything with your money and no one except you are responsible for whatever happens to your crypto asset. Here you do not send the money to another user, you send the crypto to another address.

In the case of the trustless system, the system is such that you can use which no one would care about. In the case of a bank, one is always responsible send just a limited amount of money is transferred. But in the case of cryptocurrency, the entire amount which could be a huge amount can be sent to anyone. But in the case of bank transactions that are not possible, while on the other hand, you can send money from were to wherever you want. You can send cryptos in large amounts from one part of the earth to the other. While the geographical limitation is there in banks, it takes a lot of pain to transfer any money to any other country.

Although this system is trustless which means you can send and receive money from people who you have never met or ever had any conversation with such people.

Low Risk

If you are a little careful with the kind of investment you do or the way you use your cryptocurrency, you will get to know that actually the risk is very less in the crypto market. Keep reading to know the impact of crypto currency in global economy then you would be able to do some low-risk investment.

Cryptocurrency is highly volatile hence the risk associated with the cryptocurrency is really high. But you have also seen millionaires and billionaires, so how do you think they escape the risk of the cryptocurrency?

It sounds really difficult to deal with such a volatile kind of cryptocurrency, but even then, people do become a millionaire. It is just because they know when to trade and how to trade. The price and the value of the bitcoin would rise and fall wherever necessary but then you will soon realize that if you trade properly, you will be able to do great business.

If you know when to use your crypto and when to trade crypto, then you will also know that when would you meet a crash in the market and when would you be able to sell off the shares.

The Legitimacy of the Crypto Market

Some people think that the crypto market is not a legal market, it is because a lot of the darknet activities happen through this platform. But this does not mean that it is actually an illegal activity. Many of the countries have actually made the use of bitcoin legal and they want to encourage more and more people to use crypto.

During the COVID-19 it has been seen that in many of the countries the fiat currency was not been able to cope with the financial crisis in the market. While some places like South Africa and Venezuela accepted the cryptocurrency like bitcoin to bring back the economic condition of the country. They believed that it is not possible because the value of bitcoin fluctuates while the fiat currency remains what it is, hence they feel it is not possible.

It can be concluded looking at the economic condition of the world that using the decentralized currency is the best kind of currency that must be used. This will help you to get back the economic condition of the country properly.

Read the original here:
Why Decentralized Finance Through Bitcoin Can Be A Great Thing For The World - Programming Insider