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Three days into what can only be termed a rout, shares of bitcoin have stabilized if we accept the skewed maxim that one days trading makes a trend.

Reutersnoted Monday that the digital currency gained at least some traction, after the previous three sessions slammed pricing to its lowest level since 2015.The peak seems far away, at $1,350.Itcame a week ago as there had been hopes among traders that the currency would be listed as part of an ETF. Conventional wisdom holds that such a listing would boost liquidity and transparency. Yet the bid for listing was denied by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which cited unregulated markets.

Thus the low came on Saturday to $944 per bitcoin.The Winklevoss twins, who had been looking to list those ETF shares, said efforts would continue.

The newswire also said that there have been disputes centering around the blocks in which bitcoin trades.That may leave the door open for inroads to be made by ether and other rival currencies.The formercurrency, ether, has tripled in value over the past month.Some observers have said that trading involved selling bitcoin, while buying ether.

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Bitcoin Stabilizes After 3-Day Nosedive - PYMNTS.com

On Friday, a group of major cryptocurrency exchanges announced their planned response to the split of bitcoin into two separate pools of currency and processing power. That event, known as a hard fork, is viewed as increasingly likely among bitcoin leaders, as a years-long debate about the networks technical limitations and broader vision comes to a head.

The marketplaces, including marquee portals BitStamp and Kraken, said on Friday that if a hard fork occurs, they will let users trade both conventional bitcoin, and any alternate version that emerges. The most likely bitcoin spinoff is known as Bitcoin Unlimited, which the worlds largest bitcoin server group, or mining pool, recently announced it would back .

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Bitcoin has been pushed to the verge of this split by a years-long debate about whats known as block size . Under bitcoins existing code, theres a tight limit on the amount of data that can be included in a batch of transactions, and as the network has grown in popularity, that limit has slowed the processing of payments. Moves that once took seconds to clear can now take hours, and all players seem to agree that some sort of change is necessary.

But there are competing visions about any fixs goals and methods. One bitcoin entrepreneur has summarized the divide as between a Bitcoin Unlimited contingent updating bitcoin to support many small transactions, and a Bitcoin Core cadre who believe in smaller changes, fewer transactions, and more stability.

The decentralized, even anarchistic nature of bitcoin administration makes the process of change unwieldy. Bitcoin hosts (miners) essentially vote on any system changes by choosing what software to run. But if large groups choose to run mutually incompatible code, they generate separate transaction records, and in essence, entirely separate pools of currency.

Currently, according to Silicon Angle, nearly 40% of bitcoin miners support Bitcoin Unlimitednot enough to force a system-wide changeover to the new protocol, but enough to establish a splinter group.

The exchanges announcement may help smooth the potential chaos of a hard fork. The crypto world got a preview last year when Ethereum, a major bitcoin alternative, underwent a planned fork to reverse the results of a multimillion dollar hack . That unexpectedly led to two competing systems , which reportedly interfered with one another's operations.

If bitcoins big players want to go their separate ways, then, some advance planning seems very healthy.

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Bitcoin Prepares For an Ugly Breakup - Fortune

The increasing reports of Bitcoin fraud and scams have forced a Canadian police department to issue a warning. Read more...

The performance of Bitcoin has been really great for the past few months. The digital currency reached an all-time high recently before recording a sharp decline this weekend. The increased Bitcoin price followed by speculations of further rise has led to an increase in the number of fraudulent investment schemes and scams.

The rise in Bitcoin-related frauds has forced the Canadian Police to warn the countrys population. The Durham Regional Police issued the warning following multiple reports from the residents of the region. According to the information available on various media outlets, many Canadians were approached by fraudsters after they responded to few listed job openings and advertisements.

The report also describes the modus operandi of the fraudsters which involves sending cheques to victims and asking them to use that money to buy bitcoin. Once the user deposits the cheque into their account, buys the digital currency with own money and transfers it to the fraudster, the cheque or e-transfer sent to the user bounces, leaving them short of money.

Similarly, another scenario involves scammers posing as the employees or representatives of the Canada Revenue Agency who ask for income tax payments in Bitcoin. Victims of such cryptocurrency scams have lost thousands of dollars so far.

The Durham Region Police Department asks the residents to be cautious while dealing with such requests. They also urge them to come forward and report the fraud if they have lost money to such scams.

The issue is not confined to Canada alone. There have been reports of similar scams attempted in the United States and India as well. The tax season also presents a lucrative opportunity for the scammers as people wont find a communication from the taxman unusual. Many times, the victims are unsure about the legality of Bitcoin and virtual currency fraud, which makes them think twice before reporting it to the authorities.

It is advisable for people to not only avoid people asking them to buy Bitcoin on their behalf but also be wary of attractive cryptocurrency investment options that promise unrealistic rewards, as such schemes usually end with unsuspecting investors losing money to Ponzi schemes. It is better to be careful than letting the desire to make a quick buck get the best/worst out of oneself.

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Canadian Police Warns against Rising Bitcoin Scams the Country - newsBTC

A couples honeymoon might not seem the time to undertake a social experiment, with the digital currency Bitcoin, but thats exactly what one soon-to-be-married couple are planning when they tie the knot at the end of the month.

On 28 March, 2017, South African residents Wilhelm Lehmann and Natasha Bezuidenhout are due to get married and just like most newlyweds theyll be enjoying their time together on their honeymoon.

For them, this is the perfect time to demonstrate the real-life value of Bitcoin.

Speaking to CCN, Lehmann, a telecoms and IT specialist, who has used Bitcoin extensively and whose hobbies include cryptography and firearms, said that he has been following Bitcoin since its inception, concluding that it might be possible to live solely using the currency. He adds that this is a challenge he wants to prove after the honeymoon challenge.

He said that if the experiment is successful it will further boost his view of it as a real-world currency, which he hopes to explain in his whitepaper after the honeymoon.

It would prove you can travel to multiple countries using a single currency stored virtually in the cloud, so you dont have to worry about losing credit cards [or] cash being stolen.

The couple is planning to travel for a week to Zanzibar, Mauritius and South Africa. Using Bitcoin Core, Electrum and paper wallets, Lehmann says that he plans on pre-booking everything, choosing vendors that use payment processors that accept the digital currency.

However, while many may consider this too short a time to determine the currencys value in day-to-day expenses, Lehmann says how much they can do depends on the availability of Bitcoin that they are hoping friends and family will put toward their honeymoon fund.

He states:

Currently our main challenge is getting enough Bitcoin together to pay for our honeymoon.

Bitcoin is one of the quickest growing digital currencies with a market cap value of just over $20 billion. Ethereum, in second place, is valued at just under $3 billion.

With one Bitcoin currently valued around $1,248, a slight drop from its previous high of $1,350, after the SEC rejected the approval of the first ETF, the currency is demonstrating that despite setbacks it is much stronger than previously thought.

Not only that, but the currency is illustrating its ease of use, which millions of people are experiencing.

Lehmann states:

People are moving to convenience, and online transactions are more common every day.

He adds that as a backup hell be taking his credit cards with him as he says he cant let our honeymoon be spoiled because the spa wont take Bitcoin for a massage. He concludes, though, that this would be a last resort if there was no way of getting what they needed with the currency.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

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Experimenting with Bitcoin on Your Honeymoon - CryptoCoinsNews

Bitcoin Price Plunges on Fears of a Currency Split Wall Street Journal (subscription) Bitcoin shed about a fifth of its value over the weekend as an increasingly bitter split in the developer community behind the virtual currency threatened to literally break it in two. Bitcoin was trading at $999 on Sunday after trading as low as $970 ...

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Bitcoin Price Plunges on Fears of a Currency Split - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

BEIJING--China's central bank is moving to regulate its domestic bitcoin industry, circulating new guidelines that, if enacted, would require exchanges to identify clients and adhere to banking regulations.

Recent scrutiny by the central bank has already led exchanges to impose trading fees and suspend withdrawals of bitcoin from their platforms. Chinese investors have fled the market.

A draft of the guidelines says Chinese bitcoin exchanges would be subject to current banking and anti-money-laundering laws, and required to collect information to identify their clients, according to people familiar with the matter. They say the rules, if implemented, would require exchanges to install systems for collecting and reporting suspicious trading activity to authorities. The People's Bank of China would be in charge of handling violations by the exchanges.

The people said officials could still revise the guidelines, which were given to exchanges in recent days.

The PBOC didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The move to regulate bitcoin exchanges brings assurance that authorities will tolerate some level of trading after months of uncertainty. The central bank opened up investigations in January at the country's three largest bitcoin exchanges, Huobi, OkCoin and BTCC, and delivered a terse warning last month that platforms risk being shut down if they skirt rules on money laundering and foreign exchange.

In the past 30 days, yuan-denominated bitcoin trades accounted for 17% of global volume, down from 97% in the past six months, according to data tracker Bitcoinity.

But regulation also means Chinese exchanges would face a tighter operating environment.

Since the scrutiny started, Huobi, OkCoin and BTCC have said they are working with authorities. An OkCoin spokeswoman said in an email on Friday that the firm continues to work with the PBOC and welcomes a balanced, risk-based regulatory framework.

Analysts say a major reason the central bank started probing the exchanges this year was concern that Chinese investors were using bitcoin to get money out of the country, albeit in small amounts. China has been struggling with a depreciating yuan and waning confidence in its economy. The bitcoin network flies under the radar of authorities, who have allowed holders to move bitcoin from an exchange based on the Chinese mainland to a foreign location.

When Chinese investors first snapped up bitcoin and drove up prices in 2013, the central bank banned banks and third-party payment platforms from engaging in the industry and defined bitcoin as a virtual good, not a financial asset. They stopped short of issuing direct regulations on bitcoin exchanges, which flourished in the following years.

Authorities continue to regard bitcoin as a virtual good, according to people familiar with the matter. The latest guidelines apply to any "trading platform for virtual internet goods," these people say.

Write to Chao Deng at Chao.Deng@wsj.com

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China's new bitcoin rules call for identity check - MarketWatch

You may not know it by looking at bitcoins recent price surge, but the infrastructure underpinning the worlds most popular virtual currency is teetering.

While speculators continue to push the value of the digital money to record highs against the U.S. dollar, the system that verifies bitcoin transactions -- known as the blockchain -- is more backlogged than at any point in the currencys eight-year history. The number of transactions awaiting verification is up more than fivefold from a year ago, and the jam is forcing users to pay increasingly high fees to speed up confirmations, which in some cases is making bitcoin more expensive to use than Visa Inc. or PayPal Holdings Inc.

Now, after more than two years of bitter infighting among the global bitcoin community about how to fix the problem, some of its most influential members are giving up on reaching consensus. Instead, theyve begun backing a controversial solution known as Bitcoin Unlimited. If the gamble pays off, it could ease congestion and may help bring the community back together. If it fails, the digital currency could face a hard fork into separate variants, effectively splitting bitcoin into two currencies.

We will switch our entire pool to Bitcoin Unlimited, Wu Jihan, founder of the worlds largest mining organization Antpool, said in an interview on Mar. 10.His group accounts for 15 percent of blockchain activity and is hugely influential in the community. We cant tell how the hard fork will play out. We will only know by the time we get there.

Wu is joining Roger Ver, an early evangelist who amassed a fortune and got to be known as Bitcoin Jesus. He opened his own mining collective to the publiclast week. Relying on his high profile in the community and an aggressive pricing scheme, Ver said hes already attracted about 3 percent of global miners and convinced them to back Unlimited.

Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

We need to get to 60 or 70 percent of miners on board to activate Bitcoin Unlimited, Ver said in an interview at his office in Tokyo on Mar. 9. Combined with others, Id say were already close to halfway to our goal at this point.

Bitcoin Unlimited is essentially a software upgrade to the blockchain. Years ago, bitcoins early developers imposed a cap on the amount of data it could process. While that slowed down the network, it was seen as a necessary safety measure against potential attackers who could overload the system. Now, Unlimited supporters say the blockchain is robust enough that it doesnt need any limit at all.

While most agree the blockchain is stronger, critics such as Peter Todd, a key coding contributor to bitcoin, say that removing the data cap is a risky move which will leave bitcoin vulnerable to governments and global banks. Without a limit, large organizations would use their resources to out-muscle smaller miners and effectively take control of the blockchain and bitcoin itself.

Bitcoin Unlimited is simply irredeemably broken, Todd said in an interview on Mar. 11. Large miners have every reason to vote the size up to push their competition out of business.

Todd contends that a better approach to easing the congestion is to make the blockchain more efficient. Last fall, the group released their own solution, called SegWit, which uses a different method to verify transactions. Todd says adoption has been slow due to resistance from Unlimited supporters.

Ver said the lack of support is evidence that SegWit doesnt address the actual problem: Say you havent had any water to drink for a day and a half, and you also need a haircut. Do you drink some water or go to the barber shop? SegWit is like going to the barber shop.

Wu added that miners like him have refused to adopt SegWit because he doesnt see his economic interests aligning with what is proposed by the technology.

While the rift over bitcoins future has gone on for more than two years, Todds group have mostly held the upper hand and received support from the majority of miners who prefer to wait for a consensus-based solution instead of rocking the boat. Thats helped pave the way for speculators to bid the digital currency higher, to total market value of about $20 billion.

But with Wu and Ver last week striking out in support of Unlimited, the question now is whether other major miners will follow suit. Ver says he plans to step up lobbying efforts, especially in China which is home to the majority of bitcoin mining.

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Further adoption of Unlimited wont necessarily lead to a hard fork, though the likelihoods could increase if it gains more traction. What happens after that is unclear, but a precedent exists in ethereum, the worlds second-most popular digital currency. Last year, a disagreement caused one side of the ethereum community to back one version of the software, and the other side to adopt another version. That resulted in ethereum being divided in to two different currencies, each with its own individual price. Both versions tumbled in the months after the split.

Samson Mow, former chief operating officer at exchange BTCC, said even in the event of a hard fork, it would be up to the market to decide which version would hold the upper hand and that many wouldnt deem the new currency as bitcoin.

"Bitcoin Unlimited is not bitcoin because its rules are different," said Mow. "If BU splintered, it would create an altcoin and there are hundreds of altcoins. Those altcoins have little value."

Ver says its worth taking the risk because inaction will only worsen the crippling backlog: If bitcoin is more expensive or slower than traditional financial systems, people arent going to use it.

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Bitcoin Miners Signal Revolt Amid Sluggish Blockchain

Bitcoin price broke below the rising trend line support, indicating that bears may be taking the upper hand from here.

Bitcoin Price Key Highlights

Bitcoin price broke below the rising trend line support, indicating that bears may be taking the upper hand from here.

Technical Indicators Signals

The 100 SMA is still above the longer-term 200 SMA so the path of least resistance might still be to the upside and this might prove to be a fakeout. Bitcoin price is testing the line in the sand at the 200 SMA dynamic support and a break below this level could confirm that a reversal is in the cards.

Stochastic is on the move down, also indicating that bearish pressure is in play. RSI is heading south as well so bitcoin price might follow suit. Once both indicators reach oversold levels, though, buyers could return and either spur a pullback or a continuation of the climb.

Price is also testing the resistance turned support level at the $1100 mark, which means that there may be a lot of buy orders located at this area. But if it gets breached, the next floor could be at $965.

Market Events

Dollar demand is slowly returning as traders are pricing in expectations of more Fed rate hikes in the coming months. Even though the FOMC statement wasnt as hawkish as many wouldve wanted, it doesnt change the fact that the US economy is on stable footing and that further tightening moves are likely.

Reports showing that Canada and India are issuing warnings on bitcoin Ponzi schemes are starting to remind traders of the incidence of fraud and manipulation that has plagued the cryptocurrency before. This follows the SEC denial of the bitcoin ETF last week, citing that the unregulated nature of bitcoin could expose investors to more risk.

Charts from SimpleFX

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Bitcoin Price Technical Analysis for 03/17/2017 Trendline Break, Reversal Due? - newsBTC

Stock drops, rebounds after SEC rejects first exchange-traded fund that tracks Bitcoin.

Late on Friday, the SEC rejectedan application from Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust for what would have been the first exchange-traded fund that tracks Bitcoin. The highly anticipated announcement ended plans to list and trade shares on the Bats BZX Exchange Inc. The SEC was worried about the currencys vulnerability to manipulation and the feasibility of surveillance. Bitcoin dropped12.3 percent to $1,069 following the news from the SEC. It seems, however, to have no trouble recovering from the stumble. This rejection denies many investment institutions the opportunity for more direct exposure to the dynamic currency.

Specifically, the SEC expressed concerns that the proposed activity of the ETF would have fallen short of compliance with Section 6(b)(5) of the Exchange Act and rejected a proposed rule change. The SEC was worried about the currencys vulnerability to manipulation. The regulatory commission specifically called out two major, interrelated drawbacks about oversight and fraud prevention:

The planned ETF classified Bitcoin as a commodity, rather than a currency, with shares representing 0.01 BTC. The shares would have tracked the price of bitcoins on the Gemini Exchange, owned by Gemini Trust LLC. Bats BZX was set to collaborate with the Gemini Exchange to monitor the Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF in the same way the exchange keeps an eye on derivatives trading. The Gemini Exchange has been authorized to trade digital currency for two years by the NY State Department of Financial Services (NYSDFS). Also, last May, the NYSDFS gave its approvalfor the Gemini Exchange to trade Ether, a new and promising cryptocurrency.

Multiple companies submitted Bitcoin ETFs proposals to the regulatory approval process, including one from SolidX Bitcoin Trust, from SolidX Partners Inc, a blockchain technology services company. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, famous for their lawsuit against Mark Zuckerberg, which alleges he stole their idea for Facebook, were the first to submita proposal for an ETF. Their plan for The Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF [Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust (COIN)] had been pending three and half years ago, and experienced more than one decision delay. In the interim, the SEC noted and avowed tighter regulatory surveillance to keep abreast of the burgeoningETF market, now valued over US$3 trillion in net assets.

The recent trend to increase transparency for Bitcoin has grown in accordance with interest in trading. Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the leading derivatives marketplace, successfullylaunched two new tools last November, the CF Bitcoin Reference Rate (BRR) and CME CF Bitcoin Real Time Index (BRTI). The BRR aggregates the trade flow of the major bitcoin spot exchanges during a specific calculation window into a once-a-day, transparent reference rate of the US dollar price of bitcoin. To do this, CME works with several bitcoin exchanges and trading platforms such as Bitfinex, GDAX, itBit, Kraken, and Bitstamp.

Bitcoins future faces other challenges, including piracy and liquidity risk. Uniquepartnerships, such as the one between Polychain Capital and venture capital players, Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures, are forming to seek the rewards in the risk. Also, Blockchain, the technology behind Bitcoin, is making inroads in other areas of business, including shipping logistics, manufacturing and more.

Cryptocurrencies are decentralized global digital currencies that provide relatively more secure and efficient means of payment and offer. The underlying technology makes tracking assets and transactions more secure. These advantages are attractive, of course, to banks and other financial institutions. But will major industry players continue to race to prepare for a future defined by this new asset class? Only time will tell.

By Tasha Williams

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Bitcoin: ETF Dream Deferred - Chief Investment Officer

Something strange is happening in the world of digital currency. When the Securities and Exchange Commission passed a harsh judgment last week on bitcoin, many expected the entire asset class to crumble.

Instead, the opposite has happened.

The SEC ruling, if you missed it, came down on Friday afternoon. The long-awaited decision, citing the possibility of fraud and market manipulation, rejected a proposal to create an exchange traded fund (ETF) for bitcoin, and threw cold water on hopes institutional investors would use the ETF to stock up on the currency. The market quickly punished bitcoin , driving its price down to around $1,050a more than 15% drop from its highs earlier that day.

But when it came to other digital currencies, investors didn't bail on them. They started gobbling them up. These other currencies such as Ethereum and Ripple (there are dozens) aren't as famous as bitcoin but have been around for a while, and some people treat them as a proxy asset for bitcoin. Since the SEC decision, they've all shot up, some of them dramatically.

Here is a chart that shows how the prices have changed. The data is compiled from each currency's lowest price on March 10 (the day of the ruling) through Tuesday morning:

As you can see, Ethereum has made spectacular gains. The currency, which is tied to a popular new form of blockchain technology, is up around 60%. Dash, a less well-known bitcoin rival, is up about 59%.

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The other surprise in chart is how nicely bitcoin has recovered from the SEC's punch last Friday. Here's a closer look, courtesy of Coindesk , of how its price has moved since Friday:

As you can see, bitcoin is nudging back towards its near all-time high of $1,300, which came amid a frenzy of speculation that a positive SEC ruling would send the price soaring.

For now, there is no clear explanation of why bitcoin recovered so quickly, or why the so-called "alt-currencies" like Dash initially rose when bitcoin fell. Some commentators have suggested the recent boom comes from new digital currency converts who learned about the assets as a result of the publicity surrounding the ETF decision. Others say the recent prices simply reflect the fact that digital currencies are a far more sturdy asset than they were two years ago, and their values can no longer be derailed by a bit of negative news.

It's also worth noting the SEC jolt from last week has brought about a change in the makeup of the overall market cap for digital currency. Note below how bitcoin's share of the pie has dropped about 10% since the news:

The upshot of this is that while bitcoin still clearly dominates the digital currency world, other assetsparticularly Ethereummay now be emerging as more than also-rans.

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Digital Currencies Went Crazy in the Wake of the SEC's Bitcoin Ruling - Fortune