Category Archives: Bitcoin

STORY: This is Crypto Weekly, with your top stories on alternative currencies. This week, how will Bitcoin fare during an extended period of rising interest rates?

The currency has scant experience of such choppiness - and that could be perilous for investors looking to capitalize on its recent dramatic drop.

Bitcoin tanked this week to its lowest level since July 2021, along with other risk assets such as tech stocks after the Fed amped up rates.

Those rates are expected to pass 3% early next year. The last time that happened was 2008. Before Bitcoin was even born.

Crypto price moves are baffling at the best of times, let alone when entering uncharted waters.

Robert Cantwell, portfolio manager at Upholdings, says for now the persistent volatility doesn't appear to overly concern investors.

"In fact this volatility is proving to be a feature within this universe. And as more folks have been coming into it and trading it, that volatility creates a lot of entertainment to the markets and potentially creates a lot of opportunity for long term investors. And so we think it's entirely plausible that crypto assets can persist with many more participants in years to come and that volatility variant may never dwindle."

Next up - Uganda's central bank has told Reuters it's considering whether to issue a digital currency.

The African nation has some concerns to work through, including consumer protection and financial inclusion.

Governments on the continent have approached digital currencies differently.

Nigeria launched its own digital currency last year, while Central African Republic last month adopted bitcoin as an official currency.

Finally, Gucci's jumping on the crypto bandwagon in some of its flagship U.S. stores.

Its high-end handbags and other luxury products can soon be bought using virtual currencies, including bitcoin.

A growing number of companies are warming to cryptos, bringing an asset class shunned by major financial institutions until a few years ago closer to the mainstream.

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Cryptoverse: rising interest hurts Bitcoin

Alas, stocks do not only go up.

The past couple of years have been quite exciting for many investors. After the stock market plunged at the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic, its been on a pretty good run. The S&P 500 climbed by 16 percent in 2020 and nearly 27 percent in 2021. Hordes of individual investors rushed into trading, getting into meme stocks like GameStop and AMC and enjoying the perks of a pretty broad-based bull market. Some dipped into cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, which traded above $60,000 per coin for parts of last fall. Tech companies, from Peloton to Netflix to Amazon, felt like pretty sure bets for growth.

The environment made it perhaps a little easy to forget that bull markets dont last forever, and the waters can get choppy. As the saying goes, markets often take the stairs up and the elevator down, and were on the elevator right now.

The S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the Nasdaq are now well below where they were at the start of the year, down 16 percent, 12 percent, and 26 percent, respectively, as of market open on Wednesday. Last week, the Dow and Nasdaq saw their worst single-day declines since 2020. This week, the S&P 500 hit its lowest level in a year. Many names big and small in the tech sector, in particular, have been struggling. Bitcoin, which many proponents have long argued is a form of digital gold that could serve as a hedge for market turmoil, briefly fell below $30,000 more than once this week, less than half of where it peaked at nearly $69,000 in November 2021. The bond market has been hit, too.

Stocks fell late last week and on Monday before offering a modest reprieve on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning, after the release of the latest inflation numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, stocks briefly slid before rebounding. The long and short of it is that markets are bouncy and on edge. Inflation remains near 40-year highs. Investors are anxious about whats on the horizon and what policymakers are going to do about it.

In the broader recent picture, there really havent been many bright spots. Chances are if you look at your investments right now, you maybe arent feeling so great.

In market dislocations, correlations always go to one. Everything moves together, said Nick Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research. There is never a safe haven when the storm is in full force.

Were in the midst of quite a storm right now. Its also one most investors should likely try to weather stocks dont go down forever.

While we are seeing this broad-based sell-off in the market, and it does seem like you cannot avoid it, this isnt exactly a time for panic, said Kristin Myers, editor-in-chief of the Balance, a finance website.

There is never a singular answer for why markets do what they do, why stocks rise and fall, or why investor sentiment changes from one day to the next. With that in mind, maybe the best explanation of whats going on right now is that there are a lot of reasons for investors to be freaked out, and so they are.

Inflation is a problem in the United States and across the globe, with the US inflation rate near its highest levels in 40 years. In April, the Consumer Price Index, which measures what consumers pay for goods and services, was up 8.3 percent from the previous year and 0.3 percent for the month. The Federal Reserve has begun to raise interest rates and will soon begin to reduce its balance sheet to combat inflation and try to get prices back under control. Those measures may be necessary, but theyre also ones that make Wall Street nervous.

It always works; thats the good news. The bad news is it always works because it creates a recession, Colas said.

Maybe not always. A recession in the near future isnt a foregone conclusion, but it is likelier than it was, say, a year ago. Analysts at Goldman Sachs estimate theres a 38 percent chance of the US economy entering a recession in the next 24 months. Deutsche Bank has forecast a recession as well, at first saying it believed it would be mild and then becoming a bit more pessimistic.

The Federal Reserve, ideally, would be able to bring down inflation without causing a recession. In early May, Fed Chair Jay Powell declared that inflation is much too high and the central bank has a good chance of restoring price stability without causing a severe economic downturn. But its a tough needle to thread, Kristina Hooper, chief global market strategist at Invesco, said in an email, and the tea leaves are hard to read. Markets are clearly confused about what the Fed will do this year and just how aggressive it will get, she said.

There are other uncertainties plaguing investor sentiment concurrently. Russias war in Ukraine is ongoing, which could exacerbate inflation, supply chain issues, and oil price fluctuations and contributes to an overall sense of unrest. Slowed growth in China and concerns about the impact of Covid outbreaks there are contributing to anxieties, too.

There are times in the market when things seem pretty predictable, and the market goes up gradually during those periods because tomorrow looks like today, Colas said. Then there are times when things are very uncertain, such as now, and the range of expected outcomes is higher. When that happens, market volatility is always higher.

As mentioned at the top, many assets have been up by quite a lot in recent months and years, perhaps to the point that they were trading at more than they should have been.

Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research, pointed out that coming into the year, some dips in the market were to be expected. As a general rule, what goes up usually comes down for a while, at least a little bit. Every time the S&P has been higher than 20 percent or more over the course of a year since World War II, investors have wound up digesting some of those gains early in the new year in other words, giving some gains back. Stocks, without question, were expensive, Stovall said.

The Nasdaq, which follows tech stocks, and the Russell 2000, which is composed of small-cap stocks, have already slipped into bear market territory, meaning theyre 20 percent off of their recent peaks. Stovall warned the S&P 500 might be close behind.

Tech companies, specifically, have been hit hard. For example, the at-home fitness company Peloton once a pandemic darling has had major struggles, business-wise. Its market cap, which once peaked at about $50 billion, is now under $5 billion. The stock trading platform Robinhood recently announced layoffs, as did the streaming company Netflix, the stock price of which was hammered in April after it announced it lost subscribers in the first quarter of the year. Uber says its cutting costs and slowing hiring, and Facebook parent company Meta plans to slow hiring, too. The stock prices of Amazon, Google parent Alphabet, and Meta are all down more than 20 percent this year.

Higher interest rates tend to negatively affect valuations and stock prices, and they could hit tech particularly hard. Higher interest rates take a bite out of future profits, and for high-growth stocks, those future profits are everything for them, Myers said.

As the Wall Street Journal notes, in recent years, tech companies have served as a relatively reliable source of growth. Whats not clear now is whether this is a temporary reshuffling and slowdown or a sign of a broader, more sustained slowdown in whats been a pretty hot area. Maybe there was too much excitement around some of these companies in the first place.

Tech companies, many of them, especially consumer product companies got over-valued on the venture side, and many of those companies that have since [gone public], if you will, have mostly lost their valuations, said Arjun Kapur, a venture capitalist focused on internet and consumer tech.

The crypto industry has not been immune from market moves, either a sign that its not as insulated from the market as some of its investors would like to believe. The people who own crypto tend to own stocks, and that means that even if the asset class is fundamentally unlinked to stocks, it is still linked through investor confidence in the future, Colas said.

Most asset classes other than cash are coming under pressure, Hooper said. This includes crypto.

As life gets back to a more normal state compared to where it was at other points in the pandemic, some of the trends that made certain companies attractive are reversing. People are going back to life in the real world and relying a little less on the internet for every part of their lives.

We have to kind of understand that we as a society, as a world, as an economy, as a stock market, were still in the early stages of coming out from the zombie apocalypse and the shutdown and the pandemic, said Brian Belski, chief investment strategist at BMO Capital Markets. Were still living by different rules, and were trying to unwind those different rules as we inch toward this transitioning of normalcy.

In moments like this, where all the CNBC chyrons are red and all the headlines are talking about market meltdowns, its natural to feel panicky about the financial future. Vox is not in the business of giving investment advice, but just in terms of some life advice, the best is probably this: Do not panic.

Over time, historically, the stock market has gone up, and almost any expert out there will tell you thats whats going to eventually happen. Think back to how nervous a lot of people felt about the markets in February and March 2020 when they were in free fall and about what happened after that.

If youre young and have the stomach for it, this might not be a bad time to buy, Myers said, namely if there are stocks or assets youve had an eye on that are now trading lower than they have in the past. Think of this as everything is on sale, she said.

While you often hear that this kind of moment is not a great time to check in on your 401(k), it might not be a bad reminder that you should be checking in on it more often. Myers suggests once a quarter as a good rule of thumb, just to see whats going on and reevaluate. It doesnt mean that you need to make a lot of changes, but maybe its time for you to move around your assets a little bit, she said. Moving assets around does not translate to cashing out.

If youre closer to retirement, hopefully your portfolio has already been rotating away from riskier investments, such as stocks, and into something less volatile. If that hasnt been happening, now might be a good time to think about doing that.

Bigger picture: Ideally, investing is a long game that you should be able to win.

I think investors need to remind themselves that market declines are pretty common, Stovall said. That doesnt mean that, over time, markets wont recover. If investing is gambling, I would love to know what casino pays the gambler 80 percent of the time. In 80 percent of all years since World War II, the S&P 500 has posted a positive 12-month total return.

Update, May, 11, 2022, 10:30 am: This story has been updated to reflect the Bureau of Labor Statistics most recent Consumer Price Index report.

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Why the stock market and bitcoin keep crashing - Vox.com

Bitcoin Cash is preparing to include two significant improvements in its upcoming upgrade. Programmed to happen on May 15, the Bitcoin Cash Improvement Proposals (CHIPs) approved to be included are CHIP-2021-03, which brings bigger script integers to the chain, and CHIP-2021-02, which has to do with the activation of native introspection opcodes, directed to simplify the writing of smart contracts called covenants.

A new upgrade is on the horizon in the new one-year Bitcoin Cash upgrade schedule, modified from its previous six-month cycle during last years upgrade. This time, the improvements to be included in the Bitcoin Cash blockchain were decided using CHIPs, Bitcoin Cash Improvement Proposals, that allow for public discussion of the community on the proposed upgrades. This new MO was also approved during last years upgrade, which happened on May 15th, 2021.

The improvements this year are directed to improve performance and ease the way of programmers into writing covenants, which are smart contracts that enact rules on how funds can be used in a transaction. The two CHIPS included in this upgrade aim to allow covenants to be more precise and more useful, extending their functionality.

The first CHIP to be applied in BCHs upgrade is CHIP-2021-03, which introduces bigger script integers to the chain. The specification states that bigger, 64-bit integers will be allowed, and these integers will be able to be multiplied directly in code. This will improve the functionality of these contracts by allowing programmers to harness more value without having to design workarounds, also reducing redundancy and transaction sizes.

CHIP-2021-02, which enables native introspection opcodes, will also allow programmers to take information from the same transaction they are working on to include them in any covenant. This means that programmers will be able to queue information from transactions using different, new opcodes. The implementation of this CHIP aims to reduce the complexity of the code in covenants and to allow new use cases to arise due to the new functions provided by the opcodes.

On the upgrade, Jonathan Silverblood, a developer involved in the proposal of the two CHIPs to be implemented, stated:

Before this upgrade, anyone who wanted to build smart contracts could not multiply two numbers in code. They needed to understand how to (ab)use the transaction signing mechanics in order to check who is being paid, and how much. After this, we got a solid base to build on.

Normal Bitcoin Cash users will not have to make any changes to support this upgrade. Node operators will have to upgrade to the latest version of their node software to avoid service interruptions.

What do you think about the upcoming Bitcoin Cash network upgrade? Tell us in the comments section below.

Sergio is a cryptocurrency journalist based in Venezuela. He describes himself as late to the game, entering the cryptosphere when the price rise happened during December 2017. Having a computer engineering background, living in Venezuela, and being impacted by the cryptocurrency boom at a social level, he offers a different point of view about crypto success and how it helps the unbanked and underserved.

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.

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Bitcoin Cash to Include Bigger Integers and Native Introspection in Upcoming Upgrade Bitcoin News - Bitcoin News

As I go about the Miami conference, I wonder, Aside from some of the conference speakers, where are these Bitcoin maximalists I keep hearing so much about?

When I tell the customs official Im going to Miami for the Bitcoin 2022 conference, there seems to be a light in the mans eyes. He peppers me with questions, even though Id gotten up at 5 am that day to fly, and my smartwatch is telling me that my energy levels are only at 70%. The customs official has way more interest in the subject than I can handle.

Why am I going to the conference? The philosophy of the event fascinates me its a Bitcoin-only conference with the divide between Bitcoin and the rest of the cryptocurrency world growing year by year.

I dont go into that much detail with the customs official, though. Sometimes, when I interact with too many crypto people, I forget that everyone else has paid so little attention to this space, they still use the terms Bitcoin and cryptocurrency synonymously. If I offload onto the customs official everything thats on my mind, hed probably think Im autistic or drunk (or maybe both).

Ive always found Miami strange, but not in a bad way. Florida is known for the Florida Man meme all the wild and wacky stuff happening in the Sunshine State like the naked man downtown who bit off someones face in 2012. But thats largely because of Floridas strong information-transparency laws. As a fellow journalist, I dream about this sometimes. Where Im from, Canada, we have to fight twice as hard for half the disclosure. Florida is brash and loud because its open. In a way, Florida is America.

Indeed, writing in The Globe and Mail newspaper, journalist David Shribman would later say that the American center used to be California, which gave the world the movie theatre, skateboards and the linguistic filler like. Now, Shribman writes, Americas center is Florida. The state is the home of former-President Donald Trump, but it used to be governed by the moderate Jeb Bush in a way encapsulating the transformation of American conservatism of the last decade. Florida is home to the Stand Your Ground self-defense law, the rebellion against COVID-19 mask mandates and, of course, Disneyland. No wonder this libertarian fantasy world is attracting Bitcoiners and the tech elite.

Out of California and into Florida, PayPals Peter Thiel has made the move. So has another member of the so-called PayPal Mafia, the venture capitalist Keith Rabois. Elon Musk, too, has a SpaceX launch site in Florida, and Cathie Woods Ark Invest has moved to the state as well. Somewhere in there is also why Bitcoin 2022, the Bitcoin-only conference that excludes other cryptocurrencies, has come to this state.

Note how so many of these tech people moving to Florida are also Bitcoin people not just in the eyes of the mainstream who use Bitcoin and cryptocurrency interchangeably, but Bitcoin-only Bitcoin people. Thiel and Wood were both listed as speakers at Bitcoin 2022. Perhaps thats only natural.

During the conference, one of its hosts Natalie Brunell, speaking on the venture capitalist Anthony Pomplianos podcast, says Bitcoin represents the American Dream, with its ethos of self-determination, freedom, the idea of creating a better life for your family. But its not just that. That reputation of the Bitcoin-only folks often called maximalists is much like that of the new America that Florida has come to represent. Its loud. Its big on individual liberties. The open blockchain is transparent to a fault. Thus, Bitcoin is Florida.

Or, at least, thats one idea. On a different episode of the same Pompliano podcast, an enlightening statistic is brought up: 83% of those who own Bitcoin also own another cryptocurrency. For all of Bitcoins distinctness and how its identity is separate from the rest of crypto, that does not seem to extend to its holders. As I go about this Bitcoin-only event in the heart of this new America, I would wonder, How organic, really, is this maximalism sentiment running through it all?

Bitcoin to the max

Its hardly a controversial thought to say that other cryptocurrencies cannot be truly compared to Bitcoin because they are not sufficiently decentralized and decentralization is the entire point of the first cryptocurrency. Nor is it outlandish to say that most of the tens of thousands of alternative coins and random blockchain projects are either scams or, to put it politely, overly ambitious. But Bitcoin maximalists have been criticized for taking that idea up a notch.

On the second day of the conference, there is a zinger thrown during the panel called Wartime Bitcoin. The moderator asks what the biggest attack on Bitcoin is. Aleks Svetski, an Australian entrepreneur and author of a book on individual liberties, isnt first in line to speak. But he seemingly gets invigorated by the question. Svetski gestures at the moderator and another speaker. Let me go first, please, he says. Svetski speaks with his hands:

The attack is cryptocurrency. Thats the fucking attack.

The crowd cheers. Or, at least, some people do. I can hear the hoots. That is indeed quite clever, I think to myself as I watch Svetski. Hefurther explains his thinking:

The easiest way to Trojan Horse everyone is to pretend like youre building something technically and architecturally similar [to Bitcoin] and add a fucking wonderboy and then roll it out to the lemmings.

Such rhetoric, though those who disagree with it, disagree strongly. As the conference goes on, widely followed Twitter account Autism Capital tweets, We find it incredibly interesting how the majority of the talks at Bitcoin Miami are people justifying Bitcoin against Ethereum. Its not a conference, its a sermon.

Indeed, at Bitcoin 2021, the boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. was booed when he showed up promoting an Ethereum-based project. Mayweather obviously didnt do a good job of reading the room. And the boos were perhaps justified, given what happened to the

Ethereum Max token he was promoting to the outside world. But what was on display at Bitcoin 2021 bordered on the religious. A Rolling Stone article on the event was headlined Welcome to the Church of Bitcoin.

But I didnt go to Bitcoin 2021. I only read about it. In person, at Bitcoin 2022, there was much less of that image of Bitcoin maximalism than I expected. Aside from the conference speakers and, I guess, the guys who cheered Svetski, whom I didnt really see, I would meet very few people who are actual Bitcoin maximalists. In fact, walking in and out of the formal talks and the rest of the conference, it seems as if I am stepping into different worlds.

The conference at the Miami Beach Exhibition Center is altogether four days, with the first being reserved for industry, the second and third for general admission, and the fourth for a music event called the Sound Money Fest.

The way the conference is structured is that there are a few big rooms with stages for the formal events such as the talks, and while those are going on, there is a massive exhibition floor with hundreds of booths by various companies and organizations. There are also quite a few bars strewn around the place.

Everywhere, there are a lot of spectacles around aside from the celebrity speakers like Jordan Peterson and Serena Williams. There is a cyborg bull statue outside mimicking the golden one that stands on Wall Street. Inside, on the exhibition floor, there is another bull that you can ride, a mechanical one operated by the exchange Bullish. The person who lasts the longest at the conference would win a whole Bitcoin.

The exhibition hall also has a Bitcoin volcano, referencing geothermal powered Bitcoin mining in El Salvador, and beside it is a stage with a table set up like at the sports network ESPN. Various personalities would sit around that table throughout the day and give their hot takes.

I spend part of my first day in the exhibition hall trying to look for the booth of this Ukrainian mining pool Hiveon. A publicist reached out to me earlier and said a lot about the companys involvement in the ongoing war with Russia Ukraine raised more than $100 million in crypto. I found that link fascinating, how crypto found its way into this big geopolitics conversation. Much of that was based on Ethereum, however, not Bitcoin.

To give you an idea of how big the exhibition hall is, though, and how absurdly bustling with activity it is, I never really end up finding the company.

With 20,000 people from around the world descending on Miami Beach, all the celebrity speakers, the global media attention its hard to believe all of that came out of a white paper by a pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto 13 years ago.

Its easy to see, though, that certain diffusion that happens as all ideas take hold. As Bitcoin grew, the border between it and the wider world blurred when it became more mainstream, it also became more mainstream.

Crypto used to be synonymous with Bitcoin because there were no other coins. It was all about peer-to-peer money that cant be controlled by any one party. When more people paid attention to it, they as much started to become influenced by that idea as they started to influence that idea. The result is the tens of thousands of different coins, the Ethereum network and its clones and competitors, the pictures of apes selling for hundreds of thousands, the blockchain movement hoping to tap the technology but not the coin, and the scams and the hacks. That is the term crypto as we know it today.

At the core of it all, theres still that Bitcoin-only movement, still focused on that singular original idea of peer-to-peer digital money. But they seem to be getting drowned out. Even at this conference that is ostensibly all about Bitcoin maximalism, the exhibition hall is flush with the sort of crypto companies that the speaker Svetski would call the biggest attack on Bitcoin.

The Ukrainian mining pool Hiveon, for example, whose booth I eventually later found, is for Ethereum. Some at the conference are openly selling NFTs. A writer for The Defiant, a DeFi publication, even says, I see signs that DeFi is taking root in the heart of Bitcoin. As I go about the exhibition hall, I ask myself, Aside from some of the conference speakers, where are all these Bitcoin maximalists I keep hearing so much about?

Much later, I get somewhat of an answer. At the conference, I ran into a team from the media company WGMI Studios that has been going around interviewing attendees. Among the questions it asked is Bitcoin or Ethereum? They later compiled the results for me. Out of 298 people, even at this Bitcoin-only conference, 22% said Ethereum, and 11% said both. One of the WGMI studios guys, Nathan Espinosa, tells me later: We also asked people, NFTs, yes or no? toward the end of the event It was quite interesting to see how [even some of who] chose Bitcoin and talked down Ethereum still supported NFTs.

On the third day, I see the mechanical bull again, the one on the expo floor that anyone can try to ride to win a Bitcoin. I quickly Google the tips and tricks on how to ride a mechanical bull and sign up. How hard can riding a mechanical bull be? I last four seconds.

I turn to less-physical pursuits after that. I play Lightning chess where players have only about five minutes to make all of their movies. I lost two games and won two games, which I think is a respectable finish.

What I truly gain from that chess experience, though, is a spreadsheet of all the side-parties going on that an opponent gave me. Among the 32 events on just the third conference day, there is a yacht party or two and a beach event by Maxim magazine just to give you an idea of what was on offer.

ETHMiamis party is, unfortunately, miserable with under a dozen people. I am there for no more than 10 minutes before chugging my beer and walking out.

A much better party and one with an open bar seems to be one by this outfit called Bad Bitch Empire, which bills itself as a private crypto investment club for ambitious women. Yet the promised free drinks turn out to be a mirage, and there are way too many people all squeezed shoulder to shoulder on a tiny rooftop patio.

I go around asking people about my observation, that, somehow, at this Bitcoin-only conference, Ive encountered so few Bitcoin maximalists. A man who works at a Bitcoin ATM provider tells me he feels the maximalists are vocal but not necessarily in the majority. Where are the maxis at the conference? I dont know, but I see them only on Twitter, he tells me. Everyone seems to agree with my observation.

I also bump into someone from SpaceX, but it turned out he wasnt an attendee at Bitcoin 2022. In fact, quite few people at those side-parties were, and thats what strikes me. One sullen British guy, who works at a crypto hedge fund, tells me that the conference is not the point. Its the meetings you have with all the people who are in town, he says.

I guess he has a point. The conference talks are streamed online anyway. If youre solely after the information presented, you dont even need to leave your bedroom. Its the human connection with the hordes of other crypto folks all in one place that is the real point of such events. So, why pay $1,099 if you can just hobnob for free at the side parties?

That night at the Bad Bitch Empire event, Bitcoin 2022 itself doesnt really stand out among the dozens of crypto events going on around it the Maxim beach party, the yacht gatherings, even that little ETHMiami gathering, as unspectacular as it was. Its kind of like how, at the conference itself, its theme of Bitcoin maximalism seemed so lost among the wider crypto presence even if, without Bitcoin 2022, there would have been none of these side events promising free drinks.

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Bitcoin 2022 Will the real maximalists please stand up? Cointelegraph Magazine - Cointelegraph

IDX Digital Assets CIO Ben McMillan argues crypto's 'utility going forward is going to look and feel a lot more like speculative technology stocks.'

IDX Digital Assets CIO Ben McMillan argued on Wednesday that bitcoin's "low correlation thesis" to risky assets "is gone."

Speaking on "Mornings with Maria" on Wednesday, the crypto expert went on to argue that exactly wehn you would hope bitcoin would save your portfolio, it's actually injecting risk given the cryptocurrency has traded with a high correlation during down markets.

"Do I expect it to stay this highly correlated to the risk assets indefinitely? No, but I think the positive correlation is here to stay," he continued.

IDX Digital Assets CIO Ben McMillanargues bitcoin's "low correlation thesis" to risky assets "is gone." (REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/Illustration/File Photo / Reuters Photos)

McMillan provided the insight amid falling cryptocurrency prices along with the recent huge plunge in the major stock indexes.

On Wednesday morning, bitcoin's price stabilized at around the $31,000 level, down from its all-time high of over $68,000 reached in November 2021.

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Thecryptocurrencytraded down for six straight days heading into Wednesday.

Bitcoin is down more than 22% over that time. For the month, bitcoin is off more than 19% and down more than 33% year-to-date.

Other cryptocurrencies are showing signs of stabilizing as well.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have had some rough weeks in anticipation of and following thehalf-point interest rate hikeby theFederal Reserve. It was the second of several anticipated increases this year as the central bank seeks to combat soaringinflation, which is ata high not seen in four decades.

IDX Digital Assets CIO Ben McMillan argues that when you would hope Bitcoin would save your portfolio, it's actually injecting risk given the crypto has traded with a high correlation during down markets.

This past year, tighter monetary policy has impacted both stocks and cryptocurrencies.

The tech-heavy NASDAQ fell 1.5% last week, and has lost about 28% year to date, hurt by the potential of persistent inflation, which is forcing the Fed to raise rates despite slowing growth.

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"Its been a wild ride," McMillan said, noting that following last weeks Fed meeting "risk assets sold offright after that."

McMillan went on to say that he is telling clients to think of investing in crypto "not as hedge" and "notas a low correlation diversifier," but as a technology play.

He added that "its utility going forward is going to look and feel a lot more like speculative technology stocks and so I think thats how investors need to think about it, in the context of volatility, positive correlation, etc."

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FOX Business Ken Martin contributed to this report.

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Crypto expert says bitcoin's 'low correlation thesis' to risky assets 'is gone' - Fox Business

Bear markets are the best time to be alive and in the sector. Its depressing for those that dont know what theyre doing, its awesome for those that have a longer-term view. Simon Dixon

The difference between Bitcoin and everything else is that the price of bitcoin doesnt matter. Over the long term the price of bitcoin has gone up, yes, but the value proposition of bitcoin as hard, non-confiscatable and truly decentralized money is really what matters. Not the price hype and not the pump. This is why traders and speculators have lost interest in Bitcoin, and continue to flock to the newest pumping decentralized finance (DeFi) or non-fungible token (NFT) project at the drop of a hat. This loss of interest from the speculators is viewed by many as a negative development for Bitcoin, but it is actually a very positive one. What we are seeing now represented in the lower bitcoin price is the value of its actual functional utility and the absence of retail speculation capital that was there before. This article will describe why thats a good thing.

Since its inception, misguided analysts have described Bitcoin as a Ponzi scheme dependent on continued artificial speculation pumping into the space. As anybody with experience can tell you, speculators are shiny-object chasers by nature and pull out of any position the minute something shinier comes along. Well, the bitcoin bear market has arrived and all the speculators are gone. They got bored and took their toys home with them. Even with them gone, bitcoin is still valued at far higher than its 2020 and 2021 lows and is increasing adoption on an institutional (and sovereign) level. This adoption represents real value.

The stock market sugar rush caused by Federal Reserve Board money printing and negative real interest rates is ending, and the roller coaster is now going down from the top. This has had an impact not only on bitcoin, but on the stock market and the other altcoins as well. Put simply, everything is going down and after the chaos subsides we will see what assets, stocks and projects actually offer tangible, objective value. Thats what investment was always supposed to be about. Despite the confused dichotomy between growth stocks and value stocks, investing is by definition supposed to be about your long-term belief in the value of something, not in its short-term growth projections. Retail investors have struggled to comprehend this because of the get-rich-quick, everyones-a-genius market culture of the past few years. Indeed, if an asset like bitcoin isnt constantly appreciating on a double- or triple-digit basis, then its a failing asset to these people. The market is on its head. As a result, the meme-stock crowd is out of bitcoin now, just like they are out of the stock market as a whole. Turns out the memers had paper hands all along.

This article by Bloomberg, titled Day Trader Army Loses All The Money It Made In Meme-Stock Era, details how many of the new traders that entered the space have never seen a market that wasnt supported by the Fed. Retail traders lost all the gains they made in the Dogecoin, AMC and GameStop rallies, and are exactly back at square one.

The entire market is falling right now and we need to rethink what a good investment is. Like the above chart from Morgan Stanley shows, the overall movements of retail trading have canceled out to zero since January 2020 despite their temporarily outsized gains in 2021. If we compare todays bitcoin price to the January 2020 price, we still see a gain of 331% for bitcoin, outdoing the S&P 500s return by a large margin and beating the overall retail trading profit of absolutely nothing by a margin of infinity. Do we need any more proof that HODLing is a superior strategy?

Source: Coindesk. January 1, 2020, BTC price: $7,175.50. May 9, 2022, BTC price: $30,943

Yes, bitcoin is down from its all-time high by half, but factoring in the incredible market distortions caused by unprecedented money printing, memestock manipulations and post-COVID-19 interest rates since early 2020, bitcoin still blows anything else out of the water. We just need to zoom out to a more honest market window in order to see this. Everybody is acting like the sky is falling, but again, that is only because most retail investors only entered the market in 2020 or 2021 and have never seen a market that wasnt supported by the Fed.

There is a culture in the Bitcoin community these days of low (i.e., long-term) time preference, which fundamentally counters the Ponzi scheme-minded speculators that need quick gains all of the time. High (short-term) time preference fuels the perpetual passive income lie that newbies always fall for. In contrast, the modest two-year gain of 331% in bitcoin is more than enough for HODLers that have been buying since before the feeding frenzy of the past two years. Long-term time preference works for bitcoin because its fundamental value proposition has held true since its inception, and it will continue to hold true in the future for those who wait. Those who cannot wait are washed out by the market over a long enough time period in any market, just like we have seen with the 0% net gain for novice retail traders that pull in and out too much. The gains caused by hype, stimulus and cultural madness were fleeting, but the gains in Bitcoin utility and adoption have been real all along.

Detractors have been criticizing Bitcoin for needing meme-stock speculators to make it work, but now that the meme-stock speculators are gone, the detractors are criticizing Bitcoin for the speculators not being there. This is simply illogical, and proof that Bitcoin is not actually a Ponzi scheme. The same can not be said for other cryptocurrencies. Ponzi schemes by definition cannot exist for decades and the honesty in current bitcoin price attests to the honesty of its fundamental value proposition. Yes, it goes down sometimes. This is an indicator of health and transparency. Something that just goes up and up and up forever? Thats a Ponzi scheme and the bottom will always fall out eventually.

No ones singing Pump It Up anymore, and despite how fun and euphoric the 2021 rally was for a while, the space is really better off without the memers around. Its time for a more grown-up culture of development and adoption around Bitcoin, and time for a more grown-up price conversation as well.

This is a guest post by Nico Cooper. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.

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The Sky Is Not Falling: Why The Bitcoin Price Doesnt Matter - Bitcoin Magazine

Coming soon? Nah, its already here: you can pay for college tuition with bitcoin.

Bentley University, a small business-focused private university outside Boston, now lets undergrads pay with bitcoin, BTCUSD, +0.10% Ethereum ETHUSD, -1.76% and the USD stablecoin USDTUSD, -0.11%. The University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School of Business accepts crypto for its $3,800 six-week Economics of Blockchain and Digital Assets certificate program. Whos next?

Every institution.

Accepting crypto in payment is smart business, and Bentley and Wharton are hardly the first vendors to do so. For more than a year, PayPals 324 million users have been able to use bitcoin to pay for goods and services with all 29 million businesses on the platform. Luxury retailers, including Gucci and fitness club Equinox (in New York City only), accept payment via bitcoin and other digital assets as well.

Money is money, regardless of format. All a school needs to do is establish operations enabling it to accept crypto. Thats easy nowadays; dozens of platforms facilitate the process, and its no more cumbersome than accepting credit cards. Bentley University, for example, uses the platform provided by Coinbase COIN, -23.46%, a publicly traded crypto exchange.

But unlike cash, crypto prices fluctuatea lot. The easy solution: vendors sell their crypto as soon as they receive it. With many platforms, this is done automatically for them.

Coffee shops accept crypto to look hip. But universities have better reasons: In addition to lots of free publicity, theyd be conveying to prospective students that they are advanced, state-of-the-art, cutting-edge. We are paying attention to the latest developments in the global economy, and facilitating and fostering the development and use of innovative payment systems, school spokesreps ought to be saying. If were accepting crypto in payment, just imagine how current the classes are that youll be attending!

So the decision is smart business for Bentley. But considering that Bentleys tuition rack rate is $56,500 excluding room, board, books and student feesdoes it make sense for students to pay with crypto?

Well, you cant pay for tuition with bitcoin unless you own someand theres no benefit in buying bitcoin merely for the purpose of transferring it to Bentley.

But 20% of U.S. adults own bitcoin, including a great many high-school seniors. Considering that bitcoins price has gained 40 million percent since its inception in 2009, its fair to say that many early adopterssome of the parents of those high-school seniorshave become amazingly wealthy through their crypto investments. The Association of Governing Boards of Colleges and Universities says bitcoin will produce the worlds first trillionaires by 2030. Savvy (or lucky) early investors have enough in bitcoin to pay for tuition (and maybe the school) even though bitcoin has fallen 54% from its all-time high of $68,000 set last November.

But be aware: paying for college with crypto could trigger a tax liability for you.

You see, the IRS says bitcoin is property. That means using it to pay for goods and services is the same as selling it, converting it to dollars, and using transferring the dollars to the vendor. In other words, paying tuition with bitcoin is the same as selling your bitcoinand that is a capital transaction. If the price of bitcoin is higher than the price you paid for it, youll have a capital gain and youll owe taxes at capital-gains tax rates. Conversely, if the price is lower, youll have a capital loss.

Say you bought bitcoin for $10,000 and the price is $38,000 on the day you transfer it to Bentley. That gives you a $28,000 capital gain.

This is the same situation youd face if you sold stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, real estate, baseball cards or artwork to pay for tuition (unless your money is in a 529 College Savings Plan but thats a topic for another day).

Paying for major expenses with digital assetshouses, cars and, yes, college tuition will become increasingly common. Bentley University is among the first to permit it, and will soon by joined by every other institution of higher education.

Ric Edelman is author of the The Truth About Crypto; A Practical, Easy-to-Understand Guide to Bitcoin, Blockchain, NFTs, and Other Digital Assets.

Mark Cuban: Crypto is going through the lull that the internet went through

Im a financial adviser, and Id discourage you from putting bitcoin in your 401(k)

Crypto enthusiasts sniff at Buffett, Munger comments on bitcoin. It took them decades before they decided to invest in Apple, one analyst says.

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You can now use bitcoin to pay college tuition --- but should you? - MarketWatch

Photo: Thitiwat Thapanakriengkai (Shutterstock)

The ever-volatile cryptocurrency is currently experiencing some of its patented volatility. Bitcoin has reached a ten-month low, falling below $33,000 for the first time since July of 2021, down 50% from its peak price. As of this writing, the price of one Bitcoin is hovering around $30,000but even at half of its previous value, thats still a lot of scratch. Heres a list of ideas on how to spend your Bitcoin, should you have a full one burning a hole in your pocket.

A souped-up 2022 Honda Accord. A 2022 Honda Accord has an MSRP (manufacturers suggested retail price for the non-car savvy among us) of $26,120. Leaving just under $4,000 for upgrades, with one Bitcoin you can buy yourself one of the most reliable midsize sedans equipped with chrome wheels, parking sensors, and a wireless phone charger, should you so choose.

Two Cameos from boxing legend Floyd Mayweather. Ever since Cameo burst onto the scene in 2016, over 30,000 celebrities have joined the platform to send personalized videos to fans. The websites most expensive celebrity for personal videos is Floyd Mayweather, who charges a cool $15,000 per message. With one Bitcoin, you can ask Floyd Mayweather to say whatever your heart desires, with enough buffer for a mulligan if you dont like what you chose the first time.

One semester of tuition at NYU. If youre impressionable like me, you saw Greta Gerwigs Ladybird and thought, hmm, maybe I should go to NYU. If you have one Bitcoin on your person, thats enough capital to cash in exactly one semesters worth of tuition at one of Americas most expensive universities. Bear in mind, if you plan to board at the university for this semester, youre going to need another Bitcoin.

A hefty kitchen remodel. A new set of appliances? Go for it. Granite countertops? Why not! In reality, a kitchen remodel can cost as much as you want it to cost, but its safe to say for the price of one Bitcoin, you can treat yourself to an updated kitchen.

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250 years of a Planet Fitness membership. If getting in shape was one of your 2022 resolutions, you still have time. And if you have a Bitcoin youre looking to get rid of, you can even cash it in for 3,000 months worth of a Planet Fitness $10 per month membership. They may even give you a discount if you tell them youre willing to commit to a quarter-millenium contract.

Finance a sequel to the documentary Catfish. In 2010, Nev Schulman burst onto the scene with his documentary film about people who create fake social network presences to fool people while online dating. This cult classic cost only $30,000 to produce, so should you be able to convince everyone to come back for a sequel at their exact same pay rate, you too can be the producer of a well-regarded, gripping documentary.

VIP tickets to see Olivia Rodrigo with nine of your closest friends. Youre not impervious to a certified bop. Im sure ever since the Sour tour was announced, youve been glancing at Stubhub to see how much itd cost you to see Americas sweetheart with nine of your closest pals. Turns out with a going rate of $3,000 per VIP ticket, the answer is one measly Bitcoin.

A Cartier engagement ring. Ready to show that special person in your life that theyre the one for you? Go ahead and trade your Bitcoin for this Cartier engagement ring. Conversely, should you decide to eschew a ring, the cost of one Bitcoin just so happens to be about the average cost of a wedding.

A new 2022 Coachman RV Apex Nano 185BH. If youre the outdoorsy-type, Im sure youve had your eye on the 2022 Coachman RV Apex Nano for a while now. Not only can this bad boy comfortably sleep five, it also comes equipped with a microwave and a two-burner cooktop. For just one Bitcoin, you can travel in style while you roadtrip to one of Americas least visited states.

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What You Can Buy With Just One Single Bitcoin - Lifehacker

While bitcoins price has dropped to levels not seen since January 2022, a number of detractors think bitcoin is on its death bed. Data stemming from the Bitcoin Obituaries list shows the leading crypto has died seven times in 2022, outpacing the first three years of obituaries by year written by bitcoin haters. The last obituary written about bitcoin, opined by the financial journalist, John Plender, claims the leading crypto asset follows the greater fools scenario.

During the course of Bitcoins 13 years, the leading crypto asset has been deemed dead or extremely close to death by many journalists, economists, analysts, and financial experts. In fact, these types of opinions happen so much, that the team at 99bitcoins.com curated a list called the Bitcoin Obituaries. The data from the website shows bitcoin (BTC) has died 447 times since the list was started in 2010. That particular opinion that said bitcoin was dead was written on December 15, 2010 in a post called: Why bitcoin cant be a currency.

As the years continued, bitcoin obituaries were published more often, and during the bull run of 2017, there was 124 bitcoin obituaries added to the web portal. The following year in 2018, bitcoin died 93 times, and in 2019, only 41 deaths were recorded. 2020 saw a smaller number of bitcoin obituaries, as the year only saw 14 listed on the website. In 2021, bitcoin obituaries picked up the pace again, and the leading crypto asset saw 47 obituaries written about its so-called demise.

In 2022, theres only been seven bitcoin obituaries recorded, but the year is not over and it has outpaced 2010, 2011, and 2012 by the number of yearly obituaries so far. Bitcoins price has experienced a downturn in recent weeks, and its quite possible even more bitcoin obituaries will be added this year. The last obituary listed on 99bitcoins.com was written by the British financial journalist and columnist for the Financial Times (FT), John Plender. The post listed as: Bitcoin Will Run Out of Greater Fools, quotes Plenders statements from his April editorial. While Plender does not believe in bitcoin, the FT columnist does think blockchain is a powerful technology.

There can be no denying the astonishing power of blockchain technology, which is here to last, Plender writes in his FT editorial. Yet bitcoin is intangible, risky and incomprehensible to most human beings. While it is increasingly gaining acceptance among professional investors, its performance this year makes it hard to believe it can topple gold from its position as the ultimate bolt hole for frightened money. The financial journalist adds:

As for the important cultural dimension of the argument, bitcoin, frankincense and myrrh lacks a certain ring. The supply of greater fools will in due course run out.

While bitcoin is not dead, the cryptocurrency still has many detractors like the Iranian-American economist Nouriel Roubini, and the economist and gold bug Peter Schiff. The gold bug Schiff believes bitcoin and other crypto assets will keep falling in value. Schiff recently held a poll on Twitter after he said: If bitcoin breaks decisively below $30K it seems highly likely that it will crash below $10K. Schiff then added that this means any BTC holder has an important decision to make. What will you do? Schiff asked. You had better decide now so you dont panic and make a rash spur-of-the-moment decision.

Schiff then left a poll in his Twitter thread that gives people some choices on what they would do. Choice one was it wont break below $30K, which received 19.6% of the 37,000 votes. 54.5% said they would HODL, and 15.5% said they would sell and buy lower. Roughly 10.4% of the surveyed participants said they would sell bitcoin and would not rebuy. In Schiffs eyes bitcoin will always be dead, and he wholeheartedly believes the precious metal gold will continue to soar.

The 6% weekend drop in bitcoin was in fact a leading indicator of weakness in other risk assets as stock market futures are trading down 1%, Schiff said on Monday. Once investors figure out that Fed rate hikes will result in recession but not a significant reduction in inflation, gold will soar, the bitcoin detractor added.

What do you think about the Bitcoin Obituaries list hosted on 99bitcoins.com and John Plenders opinion? What do you think about Peter Schiffs opinion about bitcoin and his recent Twitter poll? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Jamie Redman is the News Lead at Bitcoin.com News and a financial tech journalist living in Florida. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for Bitcoin, open-source code, and decentralized applications. Since September 2015, Redman has written more than 5,000 articles for Bitcoin.com News about the disruptive protocols emerging today.

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.

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2022 Bitcoin Obituaries List Outpaces First 3 Years, Schiff Says Its 'Highly Likely Bitcoin Will Crash Below $10K' Featured Bitcoin News - Bitcoin...

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Yieldstreet, an alternative investment platform that has funded more than $3 billion in private market opportunities since inception, is launching a crypto wallet, a tool that allows investors to deposit Bitcoin and Ethereum with the option to seamlessly convert them into fiat currency to invest in Yieldstreets offerings.

Yieldstreets crypto wallet can allow you to safely store and - most importantly - to swiftly convert cryptocurrency. At Yieldstreet, we believe investors who own Bitcoin or Ethereum1 - and potentially some additional cryptocurrencies in the future - should have the flexibility to deposit them just as they would fiat currency and should not have to go to third parties for conversion if they decide to diversify away from crypto and invest in other alternative assets, said Michael Weisz, Founder and President of Yieldstreet.

Investors who want to deposit their Bitcoin or Ethereum on Yieldstreet can create a specific crypto wallet and use their Yieldstreet wallets address to transfer funds from other exchanges or from their personal crypto wallets, a widely-used industry protocol. The currency will be stored in a custodian-managed secured account.

The wallet can be utilized to invest in Yieldstreets offerings, across a wide array of alternative asset classes, including opportunities for exposure to digital assets through third-party funds. Subject to the approval of an investment request, Yieldstreet will automatically convert to USD via a trusted third party.

About Yieldstreet

Yieldstreet is reimagining how wealth is created by providing access to alternative investments previously reserved only for institutions and the ultra-wealthy. Yieldstreets mission is to help millions of people generate $3 billion of income outside the traditional public markets by 2025. Its award-winning technology platform provides access to investment products across a range of asset classes such as Real Estate, Commercial, Consumer, Art, Legal Finance, Venture Capital, and Private Equity. Since its founding in 2015, Yieldstreet has funded over $3 billion of investments and is committed to making financial products more inclusive by creating a modern investment portfolio. The company, headquartered in New York City with offices in Brazil, Greece, and Malta, is backed by leading venture capital firms. Join the movement at http://www.yieldstreet.com.

1 Combined, Bitcoin and Ethereum amount to 70% of the cryptocurrency market, as of November 2021.

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Yieldstreet's Crypto Wallet Helps Investors Store and Convert Bitcoin and Ethereum - Business Wire