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08/03/2021

15/02/2021

Canada becomes the first country to allow trading in Bitcoins on its stock exchange.

The Canadian authorities on Friday authorised the launch of a Bitcoin fund on the Stock Market, thus giving investors greater access to the cryptocurrency.

The Ontario Securities Commission, which oversees the Toronto Stock Exchange, gave the green light for the launch of an index fund proposed by the Purpose Investments company.

The fund is scheduled to be quoted on the Toronto Stock Exchange from this week, under the acronym of BTCC, an OSC spokesman told French news agency AFP.

This will make it the first bitcoin fund to be traded on a stock exchange.

“This EFT [Exchange Traded Fund] will be the first in the world to invest directly in physically settled Bitcoin, not derivatives, allowing investors easy and efficient access to the emerging class of cryptocurrency without the associated risk of self-custody within a digital wallet,” Purpose Investments stated in a press release.

The Gemini Trust Company will be the sub-custodian of the Bitcoins, while Canada’s CIBC Mellon Global Securities Company will be the administrator of the fund.

Created anonymously and managed by a decentralized network, virtual currency is particularly volatile. None of the major central banks recognize Bitcoin as a full-fledged currency.

At its creation in 2009, Bitcoin was worth next to nothing, but this week its value shot up to over 45,000 dollars, buoyed by a massive investment of 1.5 billion dollars in the world’s first cryptocurrency by Tesla, which also has plans to accept it as a means of payment.

22/01/2021

14/01/2021

Crypto Markets Rally – Next Stop $50,000 For Bitcoin?

Crypto sees record demand as bitcoin bounces back.

Was that the dip? It seems reports of Bitcoin’s demise have been, once again, greatly exaggerated.

The price of bitcoin is now back at $38,000 and the total cryptocurrency market cap is above $1 trillion again.

The sun is shining, the birds are singing in the trees, and the chemical odour of vaccine hangs in the air.

Monday’s theatrics now feel almost a distant memory, though time will tell if the bulls can sustain a push towards $50,000.

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And now, back to the Crypto Markets Rally.

The demand for bitcoin is certainly there at the moment.

The likes of crypto exchange Luno and wallet Zumo (both friends of Crypto AM) are reporting record inflows of new customers, while trading platform eToro is warning users that it’s struggling to keep up with Buy orders for crypto.

Meanwhile on social media, the number of Twitter users mentioning bitcoin has set a new all-time high, with the 7-day average having just touched 50,000.

The 7-day average of tweets mentioning bitcoin is also nearly back at the December 2017 highs of almost 100,000 tweets per day.

Twitter mentions can be a great tool in evaluating the retail hype around bitcoin. One person not loving crypto is Lindsay Lohan

What bitcoin did yesterday?!

We closed yesterday, 13 January, 2020, at a price of $37,316.36 – up from $33,922.96 the day before.

It’s now 12 days in a row that the price of bitcoin has closed at over $30,000.

The daily high yesterday was $37,599.96 and the daily low was $32,584.67.

This time last year, the price of bitcoin closed the day at $8,144.19 and in 2019 it was $3,552.95.

As of today, buying bitcoin has been profitable for…

99.9% of all days since 2013-04-28.

Bitcoin market capitalization:

Bitcoin’s market capitalisation is currently $716,091,190,477, up from $648,756,524,442 yesterday. Facebook’s market cap is now $716.74 billion, so not far to go before we can wipe that grin (if that’s what you can call it) off Mark’s face. The market cap of gold is $11.706 trillion, though.

That’s probably not going to be achieved today. No harm in trying though.

Bitcoin volume:

The volume traded over the last 24 hours was $65,207,628,346, down from $77,123,744,213 yesterday. High volumes can indicate that a significant price movement has stronger support and is more likely to be sustained.

Volatility:

The price volatility of bitcoin over the last 30 days is 89.74%.

Fear and Greed Index:

The Fear and Greed Index continues its streak in Extreme Greed and is back up to 83 today.

Prior to this run, the index has never spent more than 24 consecutive days at this level.

It’s important to remember that the index doesn’t usually stay this high for very long and this could mean a correction is on the cards, so be vigilant.

Bitcoin’s market dominance:

Bitcoin’s market dominance stands at 69.88. Its lowest ever recorded dominance was 37.09 on 8 January 2018.

Relative Strength Index (RSI):

The daily RSI is currently 68.31. Values of 70 or above indicate that an asset is becoming overbought and may be primed for a trend reversal or experience a correction in price – an RSI reading of 30 or below indicates an oversold or undervalued condition.

Google trends

The trend in Google searches over the last 90 days. Google shows this chart on a relative basis with a max score of 100 on the day that had the most Google searches for that keyword. The latest score is 100 – taken from 11 January.

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14/01/2021

Mark Cuban says Crypto 'Exactly' Like Dot-Com Bubble. Expects Bitcoin to Survive Bubble Burst, Thrive Like Amazon.

Billionaire Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban sees cryptocurrency “exactly” like the dot-com bubble. He says bitcoin and a few other cryptocurrencies are analogous to those dot-com stocks, like Amazon and Ebay, that survived the bubble burst and thrived.

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And now, back to Mark Cuban Likens Crypto to Dot-Com Bubble.

Shark Tank star Mark Cuban compared what he feels is a bubble in bitcoin to the dot-com bubble on Monday after the price of the cryptocurrency took a nosedive. The owner of the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Dallas Mavericks tweeted:

Watching the cryptos trade, it’s exactly like the internet stock bubble. Exactly. I think BTC, ETH, a few others will be analogous to those that were built during the dot-com era, survived the bubble bursting and thrived, like AMAZON, Ebay, and Priceline. Many won’t.

“Along the way, many fortunes will be made and lost and we find out who has the stomach to hodl and who doesn’t. My advice?! Learn how to hedge,” he elaborated!.

At the time of reviewing, his tweet has garnered hundreds of comments. It has also been retweeted thousands of times and liked even more. Several people on Twitter view Cuban’s comment as bullish for BTC and ETH.

Among the commenters was Tyler Winklevoss, co-founder of Gemini cryptocurrency exchange, who argued that cryptocurrencies are not like stocks.

“Wrong. Cryptos like BTC and ETH are networks, they are definitely not stocks or shares of a company.

They are like owning a piece of the early Internet.

Comparing them to stocks is apples to oranges comparison,” he explained to Cuban. After discussing bitcoin as a store of value, the Shark Tank star reiterated his stance:

I said BTC is like gold, it’s a store of value with no other utility. At least I can eat bananas!.

Gold bug Peter Schiff chimed in, telling Cuban: “Mark, you can’t store what you don’t have.

Gold is a store of value as you are storing gold for future use as a metal.

Jewelers will need gold, computer chip manufactures will need gold, dentists, etc.

But no one actually needs bitcoin now, so no one will need it in the future.”

In a follow-up tweet, Cuban wrote:

As during the dot-com bubble, ‘the experts’ try to justify whatever the pricing of the day is.

Crypto, much like gold!, is supply and demand-driven!.

All the narratives about debasement, fiat, etc are just sales pitches.

The biggest sales pitch is scarcity vs demand!. That’s it!.

The Gemini co-founder disagreed. “The narratives around debasement of fiat are facts.

Have you looked at the Fed’s balance sheet lately?!

What’s the matter with supply and demand?

The value of land!, a Picasso!, or the Dallas Mavericks franchise! are determined by supply and demand too,” he told Cuban!.

Do you agree with Mark Cuban about bitcoin? Let us know in the comments below!.

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13/01/2021

YouTube Suspends Trump’s Channel.

YouTube is the latest tech company to bar the president from posting online, following Twitter, Facebook, and others.

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And now, back to YouTube Trump's suspension.

YouTube said on Tuesday that it had suspended President Trump’s channel over concern about “ongoing potential for violence,” the latest move by one of the large technology companies to limit the president online.

In a post on YouTube’s official Twitter account, the Google-owned video site said it had suspended Mr. Trump’s account after one of his recent videos violated its policy for inciting violence.

That meant Mr. Trump would not be able to upload new content to his channel, which had about 2.8 million subscribers, for at least seven days. YouTube also said it was disabling all comments on his channel indefinitely.

Older videos that did not violate any policies remained active on his channel.

Many tech companies have moved to curtail Mr. Trump online since a violent mob of his supporters, urged on by the president, stormed the Capitol last week. In the aftermath, Facebook suspended the president from Instagram and its core social network through at least until the end of his term. Twitter followed by permanently banning Mr. Trump’s account from its service, depriving him of his favorite social media platform, where he had more than 88 million followers. Other sites, such as Snapchat, Reddit and Twitch, clamped down on Mr. Trump.

Big tech companies have also withdrawn support for other sites that have hosted right-wing content. On Monday, Parler, a social networking site that had become popular among Trump supporters for its loose approach to freedom of speech, went dark after Amazon pulled its computing services. Apple and Google earlier had removed Parler from their app stores. Parler has said it is searching for a way to get back online.

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The moves have won praise from liberals and others who said the actions were long overdue because Mr. Trump had used the sites to spread falsehoods and incite violence. But conservatives have said that the tech companies censored Mr. Trump and suppressed right-wing voices, raising questions about how much power the tech companies have over online discourse.

The video that prompted the YouTube suspension came from Mr. Trump’s remarks on Wednesday before a trip to Texas to visit a partly completed portion of his long-promised wall along the Mexican border.

In his first address to reporters since last week’s events, Mr. Trump said that a speech he had made at a rally before the riots at the Capitol was “totally appropriate” and that an effort by Congress to impeach and convict him was “causing tremendous anger.”

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The seven-day suspension from YouTube was an “important and necessary first step” that should become permanent, said Jim Steyer, chief executive of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit news media watchdog group. “While it is disappointing that it took a Trump-incited attack on our Capitol to get here, it appears that all the major platforms are finally beginning to step up,” he said.

During his presidency, Mr. Trump has used YouTube differently from Twitter or Facebook. His YouTube channel is filled mostly with clips from speeches and rallies, as well as videos of supporters defending him on Fox News. The videos lack the punch of his minute-by-minute commentary on Twitter and Facebook.

YouTube’s suspension comes after months of foot-dragging by the company. In the weeks after the Nov. 3 election, Mr. Trump’s channel was filled with videos showing him and his supporters challenging the outcome. YouTube refused to act on those videos even as critics called on it to do so, saying that questioning the election results was not a violation of its policies.

Last month, after most states certified their election results, YouTube said it would start removing videos that misleadingly said there had been widespread voting fraud or voting errors. But the company said that it would not penalize channels for posting such content with suspensions until Jan. 21, after Inauguration Day. YouTube said it had removed thousands of videos spreading misinformation about the 2020 election.

It removed several videos from Mr. Trump’s channel last week, including the one where he praised rioters and urged them to leave the Capitol. The company, cited the spread of election misinformation.

A day later, YouTube eliminated the grace period and said it would start issuing “strikes” against channels for policy violation regarding election fraud. Channels that receive a strike are prevented from uploading new videos for a week. After three strikes, a channel can be permanently banned from YouTube.

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11/01/2021

China Launches Digital Yuan, Hard Wallet, Card Pilot Program!.

The People’s Bank of China, has green-lighted a physical, card-wallet pilot to test its Digital Yuan!.

Coffee shop staff in a Shanghai-based university hospital, was chosen as participants in the pilot!.

Wallet Card Can Pay or Accept e-CNY!, Without Wi-Fi!, or a Mobile Connection!.

According to Tencent News, staff members at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, School of Medicine’s, Tongren Hospital, used the digital yuan token, to pay for food.

They used a point-of-sale device and a physical card with a small screen in the top right corner.

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And now, back to the Digital Yuan.

China Launches Digital Yuan 'Hard Wallet' Card Pilot Program

The card reveals how much digital yuan remains in the wallet.

Local media reports claim that the Postal Savings Bank of China is in charge of providing technical support.

The “hard wallet” allows staff to buy products such as a cup of coffee or snacks.

One of the photos featured in Tencent’s article also shows a hospital staff member holding a card with 144.75 yuan on it and three offline payments available.

The latter feature allows people to pay or accept e-CNY transfers without Wi-Fi or a mobile network connection.

Digital Yuan Tests Still Taking Place in Several Chinese Cities.

So far, the digital yuan pilot programs have been underway internally in Chinese cities such as Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiongan, Chengdu, preparing for the Winter Olympics — an event which is still scheduled to take place in 2022.

Although local experts have warned that there is still “a long way to go” before the token can be fully launched, PBoC officials believe that the digital yuan could be launched before the Olympic event.

The central bank aims to attract as many domestic and foreign spectators as possible to use digital yuan. The Chinese government’s plans point towards reducing dependence on the USD.

What do you think about the ongoing digital yuan tests? Let us know in the comments section below.

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07/01/2021

Bitcoin breaks $40,000 just 2 weeks after crossing the $20K line.

Another major milestone is toppled as Bitcoin price surpasses $40,000 in just the first week of 2021.

In just one of various achievements for Bitcoin this year, the largest cryptocurrency conquered bearish prognoses of a retraction after rising rapidly throughout the past 24 hours.

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And now, back to the $40,000 Bitcoin.

Funny to think that a bitcoin price retrace to $20,000 would feel like the buying opportunity of a lifetime.

Less than 3 weeks after Bitcoin broke through $20k its price has doubled to $40k.

It's now hard for anyone to deny we are seeing the maturation of a whole new asset class,

This could be the 'broadband moment' for cryptocurrency - where every company and individual needs to think seriously about how they engage and interact with cryptocurrency.

Charts only tell the past and we're in brand new territory.

This bull run began at $10k and 10x the previous all-time high seems about the norm for a bitcoin bull cycle.

So since we're approaching the halfway mark with extreme momentum, outstanding volumes and exceptional fundamentals, this can be seen as a stop on the road to a Bitcoin price that could possibly be around $100k.

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07/01/2021

Trump bans Alipay and seven other Chinese apps

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order banning transactions with eight Chinese apps.

The apps include popular payments platform Alipay, as well as QQ Wallet and WeChat Pay.

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And now, back to Donald Trump's executive order.

The apps include popular payments platform Alipay, as well as QQ Wallet and WeChat Pay.

The order, which takes effect in 45 days, says that the apps are being banned because they are a threat to US national security.

It flags the possibility that the apps could be used to track and build dossiers on US federal employees.

Tencent QQ, CamScanner, SHAREit, VMate and WPS Office are also included within the order, which only kicks in after Mr Trump has left office.

"The United States must take aggressive action against those who develop or control Chinese connected software applications to protect our national security," the order said.

President Trump's order says "by accessing personal electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, and computers, Chinese connected software applications can access and capture vast swaths of information from users, including sensitive personally identifiable information and private information."

The Trump administration has ratcheted up pressure on Chinese companies in its final months in office, including those it considers a national security risk.

President Trump has signed executive orders against a range of Chinese firms arguing they could share data with the Chinese government.

Chinese social media app TikTok and telecoms giant Huawei have been among the casualties of Washington's crackdown.

Last month, the Commerce Department added dozens of Chinese companies, including the country's top chipmaker SMIC and drone manufacturer DJI Technology, to a trade blacklist.

The administration also restricted a number of Chinese and Russian companies with alleged military ties from buying sensitive US goods and technology.

China has consistently denied claims that these firms share their data with the Chinese government and has responded by imposing its own export laws restricting the export of military technology.

In August, the US ordered ByteDance, the owner of social media app TikTok, to either shut down or sell off its US assets.

Despite missing a deadline to complete the sale, the US is yet to shut down the app and negotiations continue over its future.

The latest ban comes as the White House quietly pushed the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to consider a second U-turn on its decision to delist three Chinese telecoms giants.

Last week the NYSE announced it would delist the China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom in line with another executive order.

On Monday, however, the NYSE reversed that decision, announcing it had decided not to delist the three companies after further consultation with US regulators.

The NYSE made the decision based on ambiguity about whether the securities were actually covered by the order.

However, the exchange has come under pressure over its decision.

The US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin called the NYSE President Stacey Cunningham to tell her he disagrees with the decision, according to Reuters.

Republican Senator and China hardliner Marco Rubio has also spoken out, saying that the NYSE's refusal to delist the companies was an "outrageous effort" to undermine the President's executive order.

The NYSE is owned by Atlanta-based Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which is run by billionaire Jeffrey Sprecher.

His wife Kelly Loeffler is one of two Republican senators facing run-off elections on Tuesday in Georgia.

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07/01/2021

Happy Birthday, Bitcoin!
12th Anniversary $36,000+
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06/01/2021

Top US Banking Regulator: Banks Are Authorized to Use Public Blockchains and Stablecoins for Payment Activities

The top banking regulator in the U.S. has announced that national banks and savings associations in the country can use public blockchains and stablecoins for payment activities.

Experts say this is good for bitcoin and its importance should not be understated.

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And now, back to The Top US Banking Regulator.

Banks Can Use Public Blockchains and Stablecoins

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) published an interpretive letter on Monday “clarifying national banks’ and federal savings associations’ authority to participate in independent node verification networks (INVN) and use stablecoins to conduct payment activities and other bank-permissible functions.”

The OCC supervises nearly 1,200 national banks, federal savings associations, and federal branches of foreign banks that conduct approximately 70% of all banking business in the U.S.

“While governments in other countries have built real-time payments systems, the United States has relied on our innovation sector to deliver real-time payments technologies,” explained Acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks. “Some of those technologies are built and managed by bank consortia and some are based on independent node verification networks such as blockchains.”

He continued, “The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets recently articulated a strong framework for ushering in an era of stablecoin-based financial infrastructure,” elaborating:

Our letter removes any legal uncertainty about the authority of banks to connect to blockchains as validator nodes and thereby transact stablecoin payments on behalf of customers who are increasingly demanding the speed, efficiency, interoperability, and low cost associated with these products.

The OCC letter concludes that “a national bank or federal savings association may validate, store, and record payments transactions by serving as a node on an INVN.” In addition, “a bank may use INVNs and related stablecoins to carry out other permissible payment activities. In deploying these technologies, a bank must comply with applicable law and safe, sound, and fair banking practices.”

The crypto community widely welcomes this OCC clarification. Dan Held, growth lead at cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, commented: “The OCC will allow US banks to use public blockchains and stablecoins as a settlement infrastructure in the US financial system … This is huge for Bitcoin. As an immutable SoV it already settled over a trillion dollars worth of value annually.”

Emphasizing that “This is a huge win for crypto and stablecoins,” Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire explained:

The new interpretive letter establishes that banks can treat public chains as infrastructure similar to SWIFT, ACH and Fedwire, and stablecoins like USDC as electronic stored value. The significance of this can’t be understated.

“Decentralized, permissionless, open-source and internet-mediated software is literally becoming the foundation for not just the US financial system but for the global economy,” he opined. “It also sets the stage for more regulated financial institutions to run blockchain nodes, and even become validators.”

What do you think about this new OCC clarification? Let us know in the comments below.

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06/01/2021

Bitcoin’s Killer Application: “Skin In The Game” - Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO

Bitcoin has soared in 2020 and everyone is talking about the price. But I want to talk about how Bitcoin is actually being used and the new capabilities it enables.

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And now, back to the Bitcoin Killer Application.

Sure, bitcoin is the hardest form of money that exists and the best store of value. But it is also the most practical form of digital value that we have, as it is global, interoperable and programmable. So, what other use cases does Bitcoin enable? And what are the revolutionary new capabilities that people didn’t even know they needed Bitcoin for?

The team at ZEBEDEE had a very simple idea. The purest form of global, digital economies are video games, but they lack a purely global and digital form of transactional value. So why not take an existing popular game and integrate Bitcoin as the value transfer protocol. The question we wanted to answer is: Does this add a new dimension to the gameplay that dramatically increases enjoyment and engagement?

On December 27, 2020, we demonstrated this concept live at MintGox in front of an online audience of over 5,000 viewers. We successfully infused bitcoin into Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), a multiplayer first-person shooter video game with 28 million monthly active users. And with that, the first public reveal of ZEBEDEE’s newest product, Infuse, will bring Bitcoin to the world’s most popular games. The results are here to see:

View the Twitch stream of the event.

In this simple integration, players pay a bitcoin invoice to stake themselves into a match prize pool and then fight it out to win the lion’s share of the pot by the end of the game. This “skin in the game” totally transforms the experience and depth of engagement.

When you see it, you get that “holy sh*t!” moment — the realization that something big has just been born. CS:GO is one of those games that you can mindlessly play for hours. But wait until you see what happens when you have some real skin in the game that persists outside of the game, instead of just playing for a score. CS:GO tournaments are huge, but now everyone can play to earn, not just the l33t gamers.

This is it. Forget CBDCs and dreams of replacing existing inter-bank settlement layers. Bitcoin is the native settlement layer for the new virtual economy.

Back To The Future: Reintroducing Value Into Games
As my co-founder has previously written, historically, gaming always included a concept of “skin in the game” to make things more engaging.

But as we evolved into the digital age, this dimension was lost, only to be replaced by meaningless in-game gold:

“There is a strong historical precedent to argue that value transfer has always been an integral part of what makes games fun to play,” he wrote. “But, whereas games have evolved into the digital age, the medium of value transfer between players has not. This leaves an enormous hole in the modern gaming experience.

“Value transfer was therefore limited to in-app purchases, loot boxes, in game ads etc which arguably had a detrimental effect on gameplay.

“With Bitcoin and the Lightning Network we now have a global currency that is both peer-to-peer and interoperable between games — analogous to the usage of gold or silver in early games.”

SEE ALSO

LIGHTNING
Video: Lightning Network And Gaming With MintGox
Levelling Up The Gaming Industry
We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. People play games because they are fun, not because they are on a blockchain. When it comes to gaming, most cutting-edge crypto innovation is putting the cart before the horse by focusing on decentralized, censorship-resistant game mechanics and in-game asset ownership.

Making a successful game is hard and competitive; blockchain games face a lot of challenges and can focus on the wrong incentives. The low hanging fruit is to give already great games and great game developers an additional tool: the ability to programmably integrate the largest store of digital value into their games.

This is a straightforward way for video games to unlock an enormous amount of potential for new types of economics, player engagement and creativity. We have already demonstrated this through new types of activities that were not previously possible in a time before programmable Bitcoin interactions:

Breaking the fourth wall: Audience members can participate in esports events, directly interacting with the game using sats to pay for power ups or bounty increases. The blurring of the line between players and audience is something I really hope will be a revolutionary moment in gaming.
New revenue models: At the last MintGox tournament, we recorded more than 10,000 Lightning transactions. With that amount of value activity flowing through games come new ways for game developers to harvest the real economic activity they are creating.
Better ad integrations: In-game advertisements can more directly reach players. For example, players interact directly with a brand by picking up corporate-branded Bitcoin power ups throughout a map.
Microtransactions: Not only top placers can win prizes, as Bitcoin payouts make microprizes possible, creating yet another avenue for micro earning.
How Will This Play Out In 2021?
I know that 2021 will be the year that everyone on earth realizes they need a piece of Bitcoin. But, not everyone is a trader or investor, or even has the spare cash to stack sats. Gaming is the way emerging generations will onboard onto Bitcoin and stack sats through their own skills.

My team at ZEBEDEE will be doing its part to support this. Firstly, by not only hosting more CS:GO Bitcoin servers, but also striving to infuse Bitcoin into any open game that we can get our hands on.

I also expect to see game devs realize that they can make their own games more engaging and profitable by integrating Bitcoin into their game mechanics. We’re here to support that with the tools to make that happen and a rapidly growing audience of gamers eager to start pwning.

This video is based on a post by Simon Cowell. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of our channel.

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