The Lightning Network has struck Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria. During a conference in Ghana, Strike CEO Jack Mallers announced that the Bitcoin (BTC) payments company has partnered with the mobile app Bitnob to facilitate payments into Africa. Mallers made the announcement on stage at AfroBitcoin, a Bitcoin conference in Ghana's capital city of Accra. He stood alongside Bernard Farah, the Nigerian CEO of Bitnob, following a short presentation on how it works. Money transfers into Africa take advantage of the Lightning Network, the layer-2 payments network built atop Bitcoin. The feature is called “Send Globally,” and it enables instant, low-cost …

Bitcoin (BTC) spending an “unprecedented” period below a key moving average is a poor guide to the 2022 bear market. That was the opinion of analyst Superswell, who this week championed on-chain metrics as a way of understanding current BTC price action. “Business as usual so far” for Bitcoin bear market In a series of tweets on Dec. 5, Superswell challenged those concerned about the 200-week simple moving average (SMA) disappearing as support on BTC/USD. “Over the last few months, I've seen quite a few people point out that BTC failing to find support at the 200wkSMA is unprecedented and …

Silvergate Capital CEO Alan Lane has slammed “short sellers” and “other opportunists” for spreading misinformation over the last few weeks — just to score themselves a quick buck. In a Dec. 5 public letter, Lane said there was “plenty of speculation – and misinformation” being spread by these parties to “capitalize on market uncertainty” caused in part to FTX’s catastrophic collapse in November. His crypto-focused bank was recently forced to deny one of these so-called FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) campaigns last week when there was speculation that the firm was exposed to the bankrupt crypto lender BlockFi. Lane also …

The Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) has reportedly opened a formal investigation into two proposed contracts that would offer discounted electricity prices to new crypto-mining operations. According to a Dec. 5 statement from environmental law group Earthjustice, the government department would be looking to determine whether subsidizing crypto mining operations will raise electricity costs for Kentucky residents. The two mining contracts under investigation include one between Kentucky Power and Ebon International LLC, which runs a 250-megawatt mining facility in Louisa, as well as mining company Bitki-KY, which operates a 13-megawatt facility in Waverly, Kentucky. The contract proposes to give discounted …

Bitcoin (BTC) price is showing notable resilience at the $17,000 level, and according to data from Glassnode, a number of metrics that track the pace of selling and the on-chain behavior of investors are beginning to show a reduction in the factors that trigger sharp sell-offs. The FTX bankruptcy fueled a historic sell-off resulting in $4.4 billion in realized Bitcoin losses. By analyzing realized losses with the daily weighted average metric, Glassnode analysts found that the on-chain losses are subsiding. According to Glassnode, Bitcoin hit an all-time low in the realized profits versus losses ratio. Toward the end of the …

Bitcoin (BTC) bulls regained some control on Nov. 30 and they were successful in keeping BTC price above $16,800 for the past 5 days. While the level is lower than traders’ desired $19,000 to $20,000 target, the 8.6% gain since the Nov. 21, $15,500 low provides enough cushioning for eventual negative price surprises. One of these instances is the United States stock market trading down 1.5% on Dec. 5 after a stronger-than-expected reading of November ISM Services fueled concerns that the U.S. Federal Reserve (FED) will continue hiking interest rates. At the September meeting, FED Chairman Jerome Powell indicated that …

It’s the final month of the year and analysts are out with their projections for the next year. In a note to investors, Standard Chartered suggested that “The financial-market surprises of 2023” will include Bitcoin (BTC) price diving to $5,000 at some point in the year. The fall will be triggered by a liquidity crunch, which could result in more bankruptcies and a fall in investor confidence in the crypto sector. If this feels like an extreme, venture capitalist Tim Draper went in the opposite direction and predicted that Bitcoin could skyrocket to $250,000 by the middle of 2023. While …

What are the pros and cons of accepting Bitcoin payments? Accepting Bitcoin payments is advantageous due to lower fees than credit and debit cards, expansion of customer base and real-time bank balances. However, risks like volatility and cybercrime may undermine these benefits. Cryptocurrency payments help save excessive credit and debit card processing fees as they are decentralized and do not need intermediaries to verify the transaction. Moreover, merchants do not incur overseas currency exchange changes if payments are made in BTC or other cryptocurrencies. High transaction speed is another benefit of accepting Bitcoin payments, allowing businesses to receive payments in …

Bitcoin (BTC) cooled volatility above $17,000 into the Dec. 5 Wall Street open as traders confirmed upside targets. Bitcoin traders warm to near-term upside Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it held overnight gains, having hit three-week highs. The weekly close itself was encouraging for some, forming Bitcoin’s highest since the FTX scandal broke. Now, traders were hoping that upside would continue toward $20,000, with various resistance zones in play. “Slowly, but surely, Bitcoin is grinding upwards. Needs to crack $17.4-17.6K, but then we most likely continue quite fastly towards $19K,” Michaël van de Poppe, founder …

Crypto exchange KuCoin hired the international accounting firm Mazars for a third-party audit of its Proof-of-Reserves (PoR). According to an announcement on Dec. 5, the verification will provide the exchange customers additional transparency and reporting on whether their in-scope assets are collateralized, along with details on main, trade, margin, robot and contract accounts for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), as well as for the stablecoins USDT and USDC. The report should be available on KuCoin's official website within a few weeks. CEO of KuCoin Johnny Lyu said the move is the next step in the exchange efforts to provide transparency …

The value of Bitcoin (BTC) is being touted to drop as low as $5,000 in 2023 according to Standard’s Chartered global research head and chief strategist. As initially reported by Bloomberg, a note to investors published on Dec. 4 from the multinational bank’s chief strategist Eric Robertsen weighed-up a potential drop in Bitcoin’s value correlated with a surge in physical Gold. Robertsen outlined prospective scenarios for 2023 that could see interest rate reversals from hikes in 2022, further cryptocurrency sector bankruptcies and negative sentiment towards the market. This could include further downside for Bitcoin next year, with a 70% decline …

Bitcoin (BTC) starts its first full week of December at three-week highs as bulls and bears battle on. After a weekly close just above $17,000, BTC/USD seems determined to make the most of relief on stocks and a weakening U.S. dollar. As the United States gears up to release November inflation data, the dollar looks to be a key item to watch as BTC price action teases a recovery from the pits of the FTX meltdown. All may not be as straightforward as it seems — miners are facing serious hardship, data shows, and opinions on stocks’ own ability to …