The sentiment in the crypto markets had turned bullish on the news that Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for businesses and government bodies to support the development and adoption of blockchain technology. However, just days after the comments, the Chinese state media warned that support for blockchain should not be interpreted as an endorsement for cryptocurrencies. During the recent Bitcoin (BTC) rally, institutional interest picked up, which also resulted in a spike in Bitcoin futures volumes on the Bakkt platform. Along with targeting the institutional players, Bakkt dove into the mobile payments sector. Earlier this week the company announced …

The seesaw price action over the past week has lightened up the crypto space once again. While the aggressive bulls view the sharp upside move as a bottoming signal, the bears consider the rise as a bear market rally that should be sold into. However, as traders, our goal should be to identify the trend and trade with it. Bitcoin (BTC) futures trading volume on Bakkt has surged over the past three days. This suggests that the recent market activity has generated interest among institutional traders who expect a sharp directional move. Cryptocurrency market daily performance. Source: Coin360 If the …

The total market capitalization has bounced from very close to the $200 billion support, which is a positive sign. The pullback from the dip on Oct. 23 has been broad-based with Bitcoin (BTC) and several altcoins doing well. This shows that the crypto space is generating interest among buyers. Cryptocurrency market daily performance. Source: Coin360 Many major cryptocurrencies are showing signs of selling exhaustion. When the bulls buy breakdowns from critical support levels, instead of panicking, it shows that the sentiment is changing. As the recovery is across the board, it increases the sustainability of the move. Recently, Joel Birch, …

After initially seeking to ban Bitcoin in 2013, Thailand has since developed a permissive regulatory apparatus for digital currencies and cryptocurrency fundraising methods. Thai financial services firm Seamico Securities recently announced that it has received approval from the country’s Securities and Investments Commission (SEC) to operate its subsidiary, SE Digital, as a regulated initial coin offering (ICO) portal. In doing so, SE Digital obtained permission to launch the first legitimate ICO in Thailand, with the company announcing that it hopes to raise between 2 billion and 3 billion Thai baht (between around $66 million and $99 million) through the token …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) plunged today, dragging the whole crypto space along with it. The total crypto market capitalization has broken below the $209 billion mark from where it had bounced on two previous occasions in late September. It has psychological support at $200 billion and below this point the total market capitalization could drop to $170 billion. Cryptocurrency daily performance. Source: Coin360 At the moment, there is not a direct reason that explains today’s strong correction. Some analysts believe that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony before the United States Congress on Libra might have triggered the fall. They believe that the …

The Litecoin Foundation has published two new draft Litecoin Improvement Proposals that work toward establishing privacy features for the network. On Oct. 22, the Foundation shared links to details of the draft proposals on GitHub: LIP-0002 EB and LIP-0003 MW. Protecting Litecoin’s functional fungibility from government As the Foundation outlines, both proposals are targeted at mitigating the privacy risks associated with a transparent ledger, where transaction history can be publicly traced. The proposal’s authors — Andrew Yang, David Burkett and Charlie Lee — argue that this transparency hinders Litecoin’s “functional fungibility in a government-regulated merchant world,” observing that: “Personal identifiable …

The global economy is on weak footing. This has led to rate cuts by several central banks across the world and many are planning to implement additional measures to support their respective economies. This has ballooned the balance sheets of the central banks and there appears to be no end in sight. Since mid-September, the Federal Reserve has resumed its bond buying initiative, leading its balance sheet to expand by $210 billion. The Fed’s balance sheet is now about $3.97 trillion. While the supply of fiat currencies has been steadily increasing for the past few years, Bitcoin’s (BTC) block rewards …

The traditional financial system is heading to a disaster with about $17 trillion in global bonds returning negative-yields. “The whole concept of negative yields, of people paying for the privilege of lending money, is insane behavior to me,” said William Eigen, a veteran fund manager at JPMorgan Asset Management, in an interview with Bloomberg. Gemini crypto exchange co-founder Cameron Winklevoss believes that the staggering amount of negative-yield bonds is a compelling reason why investors should gravitate towards Bitcoin (BTC). Stafford Masie, the general manager of WeWork South Africa, also believes that Bitcoin is the best technological gift to mankind and …

The crypto market has been struggling since topping out in June but this does not mean institutional interest in crypto has diminished. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group tweeted that customer interest in CME Bitcoin (BTC) futures remained strong in Q3 2019 compared to Q3 2018. The total increase in open interest during this period was about 61%, which shows that the involvement of institutional traders is on the rise. Similarly, digital asset manager Grayscale Investments reported that its products received a total investment of $254 million in Q3 2019. That was a sharp increase over Q2 2019 when the …

A draft report by the G7 group of nations outlined the risks associated with “global stablecoins.” The report said: “No stablecoin project should begin operation until the legal, regulatory and oversight challenges and risks are adequately addressed.” This report is likely to increase the troubles for Facebook’s Libra project. Former Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman Christopher Giancarlo believes that Libra and the prospects of central bank digital currencies will increase regulator's intrusions into the crypto space. This can work as a double-edged sword. If regulators provide clarity, it is likely to attract large institutional players into the game, but if …

As Litecoin (LTC) celebrated its eighth birthday on Oct. 13, its founder Charlie Lee had to fend off crypto Twitter’s FUD — fear, uncertainty and doubt — about the altcoin. Lee’s original post was the exuberant announcement that: “Litecoin network has been up and running continuously for the past 8 years with zero downtime. And in that span of time, over $500,000,000,000 worth of LTC have been transacted. Looking forward to the next 8 years and more! ” “We have enough money to last 2 years” The first response to the birthday post immediately raised the specter of bankruptcy allegations, …

Litecoin (LTC) and other alts are becoming increasingly prevalent among crypto “sextortionists” since they allow to avoid detection more easily, a new research says. According to cybersecurity firm Cofense’s new report published on Oct. 8, malicious actors are gradually starting to shift their focus from Bitcoin (BTC) to specifically avoid detection by specialized email filters. The report states: “As enterprises began writing detection rules to block those emails, threat actors modified the text by replacing it with an image, which prevented key words from being identified by Secure Email Gateways (SEGs). The bitcoin address was left as a plain text …