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Binance delists Bitcoin SV (BSV) because of founder’s behavior

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Changpeng Zhao is Binance’s CEO and founder. And Binance is the world’s largest and most influential cryptocurrency exchange in the world, so when Mr. Zhao speaks, the cryptosphere listens. It’s much like how the world pays attention to every word that comes out of the Fed’s president when it comes to Forex and fiat currencies, primarily the USD.

Craig Wright

Another character in this article is none other than Craig Wright. This is a complex and cantankerous character which has some degree of charisma. He’s a very divisive figure in the cryptocurrency environment. He’s claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto himself, he’s the man who got the whole “Ripple as a security” controversy started, and he likes to speak loudly against any cryptocurrency he disapproves of (and the list is long). Not too long ago, Craig attacked Tron, too.

His latest exploit was to create enough tension within the Bitcoin Cash project so that the project had to split (fork) into Bitcoin Cash ABC and Bitcoin Cash SV. The SV (BSV) version has not performed very well since the original (BTC ABC recovered quickly from a drop in price). That puts a dent on Mr. Wright credibility since that’s the blockchain project he currently leads for all practical purposes.

How the latest clash between CZ and Craig started

Keeping up with his established character, Mr. Wright went after the Twitter user that came up with the Lighting Torch initiative, who goes by Hodlnaut. Mr. Hodlnaut called Mr. Wright a fraud in a Tweet because he insists on being the real Satoshi Nakamoto.

The controversial crypto personality must have taken this comment in a very personal way (which is rather strange as lots of cryptonauts have expressed similar or worse opinions about the man) and declared open season on the Twitter user. He’s offering USD 5.000,00 in BSV for any information regarding Hodlnaut’s true identity.

The community hasn’t reacted very favorably to Mr. Wright’s initiative, and the hashtag #WeAreAllHodlonaut has popped out in Twitter to express support for the Twitter user (whose account is now deleted).

Hodlonaut was indeed very vocal about his opinions about the BSV founder. He called him “a very sad and pathetic scammer. Clearly mentally ill” and he also played a role in creating the #CraigWrightIsAFraud hashtag.

Things are getting so hot that even Wright’s lawyer had to come forward and speak on behalf of his client. He defended him by saying that “has not fraudulently claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto” because he is Satoshi Nakamoto.

His statement also says that he wrote the now legendary Bitcoin white paper, completed the first Bitcoin transaction, and was pivotal for the network’s growth and development. And he now wants Hodlnaut to offer him an apology and to acknowledge his allegations as false.

Hodlnaut is not alone at all in his views about Mr. Wright. This person is widely known as “faketoshi” in the crypto verse. As shown in the above tweet, according to WikiLeaks, he’s “a proven serial forger of documents claiming that he is the inventor of Bitcoin.” Motherboard news published an article almost four years ago in which he denounced the “proof” Wright provided for Bitcoin’s authorship. It said that they were “probably backdated and point to a hoax.”

But for some reason, Craig Wright has chosen to pick on an anonymous (and influential) former Twitter user to vent his anger about the community’s doubts. And that’s not all.

Mr. Wright’s problems do not start and finish in the virtual world. He faces a USD 4 billion lawsuit against him for stealing (allegedly) about 1.1 million BTC from the late David Kleinman’s estate. Mr. Klainman was a crypto developer when it was just getting started.

And last December a researcher reported that the Bitcoin SV allows for tokens to be spent twice which is equivalent to say that it’s utterly useless as a genuinely useful cryptocurrency.

So when you put all of the information in the previous paragraphs together, it’s no wonder that lots of people in the cryptosphere are sick and tired of Craig Wright’s antics. Which brings us back to Binance and its CEO.

Binance’s warning

Mr. Zhao announced last Thursday that he’s ready to delist BSV from Binance if the controversial founder doesn’t change his ways. The community reacted by supporting Mr. Zhao’s position and encouraging other cryptocurrency exchange platforms to do the same and stop supporting the BSV coin.

That could be a possibly fatal blow for a blockchain project that’s already facing bad times and that. And guess what, Binance CEO did not take long take an action after the warning.

The ball is in Craig Wright’s court, of course. It will be fascinating to see how he decides to manage this situation.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

Bitcoin stays over 5k after a crazy week

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Bitcoin’s price has been above the psychological 5k level for the best part of 12 days already. The trading week was thunderous, but the world’s premier cryptocurrency managed to keep itself about that key magical number.

The price kept increasing for almost all week. It went as high as USD 5450 on Wednesday before it went back to USD 5.000,00 according to CoinDesk data, but most exchanges saw the same market behavior Then, on the next day, it dropped to USD 4.894,00 in a somehow dramatic swing.

However, Thursday’s bear attack wasn’t enough to break the bull’s backs, and the price recovered going above 5k again, and it’s remained there ever since.

Analysts are invoking market dynamics, as illustrated by technical analysis to explain those price fluctuations.

Rising Trend

The research team members at SFOX highlighted the upwards trend in Bitcoin prices we’ve seen for most of the current month. They identify the prevailing market sentiment’s origin in a 20k BTC order placed last April 2nd. This order was distributed over three different exchanges, and it supposedly came out of an Asian investor because of timing.

While nobody knows yet who placed the buying order, the posture itself has gained legendary status in less than a fortnight. It threw “supply and demand out of equilibrium” and triggered big wins.

“This rally was highly publicized in the media, which could have theoretically caused people to experience some ‘FOMO,'” according to the same team.

Technical Analysis

CryptoPatterns’ publisher, Jon Pearlstone, had something to say on the coins dramatic change in trends. In his view, it was all about technical analysis.

He explained,

“Bitcoin broke out of a bullish pattern above $5000, did not see any meaningful buying follow through around $5400, and has now pulled back to test the current key support level of $5000.”

“This is very typical price action during a bullish cycle,” he stressed, then continued by saying that “price action continues to favor the bullish path even though we’ve pulled back,” with the next “likely target” being $6,000.

But he also clarified that in case the digital asset goes underneath a particular level with high levels of trading volume, then it could report losses. Jon stated,

“A drop under $4750 with increasing volume would be the indicator to watch for that ‘something else may be going on’ versus typical bull cycle moves.”

So where do we stand? Is the 16 month-old bearish run finally behind us? Is the long and disastrous crypto winter over at last? It’s too soon to tell for sure. A good thumb-rule when construing events in any financial market is not to see things in a way that would be more convenient for you. That’s how you allow cognitive biases to cloud your judgment and that’s one of the most reliable ways to lose your money.

It seems that the current Bitcoin environment is reacting to that substantial buying order that changed everything (at least for the last 12 days). But the increments in price are not as ample as we’ve seen in previous genuine bull-runs so the chances are that the current bullish run is transient, and the market will correct itself over the next few days or weeks until the following (the real) bullish run comes around.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

Customer journey in financial institutions getting smooth, Ripple’s xRapid at the Core

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We can all agree that the world is steadily changing with technology taking center-stage chronologically. As such, everyone expects their respective industry to move along at a similar pace, and the ones that have their hands on the handbrake are slowly losing it.

One industry which is on the spotlight is the banking industry. Reason being, the blockchain technology is promising significant achievements in the sector which, not too long ago, most financial institutions were reluctant to buy the idea.

Customers Want a Frictionless Future

There’re no denying that the banking system has got its faults which need to be looked into such as the speed of the transactions, the nature of costs charged and the security risks involved when it comes to cross-border payments.

With the technology offered by the blockchain, customers now expect to do their processes anywhere of their choosing with zero friction. Whenever, the customers encounter some friction or pain point which inhibit their ease of achieving the goal, the view of the institution change which comes back to hit the banking brand hard.

Therefore, the traditional financial institutions have to take imminent action to ensure that they don’t lose firm ground. Perhaps, the only solution is to kill the pain points in their consumer experience by integrating the promising crypto technology.

Fintech Startups Carrying it Out

One thing that the fintech startups have done is finding the opportunities to eliminate the friction across the touchpoints in the consumer journey. By so doing, they are attracting more customers than the traditional financial institutions as they provide faster transactions which are very secure at the same time. And guess what? It’s coming as banking system the following suit.

Ripple’s xRapid Gets World Bank Approval

Ripple’s payment tool xRapid platform provides near-instant payments, and for that reason, the World Bank approved it to be used for quick bank transfer. xRapid will be used for the cross-border payments. Besides, Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) will aid in remittance.

So, the primary reason is to eliminate the pain points since as noted already, Ripple provides quality services such as sending funds at almost zero cost and the funds get sent instantly.

https://twitter.com/Lionel46294550/status/1117702411743891456

It’s worth noting that, although initially, most financial institutions were reluctant in integrating this kind of technology, the time is almost here that they change their stands. The World Bank adopting Ripple‘s xRapid for its fund transfer may just be the beginning of a series that will follow, and slowly but steadily, all pain points might go away.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

Tron network now hosts almost 300 dApps as 38 new apps join the family

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The Tron network keeps attracting new decentralized applications establishing itself as the world’s most rapidly growing dApp platform. It also has the highest trade volumes in the crypto verse, beyond Ethereum’s and EOS’. A fresh report published recently by the Tron Foundation states that 38 new decentralized applications are online in the Tron environment.

The Tron Foundation dApp report

Among the many exciting bits and pieces of data included in the Tron Foundation’s decentralized applications report, there’s the number of daily active users. It’s stable at about 30k steady users over the last few weeks. The development trend for new apps leans towards gameplay and strategy. The point is to create novel user experiences in those areas.

On further news, the Foundation informed that many more decentralized app in the games category are in the development agenda with a higher degree of complexity. At this point, it bears mentioning that betting apps boomed a few weeks ago, but user interest in gambling has waned off a bit recently so, there is something of a dip in the dApps’ DAU.

Blocklords

“Blocklords” is among the new apps deployed this week. This game is blockchain-based, and it’s a strategy adventure that brings users to middle-ages war scenarios. While the game is newly deployed, its reputation precedes it as it won a grand prize in the Tron Accelerator competition.

The gaming experience includes the storage of the users’ objects and items to enhance the player’s experience as they join in the way Europe develops while the medieval era comes to life through Tron’s blockchain. Users can put fortresses under siege and recuperate any items they’ve lost.

And there’s airdrop on every 800 new blocks completed by the network that’s allocated to the users with newly conquered fortresses. So the game even provides a source of passive income.

And since we’re on the passive income subject, if you control a city, you collect a 10% tax on every transaction carried out there.

MyWish

Another app mentioned in the Foundation’s report is “MyWish” which was released about two years ago on the Ethereum network. This app allows to build and implement custom smart contracts in the Tron Main Net.

Justin Sun (Tron’s CEO and founder) celebrated the Tron’s network further progress as dApp platform in his typical way, which is tweeting it. Tron Foundation tweeted:

Last but not least, the Foundation informed that IPFS is currently undergoing tests for integration into Tron’s dApps.

Tron keeps reporting great news that strengthens the project’s fundamentals which, in turn, will end up driving the project’s currency (Tronix or TRX) price up. As we write this, the token remains 11th by market capitalization, and it trades at $0.0262 in slightly red numbers for the last 24 hours.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

Collaboration between Tron and Blockchain Security Enterprises on the table, Justin Sun

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The cryptocurrency market as anyone can safely say is on the roller coaster ride at the moment as every minute that passes leaves enthusiasts and the authorities in the industry wondering what is coming up next. All the crypto giants (including Bitcoin) where at one moment cruise to the old safe mark, the next moment comes up with a sudden fall to that hike.

This is in general not the case with Tron; that trend has never been with the Sun-led crypto for the past 6 months. Where every other cryptocurrency in the realm struggled to hold onto their standings and supposed worth, Tron founded and run by the famous face of the industry Justin Sun, not only survived that barbaric period of bear’s attack but also emerged out as one of the growing blockchain projects in the crypto planet.

According to the reports, Sun-led blockchain project, Tron recorded a 567% growth in the daily transaction area and 25.17% rise in the market capitalization during the past six months. Where in October 2018, the daily transaction of the altcoin was recorded to be 244,237 on average, the recent calculation made in April indicated the number to be increased to 1,630,237.

The team working behind the scene also commented about the high performance of the cryptographic project as it is the result of the contribution of the community as well as the global team working on it 24/7. As things stand, it seems that the project will continue to do so steadily and rapidly.

Tron and Blockchain Security Enterprises Come Together for Better Decentralized Ecosystem

Justin Sun, the CEO of the 11th largest crypto asset in the world, proclaimed last week that to create a better ecosystem for decentralized applications Tron will be working together with the blockchain security enterprises in the future.

The CEO further went on discussing the vision behind the partnership as it will be a fruitful convenience for the developers to create more smart contract applications without worrying about their safety. In his own words:

Although the exact timing of the said the promising partnership had not been shared in public yet, it surely provides the real sense of dedication the Tron’s administration aims to remain as the leading decentralized network for hosting DApps in years to come.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

Swarm joins the Tron blockchain to offer new financial services

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Swarm to bring security tokens into Tron’s network

Swarm will use the Tron blockchain to allow asset providers to issue security tokens. Swarm is a blockchain company specialized in providing asset tokenization in such a way that the tokens pay dividends for very competitive fees.

The Tron Foundation announced this new development three days ago. The Foundation added that proper licensing and KYC (know your customer) measures implemented will be required of those who want to use the new service.

Swarm is in the business of developing tools that make it easier for customers to get to value in a wide range of assets. Justin Sun (Tron’s founder and CEO for the Tron Foundation and BitTorrent) used his Tweeter account to explain that tokenization through Tron’s technology will enable customers to transact more rapidly and with fewer fees.

Tron’s leader welcomes Swarm

Mr. Sun had good things to say about Swarm. He praised the firm as a leading force in the developing of the world’s digital investment infrastructure. Choosing Tron will give the investment world an option to adopt decentralized technology.

Here are Mr. Sun’s words:

Swarm’s executives also have something to say about the new strategic partnership. The company’s co-founder and CEO, Philipp Pieper, manifested excitement about this new development, singing Tron’s praises because of its commitment to deliver fast, free solutions for all kinds of problems by taking advantage of decentralized technology. Mr. Pieper also said that Tron’s technical specifications make it the perfect network to host its open tokenization technology.

Smart contracts for security tokens will be denominated in USDT-Tron tokens to take advantage of that token’s price stability. The USDT-Tron is also a new development for Tron, the fruit of yet another meaningful strategic partnership with Tether which is moving its stable coin to Tron’s token technology (TRC20) to take advantage of the network’s fast transaction speeds and reliability. But TRX, Tron’s native currency, will not remain out of the arrangement and it will also be available as means to offer security tokens.

Swarm trusts that by joining Tron, it will be able to tap in the Tron’s community interest in security tokens (or create it). Which could be a great success as Tron’s community is among the most active, committed and bullish in the cryptoverse. It’s also a very open community to new developments in the project. Members in the Tron community have expressed excitement about this new venture as well as confidence in its long-term growth and benefits.

Swarm is confident that its partnership with Tron will pave the way for the massive and engaged Tron community to venture into the world of security tokens. The Tron community was excited about this latest development, with most of them very confident about the long-term benefits of the project.

Tron keeps growing and securing significant partnerships that bring all kinds of external interest in the Tron project as well as to the cryptosphere as a whole. Thus the project is building up its fundamentals very solidly, and that will be translated into token value and market capitalization sooner or later.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

Cashshuffle’s new technology enables Bitcoin Cash users to mix up millions

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Cashshuffle is a service for Bitcoin Cash (BCH) users that enhances privacy for them and their digital assets. It’s a decentralized protocol that gets a bunch of coins from Bitcoin Cash users and mixes them up. The point in the mixing is to obfuscate the blockchain’s transaction history in such a way that even a serious analysis of the chain it’s thoroughly challenging to do.

So forensic analysis on a user’s transaction history becomes a nightmare, almost impossible. The service appeared about two weeks ago, and it’s already supported by several popular cryptocurrency wallets.

This kind of development speaks volumes about the type of loyalty and bullish sentiment that Bitcoin Cash has been able to instill in its users. Blockchain projects such as Monero (XMR) have privacy features hardwired into the blockchain, the network, and the token.

One would think that the easy way to go about keeping nosy individuals (or institutions) confused about the way you use your digital capital would simply be to adopt that kind of digital asset, at least in a transient exchange, and then go back to the cryptocurrency of your choice. But Bitcoin Cash holders seem to prefer to keep operating in BCH even if taking care of their privacy needs a third-party service.

During the two weeks in which Cashshauffle has been online, it’s gained a lot of attention and users. It’s shuffled 8,825 BCH tokens as per the data from last week, and it’s settled about 2.000 transactions. It’s proving popular.

“I shuffle all the time.”

Traction is on the new platform’s side. Those nearly nine thousand BCH tokens are worth USD 2,6 million in the market. It’s an impressive trading volume for such a short history. A BCH developer tweeted information about the total amount of Cashshuffle transactions since it went online and the number is 1,917. Early support from Electron Cash wallet hasn’t hurt either.

The new protocol is not your ordinary cryptocurrency shuffling service. The usual story for those is that you, as a user, need to trust the service not to lose your coins in the mixing process, and pay a fee, which is usually rather steep. Cashshuffle is way cheaper than any of its competitors. It’s open source, and the fact that none of the individual parties involved can know how inputs and outputs are related makes it safer than other similar products.

An alpha version was released on Electron Cash (EC) as a plugin extension. Now it’s a standard feature.

The security and code analysis consultants Kudelski reviewed the source code and the compiled software thoroughly as well. Their report was very encouraging. The firm tried to find any common vulnerabilities, bugs and to assess the code’s overall security.

“We did not find any critical shortcoming in these components,” Kudelski Security informed in the published audit. The firm added that,

“It seems that the Coinshuffle protocol and the Cashshuffle implementation provide a practical solution to the problem of mixing transactions without the risk of funds being stolen in the process.”

The BCH community helped Cashshuffle come true

Donations have been a big part in the funding, maintaining and improvement of the protocol. They’ve been critical in keeping the developers going and doing the excellent and innovative job they’ve done. Just in the last day or so, the Cashshuffle team has raised about USD 14.000,00 in donations from the community. Some of that came from the Bitcoin Unlimited development team in the form of 15 BCH units. That was yesterday.

And there’s even further progress. Jonald Fyookball, who serves as Electron Cash’s lead developer, announced that EC v 4.0.0 will include Cashshuffle and will be available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux.

Mr. Fyookball was also vocal in thanking the community for their help in supporting the protocol. He also praised the developing team and all those who helped pay for the critical security audit. The EC’s 4.0.0 version includes new features such as coin control as well as additional logic that turn the wallet into a better tool for ensuring privacy.

Nilic the Grim (an EC developer) thanked some of the developers by name (Acidsploit, Emergent Reasons, Imaginary Username, Mark Lundeberg, Josh Ellithorpe, Clifford, and Calin Culianu) for their essential help with the freshest version. But he didn’t hesitate to say that most of the support came from the BCH community.

“This community is the MVP — Really I swear, so many people helped out from suggestions to testing to finding esoteric bugs, to organizing stuff like the audit and finding funds for it — It was a community effort beyond the devs 100%.”

The BCH community loves the new Cashshuffle protocol because of the new and unprecedented level of privacy it guarantees for the BCH environment. Amaury Sechet, one of Bitcoin’s ABC leading developers, thanked the EC developers as well for the great work they did and assured them and the community that the voyage is only beginning “There is more to do before that thing is as secure as it could be given the auditability of the chain.”

Other BCH fans have hailed the new protocol as a real pioneering effort that puts the BCH network right on the limit of the Cryptosphere’s most advanced technology. The amount of support, the rapid expansion of the user base, and the money the project has collected in donations seem to support the good vibes about the project.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

Tron CEO Justin Sun donates USD 1.5 Million to Hupan University

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Jack Ma and Hupan University

Jack Ma is famous as the billionaire founder of Alibaba.com. That’s no mean feat, of course, but Mr. Ma has done a lot more than Alibaba. Among those things was the foundation of Hupan University in China where he has taught some courses personally.

Among the new University’s graduate students is none other than Justin Sun, founder of Tron, and CEO of BitTorrent and the Tron Foundation. He was personally invited by Mr. Ma to study at the new educational institution, and he attended Mr. Ma’s lectures in the flesh. From then on, the two tycoons are thought to be close friends, and Mr. Sun has enjoyed Mr. Ma’s protection. Mr. Sun is credited with being the first millennial to attend and graduate Hupan.

While we can’t really tell how influential his time at Hupan University has been for Mr. Sun’s trajectory, he’s one of the most recognized and successful young entrepreneurs in China. Besides Tron and BitTorrent, he founded PEIWO which is a hugely popular messaging and voice live streaming app in China. He’s also been distinguished by Forbes as one of the prestigious “30 under 30”. So his track record is beyond any doubt.

On top of all that, Tron is obviously one of the better-managed blockchain projects in the world in every possible aspect from marketing and PR to technical matters.

The donation

But we shall assume that Mr. Sun did learn some essential things from Mr. Ma’s university because he’s now willing to show how grateful he is to the institution by giving back something. Cointelegraph announced a few days ago (April 8th) that Mr. Sun donated USD 1.5 million to Hupan Unversity.

Mr. Sun’s generous contribution will help the next class in the institution. It’s comprised of 41 students that represent 14 different Chinese industrial sectors. About half of them come from internet companies while the rest are involved in more traditional economic activities.

Mr. Sun had something to say about the university‘s relevance for professional development:

“Hupan University made a huge impact and difference to me and the company. Without Hupan, Tron will not be what it is today. My entrepreneurship was enlightened and developed there.”

Universities in the world are slowly but surely including blockchain technology as a study subject and as a tool to solve problems in a decentralized way. MIT even created a cryptocurrency of its own. Last February saw the collaborative creation of an encrypted database for educational proficiency documents, fruits of the joint efforts of electronics giants Sony and Fujitsu. The platform enables Japanese speaking schools to compare certificates with data stored in the blockchain to authenticate the documents.

Also in February, the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta and TalentSpirit (a trading platform) launched an advanced course on fintech and blockchain technology. It will start next month, and it’s designed to attract management and finance professionals and give them skills to deal with the current fintech explosion and its potential influence over the traditional financial system.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

Can the sheer technical pressure bring Bitcoin price to $50k in the next 24 months?

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Have you ever heard about Peter Brandt? He’s a cryptocurrency trader. Not just any trader. He’s a veteran, and his achievements have earned him a status that is nothing short of legendary. He recently talked to Yahoo Finance YFi PM, and he made an interesting prediction: Bitcoin could reach $50,000 sometime in the next two years.

Is this just wild optimism? Is Mr. Brandt deluded? Is he crazy or using a crystal ball? We don’t think so. First of all, this forecast is quite conservative when you compare it with others such as John McAffee’s who’s stated repeatedly that the price will get to $1.000.000,00 within the same time window.

$50.000,00 is not that much compared to that. Secondly, Mr. Brand is an analyst whose opinions are not dominated by wishful thinking at all. He’s recognized for giving the market a heads up about the imminent drop in Bitcoin’s price back in 2018, and he nailed it as the mother of all cryptocurrencies lost more than 85% of its value during that year.

Mr. Brandt explained that he used technical market analysis and market history to asses Bitcoin’s situation for last year: In his recent appearance on Yahoo Finance YFi PM, the veteran crypto trader said,

“I believe that charts reflect underlying supply and demand fundamentals and that’s how we have to look at it.”

He recapitulated how the BTC price advanced parabolically after the 2015 debacle which was more or less as bad as last year’s catastrophe. And he expects the scenario to repeat itself and the crypto market to go into a parabolic bull period once again.

Analysts don’t buy it.

Several analysts were not very eager to jump in Mr. Brandt’s wagon. While they acknowledge the possibility of the prediction materializing, they were emphatic in stating that price prediction is a very tricky thing, especially when it comes to more extended periods than a few minutes or hours (and even in short periods of the kind you use for daily trading is quite a complicated matter).

“Peter Brandt’s assessment is purely based on technical indicators and market history,” said the CEO of BitBull Capital, a hedge fund, Joe DiPasquale. He continued by explaining that “While technical analysis has a place in all markets, past performance is no guarantee for future results.” He also talked about the market in the last week and a half “Meanwhile, however, the current rally is consolidating nicely and we can expect further price appreciation if the trend continues.”

The managing director of crypto-to-crypto derivatives platform, Maruan Garcon also expressed weariness “We have to be careful when trying to predict markets, parabolic movements happen once in a blue moon” he said. So “we can’t depend on them as they tell us more about the crowd’s sentiment than the actual value of the asset.”

While Mr. Garcon accepted that market history could help to understand the market and its future developments, he also said that “going forward we have to be more careful because the market has matured and the participants have changed.” In other words, he implied that it is not the same market it was four years ago, so history may not apply anymore.

Adoption could make all the difference.

Many analysts stress the relevance of mass adoption for Bitcoin. They think that if the asset expands its user-base significantly, that alone could bring the price all the way up to $50.000,00 if Bitcoin adoption continues to grow exponentially over the next couple of years. But if adoption stagnates, no growth will be possible. Even holding to the current level of $5.000,00 will become impossible.

Paxos cofounder and CEO thinks along the same lines, more or less.

“The next wave of growth in this cycle will be driven by adoption from mainstream retail and institutions, markets that are order of magnitudes larger than the current users. In that context, $50k seems possible.”

The relevance of adoption is impossible to deny, of course. But adoption is undergoing as the Bitcoin network is already handling amounts of money that compare to those managed by Mastercard’s or Visa’s networks, so there’s really no doubt that use cases for Bitcoin will continue to multiply thus bringing more users to the crypto verse’s foremost and oldest cryptocurrency.

Another option for market growth.

There is a factor that the analysts are not taking into account.

A lot of speculation has been going around among observers, analysts and just regular cryptonauts over the last sixteen months (which is the period we’ve been living under the cryptocurrency winter). Chief among all speculative ideas is the answer to the question of what will prompt the next crypto spring (even summer) to occur if only because we all wanted for the bear’s hug to finish as soon as possible.

There have been several answers that go from the reasonable to the utterly impossible, but one among those has been especially frequent and, besides, it kind of makes a lot of sense, and that is institutional investments.

Let’s not forget that the cryptocurrency market has been populated mainly by retail investors so far. It’s not been like Forex, the commodities market, the stock exchange or any of the traditional financial markets in which banks are the primary movers and shakers, and individual investors that don’t work for financial institutions are still professionals for whom it’s a permanent job.

The cryptocurrency market has never been like that. At least not so far. In crypto, most investors are basically geeks who have become interested in the market because of the promise that blockchain technology holds for the world. Let’s face it. Crypto is more counter-cultural and underground currently than Pink Floyd was in 1967. Especially since it still gets a bad rap as a criminal-friendly market.

So what would happen if Wall Street, London’s City, and some of the most influential traditional banking and financial institutions become involved with digital assets? So far they’ve regarded Bitcoin (as well as all other cryptocurrencies) with fear and suspicion, so they’ve stayed away for the most part.

But that is changing.

Think about Bakkt. It’s going to be a payments system and exchange platform that’s going to be created by a partnership between Starbuck’s, Microsoft, and (here’s the kicker) ICE. ICE may be the least famous name in the list, but it’s probably more important. It’s the company that owns and operates the New York stock exchange, and as institutional money goes, it’s tough to beat ICE in relevance in influence. There are many other examples. The point is that the banking community attitude towards digital assets is changing slowly and many members are starting to get their feet wet in the crypto river.

And why is that important? Because we’re talking about financial firms that have insane amounts of money laying around. And, should they chose to bring even a tiny fraction of that capital into the cryptocurrency market, prices could soar overnight. The relevant question regarding Mr. Brandt’s estimate would be if that money will hit the market sometime before the next 24 months. There’s no way of knowing that as things stand.

So what to make of the $50,000 in two years prediction? Well, the tricky thing is timing. Getting the dates right for the future is incredibly difficult. Even psychics don’t commit to dates. But other than that, we do not doubt that the Bitcoin price will get there and then it will go beyond. When? We have no idea. But it will happen sooner or later.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

Ripple puts emphasis in Southeast Asia by doubling its Singapore office

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Ripple is one of the world’s most important blockchain private companies. It has a global outlook in which the Southeast Asian market has an essential place in the firm’s plans because of the intense activity in the crypto verse that’s centered around that zone of the planet. And Ripple is going to put more attention in Asia by doubling the number of employees it has at his Singapore offices.

The company that created and is still behind the XRP digital asset (which holds the third spot by market capitalization) is about to grow its Asian office, based in Singapore. The small island is a hub for cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. The Tron Foundation is also based in Singapore even if most of the project’s activity happens in China.

Doubling the employee number at Singapore is not a colossal undertaking if you take into account that it means going from 12 to 24 employees during the following year. The point in this move is to increase the full range of operations offered by the company. Finews Asia reported a few days ago that the increase was all about customer service, but it’s not going to be limited to that aspect of the company’s work.

Ripple (some still call it a “startup” after seven years of going strong) is looking to increase its capacity in the Asian zone so it can satisfy its customers’ needs. Asia is a vital geopolitical region for the cryptosphere in general, but it’s been especially relevant for Ripple because many of its most critical partners (which tend to be banks and remittance services) are located, sometimes even limited, to the Asian zone, especially in the Southeast.

Ripple and Southeast Asia

Let’s start by stating the obvious (which is not so evident for all observers). You are undoubtedly aware of the crypto winter. The market has been under the bears’ dominance for more than 16 months so far. While prices have been going up for about a week and a half, it remains premature to assume we’re all out of the doldrums already.

The winter has been very harsh. It’s cost the market more than 85% of its value, so it’s forced many blockchain projects to cut down their workforces. So it’s incredible that living in that same bearish environment, Ripple can afford to think about expanding anywhere in the world instead of firing people. It’s surely a well-managed company that can negotiate a storm successfully.

The firm knows that it must give that region the attention it demands is one of the most critical markets for the firm. Erin van Mittenburg, Ripple’s Senior Vice President for Global operations was quoted by The Business Times saying that,

“The demand here is significant, so it’s an easy decision for us to continue to invest in this market and make sure that we can… also seek out new customers, new partners and new ways that we can work with the market.”

The company produces a blockchain platform capable of supporting a series of software solutions (developed, maintained and operated by Ripple) which hold the promise of removing most of the friction in settling international payments.

So far, and for the last 44 years, that market has been monopolized by the very inaptly named SWIFT system. Ripple’s alternative is faster (minutes instead of days), more competitive (fractions of cents instead of fees of around 25%) and much more reliable.

Because of this focus in the remittance and international transfers business, Asia is quite essential as it has a vast trading volume in this market. That’s why Ripple entered the Singaporean market two years ago.

There’s another reason for Ripple’s interest in Asia. It’s the region that has embraced its systems with the most enthusiasm. Half of the company’s strategic partners are located somewhere in Asia. Some of those include the Siam Commercial Bank in Thailand, Malaysia’s CIMB Bank, and Philippine’s BDO, not to mention several big financial players in Japan.

Asia in the Cryptoverse

Asia doesn’t get all the limelight that the US and Europe have when it comes to being protagonists in the cryptocurrency world. But it is the real leader because of the trading volume and generalized interest there is in digital assets. Just think about a couple of relevant facts.

Most of the Bitcoin mining in the world is done out of China (which is the country that also manufactures the toys that allow for that mining process to keep going). And how excited has everybody been about the Bitcoin’s surge that started on last week’s Tuesday?

Some observers are even reporting that the winter is over (again, probably prematurely)! Well, the market move that brought the Bitcoin price up by a thousand dollars in sixty minutes flat came out of Asia, not Europe nor the US. The thing to take out of this paragraph should be clear now. Asia is crucial, central, and very influential for the cryptosphere and Ripple knows it.

We already talked a bit about China’s role in the crypto verse (basically, it’s the country that keeps the Bitcoin network going). But the red giant is not the only player. Japan is also a relevant market in the industry. The country has seen two of the worse security breaches in the short blockchain’s history happen in its territory. Those incidents prompted the state to adopt pro-crypto regulation instead of disrupting the market while waving the flag of investor protection.

Some 61 Japanese banks are Ripple’s partners and are using or testing the company’s technology for international payments. That’s 61 out of the roughly 200 banks that are working with Ripple all over the world, so Japan alone is more than 25% of Ripple’s global business.

Substituting the SWIFT system with blockchain-based and cryptocurrency-based solutions could be how virtual money finally finds its way into worldwide mass adoption and mainstream acceptance. The mere fact that so many banks in the world have been willing to work alongside Ripple in this market is astounding.

Let’s not forget that the world’s banks have regarded Bitcoin in particular, but also cryptocurrencies in general, as an evil thing which is why they’ve stayed away from it to the best of their abilities. And even so, Ripple has persuaded many to try out the blockchain and see its advantages for themselves.

Another factor in Asia is that many countries (Singapore is one of them, Thailand would be another one) have enacted crypto-friendly policies. That’s why many of the leading cryptocurrency industry players have set up shop in Asia. And as more governments in the region become friendlier towards crypto, they are likely to influence other countries in the zone to be friendly as well or risk being left out of the action.

Also, many exciting blockchain projects come out of Asia, so the region is also a source of innovation and leadership in the industry. Alibaba, for instance, received the most patents for blockchain technology last year. Tron came out of Asia. There are many more examples.

Ripple has always chosen its battles very carefully, and it’s still finding ways to win them. So this move is bound to be carefully considered, planned and executed. Chances are that, during the next 12-24 months, we will hear a lot about Ripple’s growth and success in Southeast Asia. And that progress will be fueled by those 12 new employees that will get on board the company during the next few months.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.