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Bitcoin Performance During Past Fed Rate Cuts Hints “it is not a safe haven asset”

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Back In 2019, The Federal Reserve Board (FED) cut the interest rate thrice in order to achieve greater economic growth. The lower financial cost can lead to an increase in the purchasing and borrowing power of the individuals. However, it can also lead to inflation and reduced purchasing power after a time-lapse.

On one side, we can see that the last 3 FED’s rate cuts have not shown any considerable fluctuation in the price of Bitcoins. And on the other side, analysts have been predicting that FED’s rate cut had just shown positive results for the assets like gold. As a result, many researchers have started claiming Bitcoin as an unsafe asset.

However, the market’s volatility has resulted in a new perception that there might be a bounce-back in the Bitcoin rates if FED decides to cut the interest rates again. In contrast, there are a few analysts who have unparalleled opinions. They believe that FED’s additional rate cut won’t end up in any cheer in the Bitcoin’s price. It will remain as steady as it prevailed in 2019.

In the previous 2-3 months, we have seen a lot of fluctuations in the market resulting in the display of its volatile nature. The US’s attack on Iranian general being one of the reasons behind the market’s unreliable changes. Additionally, Coronavirus has played a disastrous role in the market’s major setback.

Moreover, it’s worth noting that the bitcoin is currently trading at $8,739.56, surging by 1.50 percent within the past 24Hrs. With the dominance of 63.9%, Bitcoin is holding the market capitalization of $159,477,995,785.

While bitcoin bull like Michael Novogratz sees Bitcoin as digital gold, Jerome Powell, the 16th Chairperson of the Federal Reserve calls it as a speculative store of value.

Peter Thiel-Backed Layer1 Opens Mining Facility Despite ‘Crypto Winter’

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The last two years have seen wavy navigation for Bitcoin. A significant imminent change even means more uncertainties in the future of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency. Nevertheless, investors are still passionate about the likely returns from Bitcoin mining activities, investing millions in setting up the high power mining facilities.

Layer1 Technologies, a San Francisco-based mining company that Peter Thiel helped raise funds, announced on February 19 that it’s West Texas mining facility is going online. The Peter Thiel mining company is the latest to explore the abundant energy supply of West Texas to mine Bitcoin.

Peter Thiel is among the biggest names in technology investing and the co-founder of the online remittances service company PayPal. He is one of the early investors in Facebook. Back in 2019, Peter Thiel was one of the investors who helped raise $50 million to set up a new Layer1 mining facility in West Texas. The facility with an undisclosed number of mining units is located 100 miles west of Midland Texas.

Indeed, investment in digital currencies has been hugely frustrated in the continued crypto winter. Nonetheless, Bitcoin has always stood out as one of the bright spots of investing in cryptocurrency. In particular, Bitcoin is still recovering since bursting a major speculative bubble back in 2017. Just before hitting $20,000, the price of Bitcoin fell significantly to as low as $3,500. The cryptocurrency is now gradually recovering and at the moment it has climbed up to about $10,000.

Layer1 Plans to Control 30% Hash Rate in the U.S. by 2021

Moving forward, earlier this year a Layer1 Technologies representative said the company is planning to control about 35% of the world’s total hash rate. Well, if that happens, then Layer1 will have doubled the hash rate of the current mining heavyweights. Mining firms such as Bitmain, Hut 8 and Bitfarm all expanded their mining facilities last year. Over the past twelve months, the total hash rate of all mining companies in the world has more than doubled.

The Layer1 facility has several 2.5 megawatts mining containers equipped with cooling liquid do control the high temperatures in west Texas. According to the press release, the firm is planning to scale up the containers up to 100 megawatts in the coming months. In fact, the company hopes to increase its share of mining activities in the United States. It plans to exceed at least 2% of the total computing power once it scales up to 100 MW.

Furthermore, Layer1 totally relies on renewable energy to run its mining activities. The firm describes itself as the first  “vertically-integrated” Bitcoin mining company since it designs and manufactures its own proprietary ASIC chips, mining containers, and power procurement. The co-founder and CEO of Layer1 Technologies, Alex Leigl in the press release claimed:

“We are already delivering on our vision of making Layer1 the world leader in vertically integrated, sustainable Bitcoin mining. Our factory in West Texas is a game changer in Bitcoin mining. The facility uses custom ASIC chips and patent-pending liquid cooling technology that enables us to unlock warmer climates—where others cannot—and benefit from the world’s largest supply of low-cost, sustainable local energy.”

Conclusion

In reality, most mining firms in the world are located in cool areas to avoid mining machines heating. However, Layer1 is located in a very hot Texas area which has forced the company to use cooling liquids to control the high temperatures. According to Leigl, “the cheapest electricity in the world, at scale, is in West Texas right now.” Electricity being the biggest cost in the mining of crypto, we can assume why Layer1 decided to set up its mining facility in west Texas.

 

Chinese New Year to Have Significant Impact on Bitcoin, Predicts Proponents

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The start of the Chinese New Year has sparked a large chunk of Bitcoin enthusiasts to predict a volatility downturn.

The past week also saw major network updates in the Bitcoin industry with a JP Morgan spinoff project beginning a serious push into crypto. This occurred during a week when Bitcoin’s value fell by 10 percent.

Bitcoin had a low-performing week between January 21 and 27. The cryptocurrency lost its footing from the $9000 mark and was currently trading in the mid-$8000 range. Some Bitcoin enthusiasts have claimed that this dip may be because of the advent of the Chinese New Year. Even Bitmex CEO Arthur Hayes stated:

“The Year of the Rat starts this weekend. Time for bitcoin volatility and volumes to nose dive.”

The Bitcoin price fluctuation was a testament to the growing dominance of the Chinese market. Experts have stated that while the cryptocurrency may face losses in the short term, it’s long run will be greener.

Time Enneking, the managing director of Digital Capital Management has been one of Bitcoin’s most vocal supporters. He claimed that the downward price corridor of the past six months has been pretty solidly broken to the upside.

Although the price of Bitcoin was acting volatile, the rest of the industry seemed to be developing at a brisk pace. According to Chainstack, a Singapore based blockchain startup, there has been a massive increase in the number of people working in the fintech industry. Platforms like Hyperledger Fabric, Quorum and Corda have been the biggest employers in this case, resulting in a 12x growth.

This data was elucidated in a report titled ‘Enterprise Blockchain Protocols Evolution Index 2020’. According to the release, the number of engineers in the fintech industry grew to 28,000 between Q3 2016 and Q4 2019.

The industry is waiting to see how this information translates to developments in the industry. While the Bitcoin industry was still waiting for an influx of institutional investors, one company was taking matters into their hands. Just last week, two JP Morgan alumnus launched Kadena, a hybrid blockchain.

Kadena has been touted as the world’s first hybrid blockchain with the ability to give enterprises the power of a public blockchain with the security of a private chain. The Kadena founders have claimed that using their technology, allows organizations to work around the scalability issues of Bitcoin and Ethereum.