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BTC Markets Becomes Australia’s First Domestic Crypto Exchange To Score AFSL License

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Australia’s home-grown crypto exchange- BTC Markets announced that it has bagged the Australian Financial Services license [AFSL] via its sister firm, BTCM Payments.

An AFS license is mandatory to conduct a financial services business in the country. It authorizes the holder to provide service, advice, deal, or create a market for a financial product. Besides that, it also allows the provision of custodial or depository services, and so on.

Three months ago, FTX’s Australian subsidiary gained the AFS Licence by acquiring an unnamed entity that previously held the permit.

BTC Markets founded in 2013, rose to become Australia’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. It boasts of having over 325,000 local users who have traded $21 billion on its platform.

The fintech firm was instrumental in providing remitters access to Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity [ODL] payments solution. This in turn made cross-border payments completed in seconds, the first of its kind technology in the nation.

Even though licensing would not be a deal-breaker, BTC Markets says it would prepare the firm for upcoming regulations.

That said, the nation’s lack of regulatory clarity has acted as a roadblock for financial firms.

The country’s largest bank, Commonwealth Bank [CommBank] had recently planned to launch its crypto trading app. But due to regulatory hassles, it had to halt the release of the pilot program.

Although the fall of Terra’s stablecoin UST along with the recent price drop in the broader crypto market might have also acted as a catalyst.

However, Australia’s newly-elected Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reportedly tasked his cabinet to deal with three top agendas. One of them is regulating the digital assets industry.

Australia’s New PM Includes Crypto As A Top Priority

Caroline Bowler – Chief Executive Officer of BTC Markets and a member of Blockchain Australia has doubled down on the newly-elected government to continue the work of the previous one and create a regulatory bill focused on digital assets.

According to the chief exec, the authorities’ “primary concern” will be to maintain a balance between formulating suitable rules and “leaving room for innovation.”

“There is a real opportunity for the government to assist with innovation and support it, relating to the significant role that financial services play in the Australian economy, but also its position globally,” Bowler concluded.

Bitcoin Price Breaks above $10,000 as it Prepares for the Next Bull Run

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The demand for the most popular cryptocurrency has pushed Bitcoin price past the critical $10,000 price level. If this price turns out to be a support, then the price of Bitcoin could be heading towards $12,500.

Bitcoin’s price is back to bullish once again as it breaks past the critical $10,000 resistance. If BTC price history can repeat itself, then the price of the largest cryptocurrency by market cap is braced for a surge towards the $12,500.

Bitcoin’s price action breaking out

Since the cryptocurrency market crash on March 12, BTC’s price action has been restricted to the mounting side-by-side channel. Every time BTC’s price action hits the top boundary of this channel, it plummets back to the bottom of the boundary and vice versa.

Nevertheless, the bulls seem to have stepped into the bottom line after the most recent rally. In the meantime, one would expect Bitcoin to progress more to the center or the top of the boundary channel.

 

Bitcoin Price

According to Into The Block’s “In/Out of the Money Around Price” (IOMAP) model, positive momentum to the uppermost part of the channel is imminent.  Based on this on-chain metric, there are not any substantial barricades that would block positive momentum above the current price levels.

Bitcoin price

On the other side, IOMAP researchers suggest that there are adequate supply walls to suck up any sliding pressure.  In particular, the one in between $9,270 and $9,580, where approximately 1.6 million addresses are holding more than 1.2 million BTC bought at the mentioned price tags.

Fear and Greed Index

Furthermore, the latest price surge has sent investors into ‘Greed’ according to data by the Fear and Greed Index. This significant indicator examines the general public sentiment based on the price and social media data and combining it into a single figure.

For the first time since early May, the Fear and Greed Index indicated 56 (Greed) when the price of Bitcoin was nearly the same levels. Greed is basically not a good signal for BTC though. “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.”

Bitcoin Registered a 1457 Percent Hike in Terms of Career Options on Indeed.com

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The debate against cryptocurrency has been ongoing for a few years ago.

Bitcoin’s meteoric rise in the financial industry has been evident but traditional finance economists and spokespersons in the space have often raised their voices against the largest digital asset.

Nouriel Roubini, as gone as far as to say, that Bitcoin would eventually be stemmed down to 0 dollars or USD.

With the current pandemic crippling the global economy, Bitcoin’s credibility as an uncorrelated asset took a beating. BTC witnessed a spike in correlation with the traditional asset class, such as the S&P 500, and exhibited a 48 percent crash on 13th March.

In spite of recent adversity, Kraken’s research believed that Bitcoin’s position in the economic landscape has only improved in the long term.

“It is possible Bitcoin is here to stay.”

The report suggested that by September 2019, around 81 percent of American’s had heard about Bitcoin, in comparison to 60 percent back in January 2018. The number of active wallets holding between 0.1 BTC and 1 BTC has also risen above 2.2 million at press time but being around 200,000 in 2015.

In terms of stability and security, Bitcoin’s hashrate has scaled over 950,000,000 percent from 2011 to 2020, confirming the solidity of the decentralized blockchain.

BTC was initially introduced to the world as an electronic peer to peer cash system but its investment functionality has engaged a different kind of market over the years. Bitcoin’s asset under management or AUM has improved over 10 times since 2016, scaling from a market cap of $190 billion to $18.9 billion USD. Over 61 percent of BTC users in the United States, held BTC as an investment asset.

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Keeping these factors aside, the report suggested that the crypto asset contribution to career options has been significantly high as well.

The chart above suggested that the jobs generated around the world by the crypto ecosystem are legitimate. Over the last 4 years, the number of job opportunities with regards to bitcoin has improved by 1457 percent on Indeed.com.

The above statistics may imply that the asset class has matured over time and could be highly fundamental in changing the course of the current economic landscape.

Bitcoin’s coping well under recent hashrate drop

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Bitcoin registered a massive hashrate drop on 25th March, as the rate dropped down to 75 TH/s from 113 TH/s. With concerns of miner capitulation creeping in, doubts were quickly brushed off after it was observed that the hash rate barely fell down on major mining pools.

The amount of BTC held by miners also remained fairly consistent without indicating any massive sell-offs.

Although, the possibility was high that individual mining pools did not exhibit a drop in hashrate because the miners were aware of a price dump post-halving, and hence they were trying to incur maximum profits before the event.

Energy influx by the Bitcoin miners was high as well, with the hashrate coming back above 100 TH/s at press time.

 

Market Crash, What Was The Blood Bath About?

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Bitcoin Crash, the worse fall in the past 7 years – 90 billion wipes out from the crypto market

On 12th March, the financial markets experienced a blood bath. With stocks, oil, gold drenched in red, most didn’t expect the crypto market to follow the bearish trail until what we state the worse fall in more than half a decade happened; Bitcoin collapsed 40% under 24-hours. 

The market cap the crash wiped out $93.5 billion from the market cap under a day. Bitcoin reached the lowest its been in 2020 as it touched the $4000 mark.

The global sell-off on stocks made Dow Jones suffer its biggest drop since 1987’s Black Monday. The broad-based S&P 500 plunged 9.5% to 2,480.64, while the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 9.4% to 7,201.80. 

Amidst the Coronavirus panic, Trump declared a travel ban on most travel from Europe while failing to give a comprehensive economic and medical of the pandemic. As if the coronavirus panic wasn’t enough already, the travel ban induced it more.

Yesterday’s market sell-off worsened to a level that stock trading was put to a stop for 15 whole minutes as the market hit the mandatory “circuit-breaker” threshold set by the US. Nevertheless, even that couldn’t stop the plunge as the market was already infected with panic selling. Gold fell, oil dropped and the credit market along with crypto followed.

The increased selling pressure killed the buying momentum which further increased selling pressure and so on.

“Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.”-John Maynard Keynes

The crashes were the result of an extended bull market plus a worldwide pandemic surrounded by paranoia. 

To get this right, think about this – didn’t the bull market feel too long? Bitcoin stalling around $10k and altcoins pumping without any significant progress. There comes a point when irrational exuberance and greed drive the prices and the trading value becomes way more than its actual value. 

This type of extended bull market was also observed in the traditional stock market. The financial market would have nevertheless faced a correction but now, the usual crash was accompanied by millions of panic sellers. 

If you’ve ever read the Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, the book that inspired Warren Buffet, you’ll understand a lot about the mentality of the market. 

Amongst things that live and die one thing that remains constant is the mentality of the market. The market sells when prices drop and buy when prices rise. The basic investment strategy of buying low and selling high doesn’t work here for anyone who gets into the bull wave. 

With Trump’s announcement, and Toilet paper prices skyrocketing, there were some market sell-offs. This lead to the eventual crash of an extended bull market. But that wasn’t it. The crash was followed by a huge number of panic selling, as the domino effect runs – all the financial markets collapsed. 

 

Peter Shiff on Bitcoin Again – BTC Can Never Succeed As Money, Though it’s Price May Rise

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Peter Schiff on Bitcoin

A controversial high profile figure in the crypto industry, Peter Shiff talks about Bitcoin again. This time, he sounds optimistic regarding the future price of Bitcoin. As per him, though Bitcoin cannot gain the position of money, it’s price may rise in the coming years.

Peter Schiff’s Sharp U-turn

It’s worth noting that Peter Schiff is known as Bitcoin critic due to his long-term skeptical views about Bitcoin. According to him, Bitcoin can never replace money and never can be used as a store of value.

More so, Schiff was of the view that Bitcoin cannot reach the price value of $1,00,000. He made this comment possibly to nullify the view of John McAfee who predicted the BTC value to reach $1,00,000. To prove his view, he said that if the BTC rate reaches $1,00,000 per Bitcoin, then market capitalization will reach $1.8 trillion which is supposedly next to impossible.

Recently, Schiff tweeted and was seen taking a sharp U-turn looking at the growth  BTC has shown in recent months. As per the tweet, he denied that he has ever said the BTC rate will never rise. Though, he still maintained his view of BTC that will never replace the value of money.

Additionally, he even placed himself in a comfortable position saying that a person would have received a good amount of profit if he/she had done some good amount of investment in Bitcoin 10 years ago.

Although, Bitcoin has been in existence for over a year now, yet, analysts believe that there are still many years to go for Bitcoin to receive the designation of ‘peer-to-peer electronic cash system’. Evidently, people are purchasing it to get good returns on investment as they invest in stocks. This being said, the token is yet to receive the position when people consider it as a medium of exchange.

If we look at the other side of the coin, analysts such as Michael Novogratz believe Bitcoin as a store of value. Additionally, the value of Bitcoin has increased drastically back in 2017.

However, at the time of reporting this, the largest cryptocurrency is trading at $9700 against USD, plunging by 0.50 percent within the past 24Hrs.

XRP Receives Australian Love as Market Volume Overtakes Bitcoin’s

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The latest bull rise in the market has caused a substantial increase in prices with several cryptocurrencies climbing in value. Apart from the price, other factors such as market cap and 24-hour market volumes have also taken a bullish tangent.

XRP enthusiasts would have been enthused over the weekend when they discovered that the cryptocurrency’s volume was 4 times higher than that of Bitcoin on BTCmarkets, a popular Australian cryptocurrency exchange. 

Market volumes have usually been considered a key metric in judging the performance of a cryptocurrency. In the wake of this, several enthusiasts made it a point to clock the volumes during peak bullish hours. On February 16, it was spotted that XRP’s volume had trumped that of Bitcoin’s to reach 7.244 million AUD on BTC Markets.

At the same time, Bitcoin’s volume on the Australian exchange was 1.772 million AUD after a 2.11 percent drop in value. Ethereum came in third place with a total market volume of 999.567 million AUD. Smaller cryptocurrencies such as POWR had also jumped on the list to overtake bigshots such as Litecoin, Bitcoin SV and Bitcoin Cash.

POWR had witnessed a 14.67 percent surge in price which also caused its market volume to rise to $477.768 million. Many members of the cryptocurrency community have come forth and commented on the volume spike because of it affects the trading markets. It is also a known fact that BTC Markets is one of Ripple’s ODL exchange partners.

BTC Markets successfully partnered with RIpple for the On-Demand Liquidity platform in Australia which leverages XRP. The third-largest cryptocurrency in the market was set to act as a bridge currency to eliminate the need for pre-funding in cross border payments. The organization had also announced a new CEO Caroline Bowler three weeks ago to set higher goals for the exchange that trades crypto worth $8 billion. She had said:

“Our clients are assured by our complimentary asset protection fund, safe in the knowledge their crypto assets are secure. Our on-going priority is to look after the interests of our loyal customer base with continuous innovation and valued partnerships. My experience will drive our strategic direction, and ultimately our growth strategy for Australia and beyond. I look forward to working with industry stakeholders as we continue our key role, leading Australia towards a digital economy.”

XRP, in general, has had a rollercoaster ride over the past few weeks. The cryptocurrency was now trading for $0.28 with a total market cap of $12.42 billion. XRP’s total 24-hour market volume was $43.71 billion after a 4.08 percent price increase in the last 7 days.