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Crypto M&A Forecast For 2021 Strong Despite Dull Price Action

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The crypto market dropped to a $1.12 trillion market cap, at the time of writing. Despite this, 2021 has been a watershed moment year for the whole industry even as the staggering bull rally has come to a halt.

Many anticipated a bullish turn of events for Bitcoin and the altcoins during the weekend. However, the prices continued to remain in a consolidation mode and were far below the record-breaking numbers.

As the crypto industry shrugged off the craziness of the bull run, several companies have flourished this season. According to reports, M&A activity figures soared like never before as pandemic grappled the space in 2020.

M&A Activity in Crypto Industry To Soar Higher In 2021

Bloomberg revealed that the total value of mergers and acquisitions in the digital asset world more than doubled last year to $1.1 billion from 2019. The average deal size surged to $52.7 million from $19.2 million. With respect to demographics, it was Europe and Asia that saw a greater percentage of activity taking place.

Fundraising in the industry, on the other hand, saw a massive rise of 33% in overall value from 2019. It also said that while merger and acquisition activity in the industry was at its peak last year, the figure is headed to continue again this year and is likely to climb higher.

On a similar note, Henri Arslanian, PwC global cryptocurrency leader, was reportedly quoted saying,

“[2021].. is already on track to significantly surpass it from every single metric”

The impetus for a surge in activity is greater awareness of the asset class as well as blockchain technology. This can be attributed to the fact that the cryptocurrency market has expanded considerably in the first quarter of 2021 alone when compared to last year. Bitcoin surged ninefold in the last year all thanks to the mainstream embrace and interest from large investors and endorsements. All this and more has catapulted the asset class’s growth.

Cryptocurrency Accounts Linked To North Korea Hacks Set Be Seized By U.S Government

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The US government is boosting its cybersecurity efforts by targeting 280 cryptocurrency accounts linked to North Korea hackers. According to the Reuters report, the U.S. authorities are making efforts to seize crypto accounts believed to have been used by North Korean hackers to steal millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrencies from two virtual exchanges.

This action comes after the hackers have been identified to have been involved in a number of crypto-related cyber crimes in the world. U.S. authorities also believe that hackers use stolen currencies to fund different military operations, such as the missile program.

The U.S Department of Justice filed for a civil forfeiture complaint in a move touted to give the authorities total authority to seize all of the 280 accounts. It is worth noting the North Korea hackers laundered money through Chinese traders who used the accounts to launder over $100 million on their behalf.

North Korea using Hackers to overcome harsh economic effects of sanctions

Following the different sanctions imposed on North Korea since 2006, the country has had to face tough economic times. It is precisely this situation that the U.S. authorities believe prompts North Korea to incorporate state-sponsored hackers to hack and steal funds intended to fund different programs in the country.

The UN Security Council first imposed sanctions on the country, following reports that the government was working on a ballistic missile program. It is also widely believed that the majority of stolen cryptocurrencies are averted towards supporting this program.

Brian Rabbit Who serves as the assistant attorney general for the justice department in a statement insists that the recent expose shows just how much North Korea hackers were embedded with the Chinese gang to scam funds fraudulently.

Hackers have amassed a whopping $2 billion from targeted cyber crimes

According to reports, the North Korea hackers have managed to scam over $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency from their hacks.  The hackers mostly target banks and crypto-exchange platforms. Meanwhile, the infamous Lazarus group has been credited to a number of cyber attacks on financial firms worldwide.

 

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Did Bitcoin’s Current Bearish Rally Began During “Positive Q2 2020”?

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The second quarter of 2020 has been extremely tumultuous. Bitcoin  and the rest of the crypto market initially put their right foot on the gas and the market exploded. According to data provided by Binance Research, BTC USD was up by 42% in Q2 2020, making it one of the best quarters in recent coin history.

 

bitcoin 2020

Other altcoins were also able to take advantage of the rally, with the likes of Ethereum, Bitcoin , and Litecoin sustaining significant gains. Correlations between the various crypto assets had also remained high in the charts, but slightly lower compared to Q1. The 90-day rolling correlation between the S&P 500 and the BTC was positive. But its influence decreased dramatically after mid-June.

Despite major positive moves by BTC USD, Binance’s report noted that it was crucial to note that almost all of BTC USD’s gains came in the first 45 days of the quarter. Referring to it as a “Kangaroo market,” the market environment was divided between the period when prices were going up and the period when prices were falling.

Now, although many supporters have liked to believe that current market stagnation and decline is due to recent market inactivity, the above data may suggest that Q2 2020 was not entirely positive.

Did Bitcoin ‘s current bearish picture start after mid-May?

Let us have some of the facts right. BTC USD’s last high occurred at the end of May when Bitcoin reached $10,250. From here on, the asset’s inability to breach $10,000 was rightly questioned, but the reason is that Bitcoin cash was halved on 11 May. Casual viewers hoped for a bullish rally right after the halving, but it has historically been identified that the BTC usually follows a prolonged correction for the first 6 months after the halving.

It is therefore not inaccurate to state that Bitcoin’s 42 percent positive return in Q2 2020 was down to the hype of the pre-halving. After the halving has been completed, Bitcoin cash is now following its historic past, and the underlying bearish trail is something that was triggered in the midst of Bitcoin’s bullish Q2 period.

Ethereum performed better in Q2 than BTC USD

The report further added that amidst Bitcoin’s stronghold, Ethereum consistently out-marched BTC with a quarterly return of approximately 70 percent in the charts. Major factors behind ETH’s rally has been down to the growth of DeFi and the anticipation surrounding Ethereum 2.0.

Now, with the commencement of Q3 2020, it will be interesting to see the development of the crypto market over the next three months; whether the bearish grip is broken towards the end of the year or not.

Bitcoin Price Plunges $1,500 in Three Minutes to Liquidate $100M from BitMEX

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In just over 12 hours after Bitcoin price broke past the $10,000 resistance level for the first time in over 20 days, the digital currency came down in despair and heartbreak for many. Before the price came down, Bitcoin saw a barricade of sell orders that dropped the crypto’s price to as low as $8,600 on major exchange BitMEX. 

Bitcoin Price plunge

However, the price of BTC on spot exchanges and some of the other derivative exchange platforms, managed to sustain the lows of $9,000. Unfortunately, on the BitMEX exchange platform the price came tumbling down by over $1,500 in a bearish rally that ended up liquidating quite a number of market participants.

According to data by cryptocurrency derivatives platform Skew.com, roughly $96 million in long positions were erased by the plunge. However, this is slightly lower than the previous $125 million BTC liquidation yesterday when Bitcoin’s price action wiped out $10,000, which signals that the market was leaning long before moving.

Bitcoin price

Bitcoin price next move?

Cryptocurrency and market analysts are yet to react to the next destination after the plunge, but what is clear is that Bitcoin price is below the crucial resistance of $10,500 in the meantime. Bitcoin’s price action has attempted to break past the $10,500 on two crucial occasions but the efforts have ended up futile.

The first attempt was when Chinese president Xi Jinping publicly endorsed blockchain technology, and the other time was during February’s surge to $10,500. Due to this fact of several unsuccessful attempts to mount past this price level, it strongly signals that the crypto is braced for a down trend.

Crypto Exchange Bisq Halts Trading due to  ‘Critical’ Vulnerability in Security

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Decentralized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency exchange Bisq has halted trading due to a “critical security vulnerability” until further notice.

The developers said they were investigating the security problem in an announcement posted on April 8, and are warning users not to send any funds if they are involved in any trade.

Bisq is expected to issue a hotfix “within a few hours” for the critical vulnerability, so far an alert key has been used to “temporarily disable trading.”

“Bisq is a proper distributed peer-to-peer network. So you can override the latest alert key functionality that blocks trading. But we highly discourage you from doing this for your own security,” authorities said

The  Bisq exchange is a peer-to-peer application that lets users buy and sell crypto in exchange for fiat currency.

Now let’s take a look at what peer-to-peer exchange is and how it functions, and some of its benefits.

Peer-to-peer exchange is a decentralized form of exchange that is maintained and operated exclusively on software. As the name implies, peer-to-peer means that there is no third party in between. Simply put, P2P or peer-to-peer exchanges allow buyers and sellers to trade with each other directly without having to trust a third party to process their trade.

Since you deal directly with other traders, whose funds are not managed by the owners of the platform themselves, the element of confidence would be higher. That also provides privacy benefits.

Since there is no third party involved, merely the buyer and seller negotiate. Communication between the two parties shall be kept confidential. This only becomes public after the order has been issued and is ready to be applied to the blockchain. Because the exchange happens on the blockchain, no identifying information will be used. In addition, features of blockchain, such as distributed ledger, immutability, and encryption further improve the security of the entire network.

Secondly, fees on the P2P exchanges are far more reasonable. Fees range from 0 percent to 0.7 percent on most P2P exchanges.

Thirdly In a p2p exchange, every transaction occurs in the public ledger of the blockchain. It removes the need to think about the credibility of the counterparties. Furthermore, their KYC information remains in line with the blockchain database. So the risk of identification and other kinds of fraud will be much less.

The Panacea: Blockchain in Digital Marketing

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The fascination behind the blockchain is in its application. This technology has introduced immense opportunities for dozens of businesses. From on demand services, to insurance companies and Marketing departments. 

Blockchain is transforming digital marketing, and this phase of growth is expected to ignite thousands of businesses. At its core, one would probably wonder, between AI, Analytics and Blockchan, what is going to drive the next generation of sales.

A survey of Advertiser Perceptions revealed that just 11 percent of the surveyed marketing professionals used the blockchain to carry out a transaction. It is clear that most marketing departments have not yet been matched with the implications of the blockchain. However, under this sinister technological curve of ever-developing innovation, there is an 85 percent opportunity to disrupt the advertising industry.

Artificial Intelligence and Analytics have given businesses the upper hand when managing backend data. This data are as important as they form the basis of the raw material in every marketing campaign. However, the blockchain has entered space and will bridge the gap between customers and their data. In reality, blockchain is a prosthesis that will allow consumers to get value from their data.

Big names from Facebook, Walmart and Amazon leverage user data to make their ad targeting even easier. This has made these companies lots of money, despite being invasive into the personal details of their consumers. And to some rare extremes, even selling the personal information to other marketing or research departments.

Method Media Intelligence undertook a study to determine whether blockchain could minimize marketing fraud. The study found that blockchain was in fact ineffective in the fight against advertising fraud.   Here is Why?

Latency is the greatest problem with the large-scale adoption of blockchain. Advertising and marketing agencies handle massive day-to-day transactions. Nevertheless, the blockchain is limited in the number of transactions it can hold; in real-time.

Therefore, the study established Machine Learning as the single most effective means to dealing with ad fraud. Nevertheless, blockchain would be a nice step towards ad validation. Well let us take a look at how blockchain will change the digital marketing landscape. 

Data Collection will Change

The US Congress may have wished users of facebooks to remain with their personal data. Yet, while many would run to connect Facebook with the Cambridge Analytica scandal, I think that this issue far exceeds Facebook’s limits.

For instance, anyone using the internet has to go through ISP and Web browser gatekeepers. Therefore, these companies can easily learn and scrap personal user information. Blockchain is a potential solution to this problem. Take Blockcstack, for example. A platform built as a next-generation Internet for decentralized applications on the top of the blockchain. Blockstack ensures that personal data stays with the customer instead of remaining with server operators.

Digital Display Advertising

Internet display advertisements are plagued with lots of flaws. Also, the process of running display advertisements is complicated, expensive and most of the inventory is run by Facebook and Google. Moreover, sales teams have noted how intrusive and annoying display ads have become to users.

A project that has attempted to fix digital display advertising is the Brave blockchain browser. The browser, with its Basic Attention Token (BAT) is helping fix how users interact with display advertisements.  Meanwhile, the idea behind Brave is to enable advertisers, publishers and users to gain from the value chain of online attention. This is how Brave and BAT work: 

Marketers buy advertising space using BAT

Viewers who view ads are rewarded with BAT

The publisher receives compensation from both advertisers and consumers

Increase Collaboration in  Content Creation and Editing

Decentralizing the marketing process will help boost collaboration on content creation processes.  For instance, marketers could work on a project remotely, and identify where edits have been made and who has made them. Task collaboration platforms such as Google docs, Asana and Trello might have taken care of this, but their looms the problem of centrality and tracking. 

End Note

Blockchain is certainly going to revolutionize how publishers, advertisers, and consumers understand marketing campaigns. With the applications of technology far and wide in several industries. There is no height blockchain that couldn’t climb. 

Top 10 Memes to Keep Your Life Going While in qua-RANT-ine!

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The year 2020 has been quite a rollercoaster-ish ride. With Bitcoin hitting highs and falling right back down only to discover the newfound correlation to the stock market; the world is going through unprecedented times. ‘

While cities, states, and nations are locking down forcing everyone to stay home and quarantine, here’s a list of relatable memes to keep you going with the momentum. 

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Bitcoin

 

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MEM2

 

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MEM3

 

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MEM4

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MEM5

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Bitcoin

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MEM6

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MEM7

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MEM8

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MEM 9

 

If you like these memes please share and tag us! 

 

 

Bitcoin Proponents Mock at Fed’s View ‘There is an Infinite Amount of Cash’ Despite COVID outbreak

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The ongoing COVID-19 outbreak has created a financial crisis, in fact, it is said that the world economy has never shut down this fast. In this case, the US Fed’s Kashkari in a recent interview said ‘ there is an infinite amount of Cash’.

Neel Kashkari, U.S. senator addressed the economic scenario caused by the Coronavirus and elaborated the “Speed and scale here are just absolutely critical given that thousands of people are being laid off every day”. While he assured that the amount of cash is infinite on why should ‘congress not worry about precisely targeting aid’, bitcoin proponents said, ‘This is quite literally the reason bitcoin was created”.

A Twitter user “Vis” shared a clip of Kashkari which then received several criticizing comments from the crypto community. One such Twitter user commented, saying “infinite amount(…)? So why am I paying taxes and sht’

Moreover, other crypto community members shared their views on the same topic on Reddit. While one concerned ‘why doesn’t the fed use this infinite amount of cash to pay off the $23.5T national debt?’ Other user reiterated by saying ‘Pay debt with debt. The new debt, however, is put on future generations”.

Essentially Neel Kashkari saw the financial crises of 2008 that trigged the Great recession. However, the crypto community is comparing fiat’s infinite amount with the limited supply that Bitcoin has. More so, banks in Italy reportedly launched a full-fledged crypto wallet as they experience significant demand for paper-less money due to the fear of a virus outbreak.

While US stock futures opened the market sharply lower on Monday, Bitcoin as well is declining by 7.67 percent and trading at the value of $5818.40 against USD.

SEC Includes “Digital Assets” in its 2020 Examination Priorities – What to Look For?

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SEC Includes “Digital Assets” in its 2020 Examination Priorities: It’s been over 10 years for the existence of cryptocurrency and regulators from around the world are still discovering the best possible means to regulate it.

However, the most recent report published by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), detailing the priorities for 2020 includes ‘their decision regarding digital assets’.

This report was detailed by ‘the US SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE)’ which specifically mentioned;

“The digital assets market has grown rapidly and presents various risks, including for retail investors who may not adequately understand the differences between these assets and more traditional products,”

The agency will continue to research several aspects surrounding cryptocurrency such as the risks involved in it for retail investors and what makes digital assets differ from the traditional ones. The report further reads that;

“Due to these risks, OCIE will continue to identify and examine SEC-registered market participants engaged in this space. Examinations will assess the following: (1) investment suitability, (2) portfolio management and trading practices, (3) safety of client funds and assets, (4) pricing and valuation, (5) effectiveness of compliance programs and controls, and (6) supervision of employee outside business activities,”.

This isn’t the first time though, in the year 2018 as well, SEC reportedly included cryptocurrency as to how market players assure its assets the safety of their funds and whether or not they are educating customers about the risk associated with their digital asset-related products.

More so, OCIE went on to assure that they will oversee transfer agents which will certainly act as intermediaries in securities transactions or entities that are ‘developing blockchain technology’ or offering services to digital asset issuers. Interestingly, the document also highlights that they would supervise the staff, funds and outside business activities of crypto exchange.

You can read more about OCIE report here – https://www.sec.gov/about/offices/ocie/national-examination-program-priorities-2020.pdf

Crypto analyst claims that Bitcoin’s price is ‘right where it should be’

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The Bitcoin market at the moment is going through somewhat of a phase shift, with the price fluctuating between bearish lows and bullish highs. Despite the fall below the $7000 mark, the value of the cryptocurrency rose to settle between $7200 and $7300. Spotting this trend, dave the wave, a famous cryptocurrency proponent tweeted:

“Two years since the peak and the price is right where it should b according to the logarithmic growth curve. Gaussian Channel in the medium term-bullish.”

The Gaussian filters are exponential moving averages applied multiple times. The beta and alpha values on the graph are calculated based on the sampling period and the number of poles specified. The Gaussian Channel reflected earlier highs at a time when Bitcoin was trading for $7143.96 after a 5.83 percent increase in value over the 24-hour timeframe.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency had a market cap of $129.349 billion and a 24-hour market volume of $31.369 billion. A decent bounce was seen after the price produced a double bottom matching up with the 23 November low, which was down at $6500.

Technical analysis of Bitcoin showed that most of the other indicators had sided with the bear. The Parabolic SAR was above the price candles, which was a sign of decreased market pressure. The Relative Strength Index had spiked a bit towards the middle of the graph. The RSI stated that the Bitcoin market was closer to the oversold zone, meaning more holders were selling rather than buying BTC.

Currently, the Chaikin Money Flow indicator stands below the zero line after a gradual decline since August of this year. The CMF for Bitcoin at press time showed that the capital leaving the market was much more than what was flowing into it. Some users had queries to the Gaussian graph with Ansh B tweeting:

“Dave isn’t it true that price has never entered the Gaussian channel during bull. Signaling that we are likely to move to bear market yet again. I.e we were in a VERY short bull market this year! And now it’s over ….”

Some members have even stated that in some instances, Bitcoin had fallen hard right after it entered green in the Gaussian channel. These queries came at a time when the weekly Gaussian channel was also signaling reduced cyclical volatility.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market conditions 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.

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