Bitcoins - about to hit $5,000 per coin today!

[Bindare_Dundat]

After forming a decent reverse cup and handle on the 4 hour chart, Ethereum did head lower and is now testing the low 1340 support area. if it goes below that I would reckon a precipitous drop as its currently roughly 10% below a major ascending trend line and dropping. 

[Griffith]

A lot of institutional investors are still buying BTC and ETH which is at least a good sign for the long-term.

[gib]

A little update from my connections (and they are good).

Institutions and funds are continuing to quietly accumulate in stealth mode. Not everyone want to (or need to) announce their buys.

Musk and Larry Ellison, among many others are quietly acquiring Bitcoin, through various ways. Again, stealth is the key.

Over in Asia, we are seeing very interesting things in China. The Government is putting out various types of "anti-bitcoin" social media messaging, yet there has been an absolute surge in the elite, wealthy and educated in wanting to acquire Bitcoin. (Think the same types who have property outside of China already, kids who have studied in the US, secret "2nd passports" (as officially not allowed). Fascinating to see this evolve - we are taking Billions and Billions of Yuan seeking a haven in BTC. Maybe made even stronger due to concerns about the Chinese digital currency (which will monitor and control each and every citizen).

[Bindare_Dundat]

A little update from my connections (and they are good).

Institutions and funds are continuing to quietly accumulate in stealth mode. Not everyone want to (or need to) announce their buys.

Musk and Larry Ellison, among many others are quietly acquiring Bitcoin, through various ways. Again, stealth is the key.

Over in Asia, we are seeing very interesting things in China. The Government is putting out various types of "anti-bitcoin" social media messaging, yet there has been an absolute surge in the elite, wealthy and educated in wanting to acquire Bitcoin. (Think the same types who have property outside of China already, kids who have studied in the US, secret "2nd passports" (as officially not allowed). Fascinating to see this evolve - we are taking Billions and Billions of Yuan seeking a haven in BTC. Maybe made even stronger due to concerns about the Chinese digital currency (which will monitor and control each and every citizen).

There have been a lot of giant withdrawls from mining pools lately which correlates with your comment.  But lets be real, the long trading looks ugly right now.  See how things pan out in the next couple of days.

[Griffith]

https://news.bitcoin.com/institutional-investors-crypto-exchange-traded-products-assets/

Institutional Investors Pile Into Crypto Exchange-Traded Products: Managed Assets Rise to $44 Billion This Month

The total assets under management across all crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) worldwide have risen 50% this month to nearly $44 billion.

Most of the investments into crypto exchange products are made by institutional investors, particularly hedge funds.

In its Q4 2020 report, Grayscale wrote that “Institutions are here,” noting that institutions accounted for 93% of all its capital inflows during the period.

[FitnessFrenzy]

[Bindare_Dundat]

Bitboy 

[Teutonic Knight]

OMG, if gib (G.Vince) relocates to Afro planet, fake coin could colapse 

[gib]

For you Mr Anabolic:

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4400007-how-and-why-bitcoin-become-new-reserve-currency

[polychronopolous]

Bitcoin could become the “currency of choice for international trade”, says Citi

US banking giant Citi has authored a new report which suggests bitcoin could become “an international trade currency” as it evolves.

The report, entitled “Bitcoin: At the Tipping Point”, charts the evolution of bitcoin from a form of payment to its current status as a store of value. The authors forecast that bitcoin’s core properties combined with its global reach and neutrality could see it morph into the “currency of choice” for international trade in around seven years.

“Perceptions about what makes bitcoin important continue to evolve and create new opportunities while increasing its perception towards becoming mainstream,” the report states.

“A focus on global reach and neutrality could see bitcoin become an international trade currency. This would take advantage of bitcoin’s decentralized and borderless design, its lack of foreign exchange exposure, its speed and cost advantage in moving money, the security of its payments, and its traceability.”

Citi’s report explain that bitcoin, in the role of a global trade currency, could be used by importers and exporters to pay for goods and services directly – simplifying the process of international trade. A decentralized cryptocurrency may be preferred to a Central Bank Digital Currency, it argues, because “no government or outside entity can take steps that might affect the supply of the trade currency, helping to decouple trade from political considerations.”

Citi’s researchers noted, however, that a number of potential barriers stand in the way of this vision coming to fruition.

The report highlighted bitcoin’s scalability issues, pointing to 2020 analysis which suggests that bitcoin can handle on average 5 transactions per second – which is some 4,800 times slower than the Visa network’s capacity.

Increased adoption by institutional investors has been a big tailwind for bitcoin in the past year, the report states, but a range of potential risks could derail uptake.

“The entrance of institutional investors has sparked confidence in cryptocurrency but there are still persistent issues that could limit widespread adoption,” the report states.

“For institutional investors, these include concerns over capital efficiency, insurance and custody, security, and ESG considerations from bitcoin mining.”

The report concludes by stating that bitcoin is as “the tipping point of its existence”, noting that its evolution will have wide-ranging repercussions.

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/96599/bitcoin-international-trade-currency-citi

[Bindare_Dundat]

Kevin Oleary from Sharktank,  just  stated hes supportive of bitcoin and cryprto after shitting all over it for the longest time

[Bindare_Dundat]

Twitter may be purchasing 1.2 billion in bitcoin.

Passed 50k

[obsidian]

https://cnots.com/2021/02/25/scaling-coming-to-ethereum-in-march-optimism-announces-mainnet-launch/

Ethereum (ETH) fans are celebrating the news that Ethereum scaling solution, Optimism, is now set to launch on the network’s mainnet next month, ahead of schedule. But what does this mean both for Ethereum and its users?

“Mainnet in March. Scaling is coming to Ethereum,” commented SetProtocol product marketing manager Anthony Sassano on the latest announcement by Optimism: the team has said that they’ll be launching arbitrary contract deployment on mainnet in March instead of public testnet, with details to follow.

So what’s the big deal? Layer 1 (L1) is the base protocol (the Ethereum blockchain), while Layer 2 (L2) is any protocol built on top of Ethereum. Optimism is an L2 scaling solution, which allows for the Ethereum mainnet to be ‘unburdened’ from the great number of transactions it has to process. It uses optimistic rollups to achieve lower fees and latency, as well as greater throughput compared to Ethereum L1 alone. The team behind Optimism was funded by venture firm a16z (Andreessen Horowitz) back in November – a round that enabled the latest Optimism hires and with them, expedited timeline, the team said.

“I’m not sure if people realize how huge a deal this is. Moving from L1 Ethereum to optimistic rollups is like going from dial-up to broadband,” argued Redditor frank__costello, adding that L2 solutions are likely to have a greater impact on the end-user than Ethereum 2.0. “No more crazy gas fees, no more waiting for transactions to get mined.”

Furthermore, unlike the already existing L2 solutions, some of which are sidechains of Ethereum, some state channels, either prompting centralization questions or are unable to scale smart contracts, Optimism utilizes rollups, much praised by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. He said that “that rollups will be the dominant scaling paradigm for at least a couple of years,” proposing “rollups on top of sharding” for ETH 2.0.

Rollup is a scaling technique that keeps transaction data on-chain in a compressed form, with the computation pushed off-chain, leaving the computation, such as signature verification, contract execution, zero-knowledge (ZK) proof execution, and others, to be verified in a ZK-Rollup or Optimistic Rollup. These would theoretically allow more transactions per second (TPS) – thousands compared to the current tens. Once Phase 1 of ETH 2.0 is introduced, the number will go as high as 100,000 TPS, Buterin suggested.

It is estimated that existing dapps on Ethereum can simply copy/paste their code to Optimism and migrate to it starting March, while Coinbase wallet already offered support for the solution.

Additionally, a16z described Optimism as “an extension of Ethereum, [with] adherence to Ethereum development paradigms, [which] results in a very easy transition for developers, wallets and users.”

Ethereum supporters are also arguing that this means death for a number of other chains, naming Binance Smart Chain, Polkadot (DOT), Avalanche (AVAX), and Solana (SOL) as a few. Others added that it’s the competition, such as Cardano (ADA), that has accelerated Ethereum scaling.

And as this was developing, Ethereum core developers are looking at April 15 as the date for the upcoming Berlin hard fork. This upgrade encompasses five Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIP), including updates to gas cost efficiencies and the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). The first testnet in the series is expected to fork in the first half of March.

At the time of writing (12:57 PM UTC), ETH trades at USD 1,636 and is down by 4% in a day and 11.5% in a week. It rallied by 23% in a month and 516% in a year.

[obsidian]

I'm not concerned with bitcoin. Its a long term investment and it will do well for those holding.
If ETH continues this slow bleed for the next week or so, I think.its possible to see a dramatic drop down as more people shift their money around to alternatives.

Potential for $1100 Eth is a real possibility  imo.

That would make it a bargain price. There are lots of immediate upgrades in the pipeline for Ethereum. First the layer 2 scaling solution called Optimism in March (15th?) and then Berlin fork in April. Then there is also the EIP-1559 proposal for around June / July. All these will address the high gas fees and transactions speed. From what I read Ethereum will then be able to handle 1000s per second instead of 21. Bitcoin can handle I think 7 per second.

There is also a lot of FUD about Ethereum. Some people spreading the FUD are hoping for the price to drop so they can get more ETH. Then once they have accumulated what they wanted they'll start FOMO'ing the hell out of it to raise the price up. Go look at some of the youtube channels. They are completely bipolar. One day the price is going to the moon and the next day they say the sky is falling. LOL! They do the same with Bitcoin and other cryptos.

I am not sure how far Ethereum 2.0 is but I would expect the Ethereum developers to start moving their asses now that competition is heating up. In the meantime I'll be mining as much ETH as possible because it is not going to last. Proof of Work for Ethereum will come to an end.

[obsidian]

https://cryptoticker.io/en/binance-smart-chain-doubts/

Binance Smart Chain Topped Up Ethereum’s Transaction – But Did It?

Binance Chief Changpeng Zhao surprised the crypto world on Feb 10, when he announced that the Binance Smart Chain has flipped the Ethereum daily transactions count or transactions volume. It was met with both enthusiasm and astonishment from the community. However, doubts are being cast upon the claim and transaction spoofing is suspected.
https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1359347606183313414?s=19

Then recently, it was claimed again that the BSC now does 3 times the transactions carried out on the Ethereum blockchain. Though, this isn’t apparent on charts detailing the value moving across networks. According to Money Movers website, the Binance’s blockchain doesn’t register in the top 4 blockchains by settled value.
https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1362955442624684035

The question arises as to where all these transactions are going, if they aren’t moving much value by themselves. The native token BNB isn’t inflationary and isn’t incentivizing the network by producing new share units and the fees is negligible. Further, the average fees isn’t rising on the BSC chain, something which is largely unheard off in the blockchain technology.

Generally, blockchains have an auction type mechanism, which prioritizes the activity on the network and prevents the network from being spammed with junk transactions. This is exactly how average fees increases with the activity on the network and vice versa. If the network isn’t congested, low fees is a common scenario.

However, heightened activity will quickly change that. Even if the fees doesn’t drastically rise and the network is highly scalable, it is still supposed to respond to the change in network activity by increasing the fees than before.

BSC shows no such correlation, despite claiming to process 3 times the transactions of the Ethereum mainnet. So, how just how scalable is Binance Smart Chain and why doesn’t it act like a normal blockchain?

What Is Binance Smart Chain?

Amidst the bull market, Binance Smart Chain (BSC) has seen meteoric rise lately. An initiative of the world’s largest centralized exchange Binance, the BSC is a fork of the Ethereum blockchain with a Proof of Staked Authority (PoSA) consensus mechanism and seamless compatibility with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).

It relies on 21 validators with the large BNB token holdings, who process transactions on the network. These validators are mostly assumed to be Binance-operated entities, since the BNB token distribution is skewed in favor of the founders/team and validators are approved by the exchange. It’s essentially permissioned and in-arguably centralized.

The high throughout and negligible fees are attained through the same, as fewer nodes can provide immense computational power without getting clogged. Binance returns around 30% of the fees paid to the smart contract deployers to finance continued interest and aligned incentives. The remaining fees generated is returned to the exchange.

Binance Smart Chain And The Ethereum Angle

Binance Smart Chain has gained popularity largely due to the high transaction fees on the Ethereum blockchain, though Layer2 solutions have come online and are in the process of initial onboarding of users or in adoption phase. Due to the fact that the former has negligible fees, the users who can’t afford the Ethereum mainnet fees have shifted over to blockchain.

An Ethereum clone, BSC offers onboarding users with the same Ethereum address that they use on the native blockchain. It also offers a Uniswap clone PancakeSwap, Etherscan clone BscScan, MetaMask compatibility and some DApps that are available on both blockchains. There are a couple of BSC-only projects available, though their numbers are limited.

Large Numbers Of Failed TXs Are Likely Inflating Volume

It’s been pointed out that the astronomical transaction volume and subsequent surpassing of Ethereum chain in that metric might be a result of spoofing through sending a large number of failed transactions, therefore spamming the Binance Smart Chain to inflate volume.

For anyone who thinks the activity on #BSC is actually real, check this out

This one contract alone has had 680k failed transactions spammed to it within the past 17 hours
https://bscscan.com/txs?a=0x21fa8ca35441e70ad1137fa3c1365c994f2b7c23&p=8

@cz_binance please enlighten me and explain this obviously fabricated activity

https://twitter.com/ChainLinkGod/status/1362843157512089600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1362843157512089600%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcryptoticker.io%2Fen%2Fbinance-smart-chain-doubts%2F



https://bscscan.com/address/0x21fa8ca35441e70ad1137fa3c1365c994f2b7c23

Now, activity like this on a decentralized exchange Uniswap would incur fees and become prohibitively expensive. However, it is of little operational consequence on BSC with negligible fees and controlled design. As a result, the final numbers appear higher than they really are.

[obsidian]

https://stakers.info/

Stakers.info

What's securing your blockchain?

Number of Validators:

Ethereum 2.0
102,337

Cardano
1,986

Tezos
402

Polkadot
297

Cosmos Hub
125

Nano
116

[obsidian]

This is interesting!

TIMESTAMPS
00:00​ Intro
01:23​ Ethereum news
03:22​ DeFi news
18:25​ Coinbase IPO
19:19​ Regulation
21:47​ Other Blockchains news (Fantom)
22:25​ News for developers
33:55 Q&A

[Bindare_Dundat]

That would make it a bargain price. There are lots of immediate upgrades in the pipeline for Ethereum. First the layer 2 scaling solution called Optimism in March (15th?) and then Berlin fork in April. Then there is also the EIP-1559 proposal for around June / July. All these will address the high gas fees and transactions speed. From what I read Ethereum will then be able to handle 1000s per second instead of 21. Bitcoin can handle I think 7 per second.

There is also a lot of FUD about Ethereum. Some people spreading the FUD are hoping for the price to drop so they can get more ETH. Then once they have accumulated what they wanted they'll start FOMO'ing the hell out of it to raise the price up. Go look at some of the youtube channels. They are completely bipolar. One day the price is going to the moon and the next day they say the sky is falling. LOL! They do the same with Bitcoin and other cryptos.

I am not sure how far Ethereum 2.0 is but I would expect the Ethereum developers to start moving their asses now that competition is heating up. In the meantime I'll be mining as much ETH as possible because it is not going to last. Proof of Work for Ethereum will come to an end.

Thanks for your insight.

Ill be jumping back into Eth as soon more volume comes in and can push the prices past their pockets of resistance. Right now, things still look weak. Not enough juice to push nd stay past 50k right now

i only watch 2 youtubers regularly for crypto news. Most are shit and full of bots in the comments. complete scammy garbage.


Came across this today, which unfortunately. isn't very bullish news.  Regaarding Gary Gensler becoming head of SEC. We saw what happened to XRP.

At an MIT conference in 2018, Gensler posited that Ripple's XRP and Ethereum's ether (ETHUSD) should be deemed securities. Since then, former commissioner William Hinman clarified that ether was sufficiently decentralized to not be counted as a security. Ripple's XRP, however, is still under the SEC scanner. Back then, Gensler predicted that the courts would ultimately decide XRP's fate as a security. That event is already in motion, and his agency will have a big hand in deciding its outcome.

In some respects, at least as far as cryptocurrencies and blockchain are concerned, Gensler's job as SEC czar will be similar to his assignment at CFTC: bringing order to an unruly ecosystem. After the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed during the Clinton Presidency, the derivatives industry ballooned into a multi-trillion dollar Wild West. Gensler went after criminals and established tough rules to ensure protection for investors.

[Griffith]

https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/grayscale-accelerates-ethereum-accumulation/

Grayscale Accelerates Ethereum Accumulation

The world’s largest crypto assets manager purchased 3,347 Ethereum in the last 24 hours.

Grayscale has expanded its Ethereum Trust with the purchase of 19,355 ETH in the last 7 days. The digital assets manager now has 3.17 million ETH under management with a total worth of nearly $4.86 billion.

According to the latest data published by the crypto analytics platform, Bybt.com, Grayscale purchased 3,347 Ethereum worth approximately $5.2 million in the last 24 hours.

The asset manager has accelerated its ETH accumulation since the reopening of its Ethereum Trust in January 2021. The firm purchased 243,519 ETH worth more than $380 million in the last 30 days.

Additionally, the data from Bybt.com shows that Grayscale bought ZEC, ZEN and XLM in large amounts yesterday. The company has a total of 303,000 ZEC, 604,000 ZEN and 63 million XLM under management.

Despite the reason that Bitcoin and Ethereum account for more than 90% of Grayscale’s total digital assets under management, the company is now planning to add other cryptocurrency assets as well.

In a recent press release, Grayscale mentioned that it is considering 23 digital assets including Aave, Chainlink, Polkadot, Cardano and EOS for new investment products.

“We’re eager to expand our product offerings to better serve our investors. The digital currency universe is constantly evolving and we seek to identify bold, interesting and innovative opportunities that satisfy our investors’ demand for differentiated exposure to this burgeoning asset class,” Michael Sonnenshein, CEO of Grayscale mentioned in the announcement.

Ethereum registered an all-time high of $2,020 in February this year. The world’s second-largest crypto asset is now hovering around $1,560 with a total market cap of more than $180 billion.

[Griffith]

https://www.coindesk.com/new-ethereum-based-derivatives-trading-platform-wins-eus-mifid-license

New Ethereum-Based Derivatives Trading Platform Wins EU’s MIFID License

CloseCross claims this is the first such license to be granted to a blockchain-based derivatives trading platform.

CloseCross, a derivatives trading platform built on the Ethereum blockchain, has been granted a European Union MIFID license ahead of its market launch later this month.

According to an announcement emailed to CoinDesk on Tuesday, this is the first time the license has been granted to a blockchain-based derivatives trading platform.

When live, CloseCross will offer multiparty derivative contracts for global stock market indices, cryptocurrency, forex rates, commodities, stock prices, interest rates and others.

The company said it developed and patented its platform, on which traders can enter derivative contracts “without the need of major banks issuing derivatives or having to take on leverage.”

The Ethereum blockchain provided CloseCross with the tech base to “entirely automate the derivatives sector and replace the centralized derivative issuers entirely”, Vabihav Kadikar, CEO of the London and Malta-based company, told CoinDesk.

Kadikar also cited the importance of “creating an immutable trust layer” through smart contracts in the automated calculations and fund flows when multiple traders are entering into a single multiparty derivative contract.

The EU’s second Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, or MIFID II, is designed to increase protection for investors through adding greater transparency to costs and record keeping in over-the-counter (OTC) trading.

[Griffith]

https://decrypt.co/59915/canadian-bitcoin-etf-issuer-evolve-plans-ethereum-etf?&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=feed&utm_source=coinmarketcap

Canadian Bitcoin ETF Issuer Evolve Plans Ethereum ETF

Evolve has filed a preliminary prospectus with the Canadian securities regulators to create an Ethereum ETF.

Evolve, the company behind Canada's second Bitcoin ETF, has filed with the Canadian securities regulators for an Ethereum ETF. The exchange-traded fund would enable investors to get exposure to the price of Ethereum without holding the cryptocurrency itself.

"As a leader in disruptive innovation, we look forward to providing Canadian investors with access to another leading cryptocurrency through an ETF structure," said Evolve CEO Raj Lala, in a press release.

An ETF, or exchange-traded fund, is typically a basket of securities that is tradeable on an exchange; in this case, the underlying security will be the Ethereum cryptocurrency.

[obsidian]

F2POOL (Chinese miner) apparently at it again selling BTC, keeping it below $50,000.

[obsidian]

Thanks for your insight.

Ill be jumping back into Eth as soon more volume comes in and can push the prices past their pockets of resistance. Right now, things still look weak. Not enough juice to push nd stay past 50k right now

i only watch 2 youtubers regularly for crypto news. Most are shit and full of bots in the comments. complete scammy garbage.


Came across this today, which unfortunately. isn't very bullish news.  Regaarding Gary Gensler becoming head of SEC. We saw what happened to XRP.

At an MIT conference in 2018, Gensler posited that Ripple's XRP and Ethereum's ether (ETHUSD) should be deemed securities. Since then, former commissioner William Hinman clarified that ether was sufficiently decentralized to not be counted as a security. Ripple's XRP, however, is still under the SEC scanner. Back then, Gensler predicted that the courts would ultimately decide XRP's fate as a security. That event is already in motion, and his agency will have a big hand in deciding its outcome.

In some respects, at least as far as cryptocurrencies and blockchain are concerned, Gensler's job as SEC czar will be similar to his assignment at CFTC: bringing order to an unruly ecosystem. After the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed during the Clinton Presidency, the derivatives industry ballooned into a multi-trillion dollar Wild West. Gensler went after criminals and established tough rules to ensure protection for investors.

Yes that's a good idea. I would be cautious until there are clear signs we are still in a bullish trend.

The SEC already stated Ethereum is not a security. Along with Bitcoin.

Their job is to protect investors. Since they came out and stated it is not a security they would harm investors if they changed their stance all of a sudden. One could then argue that the SEC misled investors.

Some think Ethereum 2.0 could reclassify Ethereum as a security because it would switch from proof of work to proof of stake. However ETH 1.0 tokens would automatically be converted to ETH 2.0 tokens and many of those tokens came from proof of work activities. So I am not sure how they would be able to justify that. Plus decentralized staking validators will be required. These validators are hardware devices that consume electricity and require an internet connection. So that is still work done by investors. So it fails number 4 of the Howey Test IMO.

Cardano never even had proof of work. So that is more at risk of being a security than Ethereum.

But we'll see what happens.

[obsidian]

LMAO! 

[Bindare_Dundat]

LMAO! 

The techno one was is pretty funny too.