Tag: crypto

Bitcoin gets some bling!

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Bitcoin, Blockchain, cryptoLeave a comment

Image result for bitcoin

I didn’t think it was possible that bitcoin might ever be described as ‘blingy’, but over the past few days I’ve seen some news items that suggest the leading cryptocurrency is having some shine put on it by the luxury goods market and political fundraising. And I have a feeling this may just be the start.

First, Franck Muller, the high-end Swiss watch designer whose work is known for being quirky, has added cold wallet bitcoin storage to his latest watch. The Encrypta watch includes its own unique public address etched on the dial and a sealed USB containing the private key. Plus, owners will be able to add Bitcoin to their wallet and monitor their balance directly through the dial. Each model includes a dial that incorporates the QR code of Satoshi’s Genesis Block address, as well as a custom-designed “B” within an emblem of circuitry.

And just so you know, the Encrypto collection of men’s and women’s watches are advertised as costing between $10,780 and $55,880. It’s a pity they didn’t quote the price in BTC as well.

Next there is an app that supposedly makes investing in bitcoin much easier. Erik Finman, who started buying bitcoin when he was 12 and is now only 20, has designed the CoinBits app that allows users to buy fractions of a Bitcoin from spare change. The amount of the purchase is rounded up to the nearest dollar and the additional change is invested into small amounts of Bitcoin.

Last, Eric Swalwell, a Democrat and presidential candidate for the 2020 elections is accepting crypto donations for his campaign. Unsurprisingly, he is the Bay Area congressman, which puts him in close proximity to Silicon Valley and to all the crypto-relatd startups based in San Francisco. So, it makes sense that he should accept crypto. Apparently he is partnering with the White Company, a blockchain firm that will facilitate the donations and make them fully compliant with Federal Election Commission regulations.

Swalwell had this to say about crypto: “Blockchain can change the world, if we let it. So much of our public life now exists online, and there’s no reason to believe we can’t extend this further into our democracy and our economy – from exercising our right to vote, to how we look at cryptocurrency.”

Perhaps the way to encouraging mass adoption is to make bitcoin more ‘trendy’, almost a fashion accessory even. Political donations aside, the app and the watch are likely to turn up in a List of 10 Things You Must Have in some glossy magazine. Expect to see it in Vogue soon!

 

Why is Litecoin Doing so Well?

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Bitcoin, crypto, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Today Litecoin is up 62% on the month, 24% on the week and a solid 200% on the year. Its price has dipped a tiny 2% at the time of writing, but it is still possible to say that Litecoin has been doing remarkably well during this latest surge in the crypto markets.

Litecoin began 2019 at around $30, representing a dramatic plunge in price during 2018. As ever, people are looking for explanations for this reversal of fortune. Billy Bambrough, writing at Forbes believes that it may in part be due to the upcoming halvening of bitcoin, which will happen in May next year. Halvenings always seem to trigger a price surge. The bitcoin event will result in he number of bitcoins awarded to miners for mining new bitcoin blocks will drop from 12.5 bitcoin to 6.25 bitcoin. “We are going to hoard bitcoin at this point in time,” Brian Kelly, a bitcoin and cryptocurrency fund manager told CNBC. “We’re not going to sell it. You generally have a rally a year into [a bitcoin halvening], and a year out of it. And so we’re just at the beginning of that stage […] a supply cut is generally bullish.”

A halving and more use of litecoin

Litecoin is due to halve its miner rewards in August of this year, and if the economic theory applied to bitcoin’s supply reduction due to the halvening are correct, it will also apply to litecoin, which will see its mining reward fall from 25 litecoin to 12.5 litecoin.

What has happened during previous bitcoin halvenings, which are fixed events that occur after every 210,000 blocks have been mined. For example, about one year after the first bitcoin halving event in November 2012, the bitcoin price reached what was then an all-time high of $1,000. And the 2016 halvening appeared to precipitate the bull run of 2017 when bitcoin touched almost $20,000.

But it isn’t just Litecoin’s upcoming halvening that has boosted its price. Over the last few months litecoin has gone through some technical improvements and it is being spent via Coinbase Visa cards at millions of locations worldwide. Coinbase users can choose which cryptocurrency is used on the card through a new app that supports all crypto assets available to buy and sell on the Coinbase platform. The app also offers instant receipts, transaction summaries, and spending categories, to help people keep track of their spending.

Litecoin has been seen as one of the most credible rivals to bitcoin for some time; perhaps this is the year when it finally asserts itself as a serious contender in the crypto market.

Will crypto be the new operating system for capitalism?

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Bitcoin, cryptoLeave a comment

Over centuries systems of exchange have evolved and right now we are at the ‘money’ stage, which has been around for some time. However, I’m not alone in thinking that fiat currencies won’t rule the roost forever. Chris Herd poses some interesting questions to think about in his article” Why cryptocurrency is the Next Operating System for Capitalism,” and he starts by suggesting that although traditionalists cling on the concept of cold, hard cash, it might disappear faster than they think.

The significance of a cashless society

We are almost at the point of becoming a cashless society for a start. More people than ever do not carry cash. Herd says, “I can count on one hand the number of times I have had cash in my wallet in the last 3 years. Paper cash and metallic coins are prehistoric.” This is true for many people, especially in larger cities. To some extent how ‘cashless’ you can be does depend on where you live; it’s a lot more difficult to rely on plastic in rural areas.

That brings us to cryptocurrency as a means of exchange. When the utility of notes and coins in your pocket decreases, it will be replaced by something the majority agree is more efficient. Herd argues that while the traditionalists shout that crypto is a ‘bubble’, he argues that fiat money is also a ‘bubble’, because as we know it is not backed by anything: “its price being entirely independent and it’s valuation contingent on what we collectively believe it to be ,” as he says.

If we stopped believing in the value Euros, pounds and dollars etc tomorrow, what would they be worth? With money we are in the land of ‘trust and belief’.

Loss of trust in governments

Herd writes, “Money is, and has been for the last 30 years, an intellectual construct centred on humanities trust in Governance.” And he correctly points out that right now, our trust in governments is at an all time low. And we have a solution to our loss of trust in them — a decentralised operating system.

Herd points us to the example of Venezuela, a country in deep financial and political distress. Bitcoin has enabled its citizens to have an alternative to the crippling inflation. They have an escape route from the government monetary policy.

Herd also argues that cryptocurrency can free us from government-imposed austerity measures, which plague a number of countries. As he says, the people who caused financial collapse are rarely punished for it; as we’ve seen Wall Street bankers are Teflon coated.

Crypto will destroy fiat?

What he believes we will see, and it’s a credible argument, is that Bitcoin and Ethereum will destroy fiat money and banks as well in the same way that Amazon has decimated the high street retailers and Facebook destroyed MySpace.

He admits that capitalism isn’t going anywhere, but states: “Cryptocurrency is simply a more efficient vessel which allows for its manifest destiny to be realised.”

It’s a compelling argument in my opinion, but what do you think?

What’s happening with the price of bitcoin?

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Bitcoin, cryptoLeave a comment

Yesterday bitcoin was just over $7,000 and as I sat down to write today, it was over $8,000. Indeed, the altcoins like ETH, LTC and XRP had also risen significantly overnight. It’s remarkable to think that it is not that many weeks since bitcoin’s price was under $4,000 and now it has doubled.

It’s because of Facebook

The question everyone always wants the answer to is, “What is making bitcoin’s price surge like this?” Billy Bambrough attributes it in part to Facebook ramping up its plans for a token to rival bitcoin. He reported in one of his articles that Spencer Bogart, a partner at venture capital firm Blockchain Capital, said that Facebook’s plans had “lit a fire in the pants of every major [financial technology] and financial institution in the U.S.” Bogart also believes that Facebook’s move into the crypto arena “will be a catalyst for mainstream bitcoin and cryptocurrency adoption around the world, spurring other financial and technology companies to get into bitcoin and crypto.”

Relative strength index is up

Bambrough also says in another article: “Bitcoin’s relative strength index (RSI), used to identify the momentum behind asset prices, this week registered its highest value since the beginning of 2018 — shortly after bitcoin hit its all-time highs.”

What we have seen since bitcoin hit its massive high of $20,000 in December 2017, has been a lot of discontent with the crypto market and a stalling of adoption by major retailers. Still, the leading cryptocurrency always has its stalwart supporters, such as Mike Novogratz and other bitcoin bulls. Their price predictions, while not yet achieved, look a little more likely to happen than they did only a couple of months ago.

Bitcoin follows a pattern

Indeed, analysts from investment bank Canaccord Genuity said they expect bitcoin to rally hard over the next 24 months, potentially returning to its late 2017 highs. They believe that next year’s halving of bitcoin, which reduces the return to miners by 50%, could be one of the reasons that bitcoin’s price keeps pushing higher.

Canaccord’s analysts also noted that what we are seeing right now is “the striking similarity in bitcoin’s price action between 2011–2015 and 2015–2019.” What they are pointing to here is that bitcoin appears to have a four-year cycle, which is related to its halving that also happens in that same time period. They also predict that there may be “a slow climb back toward its all-time high of ~$20,000, theoretically reaching that level in March 2021.”

And there is one other thing happening at the moment that could be benefiting bitcoin’s price, and that is the US-China trade war over tariffs. While the digital assets market is soaring, the stock markets are falling, especially after China announced tariffs on American goods in a tit-for-tat reaction to Trump’s tariffs on Chinese products.

As ever, it is a combination of things that is contributing to the surge in bitcoin’s price, but it is hard to say which one of them is having the greatest effect.