As Price Eyes $10k, Bitcoin Faces Mainstream Moment

"Unfortunately, I don't have anything interesting, intelligent or even funny to say."

That's no small statement from Wences Casares, the man often credited with waking up Silicon Valley to the opportunity of cryptocurrency. Indeed, Casares' loss for words appears to be one shared by early adopters and long-time technology enthusiasts as the price of bitcoin approaches $10,000.

A milestone long trumpeted as inevitable by the bitcoin faithful, those surveyed by CoinDesk expressed a range of emotions on what it would mean if and when bitcoin tops the key psychological barrier.

Charlie Shrem, entrepreneur and bitcoin advocate, responded by calling the prospect "amazing," while Zane Tackett, a veteran of the exchange sector called it simply "insane." Others sought to put meaning to the charts, suggesting that bitcoin's likely milestone signals a shift in the mainstream understanding of cryptocurrencies.

Jeremy Allaire, founder of bitcoin broker and blockchain payments startup Circle, for instance, sought to frame the price increase as an early signal for institutional investment in cryptocurrencies, a development he framed as beginning in earnest.

He told CoinDesk:

    "It certainly feels like we are seeing a decisive shift from the early adopter phase of digital currency into the mainstream phase."

Others, like author and investor William Mougayar, called bitcoin's growth "expected" given its positioning as an "entry point" into the world of cryptocurrencies for many investors, though he said interest is likely to spread into an increasingly diverse market.

"Bitcoin has had an incredible momentum that is both psychological and technical. This might be the tipping point for mainstream adoption," he said.

Though most of those queried by CoinDesk suggested that they see the rising price as positive, there was also a sense – notable among experts – that the market is moving into a phase destined to buck predictions.

Thomas France, a multi-year veteran of the industry and co-founder of the Ledger wallet, didn't even go so far as to call himself a market expert in remarks, emphasizing that whatever might be said about the cryptocurrency, the numerical evidence is perhaps enough.

"I see the global market cap of crypto as very, very small compared to its true potential," France said.
Too much too soon?

Still, less common were those who sought to suggest that the surging price of bitcoin, up nearly 900 percent on the year, may trigger increasing scrutiny on its markets and practices.

Guy Corem, a long-time bitcoin mining company CEO and the founder of a new alternative cryptocurrency startup, DAGLabs, couldn't quite shake his bad feelings about the market even with the $10,000 level in the offing.

While he acknowledged his excitement, and what he called the "clear demand" of new buyers seeking to allocate capital, Corem worried about possible reactions.

"I am just worried that the rate of growth is too fast and may trigger government's response," he added.

In particular, he hinted at fears that cryptocurrency exchanges could be cut off from access to U.S. dollars, or other major fiat currencies that currently provide the avenue for onboarding to new users.

Micky Malka, a veteran investor in the sector and former board member of the non-profit Bitcoin Foundation, also struck a subdued tone, calling $10,000 largely a "symbolic number" – though one he said has arrived faster than his expectations.

"[I'm] already surprised with the speed, especially knowing that it's still not ready for every person in the world to access it," he said.
Too early to count?

That said, more active traders were perhaps less convinced $10,000 will be a benchmark exceeded with any degree of ease, owing to the fact it has loomed so large in the sector's psyche.

Arthur Hayes, founder of bitcoin derivatives platform BitMEX, said he believes that the price barrier is likely to be significant for traders because of this, and thus, is not one that will be breached lightly.

"I don’t expect it to be convincingly taken on the first attempt. That being said, I do believe that by year-end, it will fall," he said.

BTC VIX, organizer of the bitcoin trading forum Whale Club, expressed his belief that the market is in "bubble times," and hinted that he is looking to assess the next assets traders may identify in order to increase gains in the market.

Others, however, appeared content to let the market evolve come what may.

When asked if a push above $10,000 was likely, trader Tuur Demeester responded succinctly:

    "I wouldn’t bet against it."


Source: https://www.coindesk.com/price-eyes-10000-bitcoin-faces-mainstream-moment/

Bitcoin Price Hits Historic $10,000; Crypto Arrives in the Mainstream

Bitcoin achieved a historic milestone today, surpassing the $10,000 mark for the first time in its short history.



Investors and analysts alike will spend the day discussing whether the bitcoin price is a “speculative bubble” or finally approaching its fair value, but one fact is undeniable: Bitcoin is becoming mainstream.


Welcome to 1994

As BlockTower Capital executive Ari Paul wrote in a recent Forbes op-ed, Bitcoin — both as a protocol and an asset — is at roughly the same level of development and adoption as the internet was in 1994.


Source: Forbes/Blocktower

Less than one percent of the world’s population is currently using bitcoin, but that number has swelled this year due to the network effect and services offering an improved user experience, much as mass internet adoption first began in 1994 — when the number of websites “exploded” to 2,738 from 130 the previous year.

That was also the year the Today Show broadcast its famous “What Is the Internet, Anyway?” segment, which — thanks to the internet — has been preserved for posterity.

Those few thousand websites provided the average consumer with his or her first true incentive to obtain internet access, which for most people was sending an email to the growing number of friends, colleagues, and relatives with a network-connected computer. Innovation brought countless more use cases over the years — use cases that arguably eclipse email in importance — but they never could never have materialized without those first mainstream users finding a reason to join the network.

Similarly, bitcoin has long dazzled users with the promise of future development, but this year it has proven that it can function as a  “Swiss bank in your pocket,” the first turnkey use case to resonate with the broader mainstream public. Indeed, we have already seen its utility as a store of value — and to some extent, an uncensorable medium of exchange — in hyperinflated economies such as Venezuela and Zimbabwe.


Growing Pains

The mainstreamization of bitcoin is not without its downsides.There are many retail investors who, unfortunately, have or will invest a large percentage of their net worth in bitcoin without a proper understanding of the technology and markets or a clear investment strategy.

It’s fair to say that a large percentage of current cryptocurrency investors — perhaps the majority by this point — have never experienced a true bear cycle, and many speculative investors are not prepared to weather one. These are the investors who buy at all-time highs, panic sell at the first sign of trouble, erase the value of their investments, and — too often — their life savings.

This behavior is not isolated to cryptocurrency, nor should it be blamed on the asset itself; the same phenomenon occurred during the “Great Recession” just prior to the turn of the last decade. Investors who sold at the bottom of the crash lost nearly everything, while those who let the crisis run its course saw the overall market rebound to pre-crash levels in a relatively short amount of time.


The Role of the Network Effect

While speculation is inextricably linked to the current bitcoin price surge, critics who deride the market as a bubble ignore that the value of the network itself gains value and utility as more users are onboarded into the ecosystem — even if those users entered the network as mere speculators.

As with the internet or any network, Bitcoin is only useful if other people are connected to the network, so the network must overcome the classic “chicken and egg” problem to achieve critical mass. However, unlike the internet, the Bitcoin protocol is monetized, such that users become part-owners of the network’s resources. This, over an extended period, allows us to observe the network effect unfold in real time.

This is one reason Tulipmania and Beanie Baby comparisons are fundamentally absurd. Critics who fixate on the bitcoin price’s dramatic upswell miss what is occurring behind the scenes: the wheels of bitcoin mainstreamization have begun to turn, and the network effect has begun to quicken its pace.


Source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/as-bitcoin-hits-10000-its-clear-that-crypto-is-becoming-mainstream/

Bitcoin is the most popular cryptocurrency because of few things:

1. Bitcoin is getting more popular because of it's fast price growth.
2. The media (news) and everybody is talking about bitcoin not other coins.
3. Bitcoin has the biggest market capitalization among all the other cryptocurrencies.  

For me, I used a lots of wallets before, but it comes down to few wallets now.
The current online wallets i uses for now are Xapo, Blochain.info, Luno, and MyEtherWallet.
And my favorite offline wallet is Ledger Nano wallet; this is a multi-wallet because it also stores altcoin such as Litecoin, Dash, Menero e.t.c. 

The world biggest currency exchange called CME Group, announced launching bitcoin trading by the end of the year.
Lots of people from "Wall Street" and self made billionaires are now putting their money into bitcoin because they want to trade bitcoin on CME when bitcoin trading is launched on the platform.  

Bitcoin is now more profitable than stock market. Stock market is the old testament and bitcoin is the new.
People are always looking for where to invest their money to make more profit and bitcoin turns out to be the best.

Bitcoin reaching is $20,000 next year - 2020 is too long!
This year 2017 alone bitcoin value grows with over 900% increase.
Imagine, how bitcoin value will grow next year, even with 200% increase bitcoin will be above $25,000.

Indeed, bitcoin value growth for the last 4 week was very shocking, i wish i'm all-in for BTCBTCBTC, but even now i got my own share
Bitcoin is still looking strong no sign of slowing down. perhaps, the value of bitcoin might reach $12,000 before - January 2018. 

I was talking about investing money into bitcoin not signature ad or bounty campaigns. I know it's hard when it comes down to starting out from scratch meaning without a capital can be very hard, but i'm currently talking about people that already invested in bitcoin.

Bitcoin Price Tears Beyond $9,750 - Setting the new record all-time high.

That's probably it, bitcoin is making us money from thin air...  
Bitcoin is making us rich doing nothing literally
Do you agree with me? share your thoughts

Did Elon Musk Create Bitcoin? A Former SpaceX Employee Thinks So

Elon Musk is many things. A billionaire, a visionary, the owner of companies such as Tesla and SpaceX and overall one of the most inspiring and intriguing figures we have in business today. With this appeal comes a never-ending supply of rumors and fake news, from quitting Tesla to join a bitcoin startup, to being called national disgrace and thief.

Given the meteoric rise of mainstream cryptocurrency popularity, it should be no surprise that the elusive hunt for Satoshi, often referred to as the father of Bitcoin, has led to the theory that Elon Musk has been hiding a big secret from all of us. Sahil Gupta, a computer science student at Yale University and former intern at SpaceX, believes just this.

Why Elon Musk Could Be Satoshi

Gupta, who interned at SpaceX in 2015, provided a few “oddball” ideas on why Musk is the probable founder of Bitcoin:

1. Technical capabilities: Bitcoin was written by someone with mastery of C++, a language Musk has utilized heavily at SpaceX. Musk’s 2013 Hyperloop paper also provided insight into his deep understanding of cryptography and economics.

2. Passion for solving global problems: Bitcoin was founded in 2008, the year of the global financial crisis and widespread distaste of banking in general. If there was a time to create a currency for the people, without bank intervention, this was it.

3. Relative silence on the issue: Musk has only been quoted speaking about Bitcoin a handful of times. He has publicly stated that he does not personally own any Bitcoin and even published this sneaky tweet when asked about cryptocurrencies:



4. Musk doesn’t need the money: Satoshi’s stash of unused Bitcoin was estimated at $700 million back in June 2016 when the price of one Bitcoin was $719. Going by today’s price, Satoshi’s Bitcoins are worth over $8 billion – less than half of Musk’s current estimated net worth of $19.7 billion.
Additional Supporting Arguments

One week before Gupta’s Medium post on Musk, another Medium blog was published with a theory that Musk invented Bitcoin for future use on Mars. As radical as this may sounds, the point around Paypal in this article was relevant. Musk has already revolutionized digital currency his founding role in Paypal, which he sold to eBay in 2002. The author claims Musk is under a non-compete from this deal, leaving him to secrecy about his role in Bitcoin.

Arguments Against This Theory

   - 2008 was Musk’s “worst year”: 2008 was a notable year for Musk, who publicly claimed it was his worst year ever due to early challenges with SpaceX and Tesla and his personal finances and relationships in jeopardy. One could argue that working on Bitcoin was probably a challenge not even Musk could handle at this point.
   - Musk lives in the spotlight: When the subject of Musk being Satoshi was brought up on Reddit in 2016, the Reddit community had a field day. Popular opinion is that Musk could never keep a secret this large and would have stepped in already to combat bank and regulatory attempts to destroy the cryptocurrency.
   - Musk’s public statements can be negative: When asked about Bitcoin in this interview, Musk was notably careful about how he responded. Musk called Bitcoin “probably a good thing” but referenced its main use as a facilitator to illegal transactions.

Arguments for and against this theory create a compelling topic nonetheless. Whether or not Musk created Bitcoin is yet to be seen, but it is technically possible. As Gupta puts it, even if Musk is not Satoshi, “thanks for the Tesla Roadster”.

Source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/elon-musk-create-bitcoin-former-spacex-employee-thinks/

Bitcoin is World’s 30th Largest Currency, Market Cap Nears Mastercard’s $171 Billion

Trace Mayer, a prominent early-stage bitcoin investor who has funded Kraken, Armory, and BitPay, revealed that bitcoin is already the 30th largest currency in the world, and has surpassed the value of major fiat currencies such as the Singapore dollar and the United Arab Emirates dirham, closing on the market cap of Mastercard.

Bitcoin Overtakes Leading Fiat Currencies

From January of 2017 to November, the market valuation of bitcoin increased from less than $15 billion to $156 billion. That is, without the entrance and involvement of institutional investors, investment banks, and large-scale hedge funds.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong noted that approximately $10 billion in institutional money will be invested in the bitcoin market in the upcoming months, which will likely increase the market cap of bitcoin by over a hundred billion dollars.

Still, with only a handful of major financial service providers and institutions actively providing bitcoin services and engaging in bitcoin trading, the market cap of bitcoin has surpassed the valuation of some of the world’s largest financial firms, such as Goldman Sachs. Analysts expect bitcoin to surpass Mastercard, the second most widely utilized credit card network behind Visa, given Mastercard’s $171 billion market cap.

Mayer emphasized that every indicator of bitcoin points towards a healthy and strong upward momentum in the short to mid-term.

“Bitcoin is now a solid top-30 world currency. $9,000 price and $150 billion market cap only tip of 1st root of 1st network effect of 7. Healthy uptrend. 200DMA $4,001 and rising approximately $30/day. 200DMA market cap nearly $65 billion & rising around $500 million per day. $9k/4k=2.25x; nowhere near overstretched. Onward and upward,” wrote Mayer.

Dominance Index Fallacy

Analysts in the cryptocurrency sector often misinterpret the bitcoin dominance to criticize the growth rate of bitcoin and the emergence of alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins). However, the cryptocurrency market is composed of a variety of crypto-assets, tokens, and currencies that are fundamentally different from bitcoin, serving different markets and consumer bases.

Hence, it is not rational to assess the growth rate of bitcoin through the bitcoin dominance index, which demonstrates bitcoin’s growth relative to other crypto-tokens in the market. It is more accurate and logical to compare bitcoin’s growth rate in relative to leading reserve currencies, safe haven assets like gold, and government-issued fiat currencies.

Bitcoin was amongst the top 90 currencies in the world in early 2017. Within 11 months, bitcoin has evolved into the 30th largest currency in the global market with exponential increase in user base, daily transaction volume, and trading volume.

As more institutional money moves into the bitcoin market and general consumers move on from the declining fiat currency system to a more sound and robust store of value, bitcoin will overtake fiat currencies to become the leading global currency.

“Bitcoin only has to grab a few % points of the global multi-hundred trillion investment market to realize a market cap of $1 trillion and beyond,” explained RT’s Max Keiser.

Source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-worlds-30th-largest-currency-market-cap-nears-mastercards-171-billion/

$285 Billion: Cryptocurrencies Are Now More Valuable Than Visa

The market valuation of all of the cryptocurrencies combined has surpassed the market cap of leading financial service provider Visa, by $30 billion.

At the time of reporting, the market cap of Visa remains just above $254 billion, while the market valuation of the entire cryptocurrency market is $285.9 billion.


Visa vs Cryptocurrency Market by Numbers

According to the Visa 2016 annual report, the Visa network processes around $5.8 trillion worth of transactions per year, mostly from the 3.1 billion visa debit and credit card issued globally. More than 83.2 billion transactions were settled on the Visa network in 2016.



In contrast, the cryptocurrency market settles significantly less transactions on a daily basis. The Ethereum network settles more transactions than all of the cryptocurrencies in the market combined, and the entire cryptocurrency market processes around 1 million transactions per day. That is, 30 million transactions per month and approximately 360 million transactions per year.

However, core developers of most public blockchain networks such as bitcoin and Ethereum are working on the development and deployment of second-layer payment networks. The utilization of second-layer payment channels like Lightning and Plasma will enable cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and Ethereum to remain as secure store of values, while payment channels operate like the Visa network and are launched on top of the cryptocurrencies.

A recent research paper from the Blockstream research team entitled “Scalable Funding of Bitcoin Micropayment Channel Networks” revealed that with necessary solutions in place such as micropayment channels can support at least 800 million users with the current infrastructure.

“Micropayment channel networks create new problems, which have not been solved in the original papers [8,18]. We identify two main challenges – the blockchain capacity and locked-in funds. Even with increases in block size it was estimated that the blockchain capacity could only support about 800 million users with micropayment channels due to the number of on-chain transactions required to open and close channels,” read the paper.

With micropayment channel optimization through the elimination of channels and unnecessary information, the Blockstream research paper noted that nearly 96 percent of the blockchain space, significantly increasing the capacity of transactions and number of users payment channels can handle.

“By hiding the channels from the blockchain, a reduction in blockchain space usage and thus the cost of channels is achieved. For a group of 20 nodes with 100 channels in between them, this can save up to 96% of the blockchain space,” the paper added.

Already, in terms of daily trading volume, the cryptocurrency market is processing over $10 billion worth of trades on a daily basis, from cryptocurrency to fiat and vice versa. The global cryptocurrency exchange market processes $3.6 trillion in trades on a yearly basis, which is closer to the volume of the Visa network. It is fair to compare the trading volume of cryptocurrencies to the Visa network as both markets handle trades amongst hundreds of digital and government-issued fiat currencies.

In the long-term, the transaction volume of cryptocurrencies will be able to surpass that of Visa, if on-chain and off-chain scaling solutions are implemented onto leading public blockchains.

Source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/cryptocurrencies-surpass-market-cap-of-visa-at-285-billion/

Newsflash: Bitcoin Price Tears Beyond $9,750

Bitcoin price has continued to blitz in an upward spike this morning, hitting a record $9,771.

Within a day of setting a new historic high of $9,000, prices continued to climb overnight before hitting $9,500 during the early hours of Monday. After hitting the figure at 00:30 (UTC), bitcoin price pressed ahead to achieve the new all-time high of $9,771 on Bitfinex at 06:00 UTC, this morning.



At press time, bitcoin price remains above $9,700 with a 7.6% gain in a 24-hour period, according to data from CoinmarketCap. Over the last 7 days, bitcoin is now up 21% as the world’s first cryptocurrency grows to a market capitalization of over $162 billion. That’s a figure that now pits bitcoin within touching distance of Mastercard’s valuation ($171 billion), the world’s second-largest payments processor, after Visa.


Dropped in the world’s M1 (liquid money metric) scale on the CIA’s global list, bitcoin is #27 on the global list, above the likes Brazil and the United Kingdom and fast playing catch up to Russia and Mexico.

Since the turn of the year when prices hit $1,000, bitcoin’s astounding gains now sees the cryptocurrency rise a remarkable 875%(+) in 2017.


Source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/newsflash-bitcoin-price-tears-beyond-9750/

Bitcoin in India: What Happens When the World’s Largest Remittance Market Regulates Bitcoin?

Earlier this week, CCN reported that the Supreme Court of India request the central bank and the authorities to provide clarity on the regulatory framework surrounding bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market.

“According to Indian news daily The Hindu, three justices from India’s Supreme Court – the highest court in the country – have issued notices to the Finance, Law and Justice and Information Technology ministries, as well as the central bank (Reserve Bank of India) and market regulator (Securities and Exchange Board of India), demanding they respond to a petition seeking clarity on bitcoin’s legality in the country,” a CCN report read.

Since mid-2017, the Indian government and its cryptocurrency focused task force delve extensively into the formation of necessary regulatory frameworks to provide a better and a more robust ecosystem for both businesses and investors.

However, for many months, the Indian government not offered any clarity apart from the fact that bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are not illegal in the country. As such, India’s major exchanges and trading platforms such as ZebPay and Coinsecure have continued to operate, serving Indian users and processing payments for general consumers.


What Happens When India Legalizes Bitcoin?

At the current state in the adoption of bitcoin wherein all of the major global economies including the US, Japan, South Korea, and Russia–Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that regulatory frameworks for bitcoin and cryptocurrencies will be released in the future, following the frameworks other governments have imposed–have legalized bitcoin, it has become increasing difficult for any government to simply dismiss bitcoin and prevent from providing regulatory frameworks for cryptocurrency businesses and investors.

It is not possible to ban bitcoin at the current phase, as that would lead to a government or an economy to be isolated from the global bitcoin market and cryptocurrency industry. Hence, in the long-term, it is highly likely that governments and countries including India will regulate their bitcoin markets.

According to World Bank, an international financial institution that provides loans to countries of the world for capital program, India remains as the largest remittance market in the world, with more than $70 billion in annual payments received by Indian employees or expat workers.

“In 2015, the top recipient countries of recorded remittances were India, China, the Philippines, Mexico, and France. As a share of GDP, however, smaller countries such as Tajikistan (42 percent), vi the Kyrgyz Republic (30 percent), Nepal (29 percent), Tonga (28 percent), and Moldova (26 percent) were the largest recipients,” read a World Bank report.


Major Remittance Markets See Massive Success With Bitcoin

Major remittance markets such as the Philippines have seen significant success in legalizing bitcoin as a payment method over the past year. In December, the Philippine central bank legalized bitcoin as a legal currency, enabling expat workers and local employees to use bitcoin to process remittance payments.

Consequently, Coins.ph, the largest bitcoin brokerage and remittance startup in the Philippines, gained 2 million active users, establishing itself as the most used mobile app in the Philippines. With a $15 million investment from Google’s venture capital arm, Coins.ph expanded to Thailand and Malaysia and launching Coins.my and Coins.th, adding hundreds of thousands of new users.

Square, one of the largest payments apps in the world, has three million active users. Coins.ph, a local Philippine remittance app, has a similar user base as Square, a $16 billion financial company.

If India regulates bitcoin and legalizes the currency, its remittance industry will be quick to adopt bitcoin, growing the mainstream adoption of the digital currency in the region.


Source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/what-happens-when-india-regulates-bitcoin-as-largest-remittance-market/

Bitcoin, Ether Prices Surge to Fresh All-Time Highs



The top two cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, bitcoin and ether, have continued their respective rallies, setting fresh record highs today.

Soon before press time, the price of 1 BTC had set a new record of $8,470.73.

Having traded more or less sideways since Monday, prices started to lift at 07:00 UTC, setting the new all-time high at 09:43. according to CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index.

Bitcoin started the session today at $8,201, and is up 2.85 percent for the session. According to CoinMarketCap, bitcoin has risen 11.97 percent over 24 hours, and 39.25 percent for the week.

The sharp gains come as the combined market capitalization for all cryptocurrencies also peaks at new highs – currently standing at $267.6 billion. Bitcoin's market cap is now over $141 billion.



Elsewhere in the cryptocurrency markets, ether also continues to set new highs.

The native token of the ethereum project soared to $485.19 around 01:30 UTC this morning. Currently the token stands at $464, up 12 percent for the day and 39 percent for the last 7 days, also according to CoinMarketCap data.


Source: https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-ether-prices-surge-fresh-time-highs/

Hi devs,

Thanks for the payments of facebook and twitter bounties.

When are we going to get the payments of last additional 2 weeks?

Thank you once again.

Regards,
cybersofts
 

Ok, so lets talk turkey here;
Altcoin is a name given to the other coins meaning they are alternative to original bitcoin, if you don't know what altcoin means.

No way, bitcoin is not an altcoin.
Bitcoin cash, bitcoin gold, bitcoin dark, bitcoin plus are the altcoins.
Coins like Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, Dash, Monero, and Bitconnect are also altcoins

Hi sergei,

Is there any specific date when ALLOY bounty is going to resume?
We need to know the the date, if possible - please?
Thank you for understanding.

Best regards,
cybersofts