Male employee of UK-registered cryptocurrency exchange ‘safe, but stressed’ following capture by gunmen

Kidnappers in Ukraine have released an employee at a UK-registered cryptocurrency exchange after getting more than $1m (£750,000) in bitcoin as a ransom, an adviser to the Ukrainian interior minister told Reuters on Friday.

Pavel Lerner, a leading analyst and blockchain expert, was seized by masked abductors on Boxing Day, according to a statement by his company, EXMO Finance, on its website.

“This is the first such case in Ukraine linked to bitcoin,” Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to interior minister Arsen Avakov, said in a text message.

It was unclear who paid the ransom. Lerner’s work at EXMO did not involve access to the financial assets of its users, the company said, adding that the platform was operating normally.

“At the moment he is safe, and there was no physical harm inflicted on him,” the statement said. “Nevertheless, Pavel is currently in a state of major stress. Therefore, he will not provide any official comments in the coming days.”

News of the release came as bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies rebounded after two days of losses partly related to regulators toughening rules on digital currencies in an effort to curb excessive speculation. Many digital currencies surged in value this year.

Strana.ua, a local news website, had earlier reported that six gunmen wearing dark clothing and balaclavas had snatched Lerner and pushed him into a minibus with stolen number plates.

Kiev police have begun a criminal investigation after a man was kidnapped in the Obolon district, a police spokeswoman said by phone without revealing the name of the victim.

“We would like to note that the story of Pavel’s abduction has overgrown with rumours that might tamper with the official investigation,” EXMO said in its statement.

Separately, the company – which has 900,000 users according to its website – announced on Thursday that it had been hit by a denial-of-service attack.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/dec/29/ukraine-kidnappers-release-hostage-after-1m-bitcoin-ransom-paid

Особенность проекта в том что для его работы на стороне пользователя достаточно обычного монитора. Даже в виде обычной трехмерной модели витрина магазина и товар выглядят совсем иначе, попробуйте демо версию на официальном сайте.

Выдержка из белой бумаги:

"В качестве
альтернативы, контент виртуальной реальности отображается
на мониторах обычных персональных компьютеров и/или
смартфонах. ."

Billionaire Tilman Fertitta: Bitcoin's here to stay, but a lot of people won't buy in until it's insured

- Billionaire Tilman Fertitta gave his fairly bullish take on the wildly popular digital currency bitcoin.

- Fertitta likened the cryptocurrency trend to the dot-com boom of the late 1990s.

For billionaire restaurateur Tilman Fertitta, the rise of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin has striking similarities to the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s.

"I think it's here to stay," the founder and CEO of Landry's told CNBC's "Power Lunch" on Thursday. "It's no different than anything new. Everybody forgets that if you put '.com' at the end of your name just 20 years ago, your stock ran up."

Fertitta, also the star of CNBC reality show "Billion Dollar Buyer," said his biggest reservation about the digital currency's early days was the fact that it is not yet insured.

The CEO shared an example: if some eager individual tried to withdraw $1 million in cash from a bank, the bank would probably be unable to fulfill the request.

"They don't have the money. It's just paper. That's all bitcoin is, is paper, but it's not insured by the FDIC today. And until it's insured, a lot of people are never going to buy it," Fertitta said.

Even so, the man behind the parent company of Bubba Gump Shrimp (and a slew of other successful dining and entertainment venues) said he could see his businesses accepting bitcoin as payment someday.

"I think it's going to happen," Fertitta said. "I mean, I remember somebody walking into my office and saying, 'The world's going to change. There's this thing called the internet.' And that wasn't that long ago. So we have to remember this. It's just something new and everything moves at a quicker pace today."

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/28/billionaire-tilman-fertitta-says-bitcoin-is-here-to-stay.html

- Elevation Partners co-founder and early Facebook investor Roger McNamee thinks 2018 will be a decisive year for bitcoin.
- If the cryptocurrency lasts that long and continues to gain value, even a crash couldn't stop it from becoming a legitimate business, according to McNamee.

Bitcoin might be all hype, but it could withstand a crash and become legitimate, particularly if it sees enough gains in 2018, according to tech investor Roger McNamee.

Bitcoin is "still a very small market in the context of the larger financial world, but it has had a huge year. We've done it around a speculative mania," the co-founder of venture capital firm Elevation Partners said Thursday on CNBC's "Fast Money." "If a mania goes on long enough, it becomes self-fulfilling. Even after a crash, what follows is a legitimate industry."

But in order for Bitcoin to earn its legitimacy, it needs to stick around long enough – and continue to keep investors on their toes, said McNamee, who was an early investor in Facebook.

"With the amount of activity going on around it, there are people willing to invest the kind of dollars it takes to make a thing like bitcoin into a long-term part of the financial market," McNamee said, comparing it to the dotcom bubble that sent America into recession before rebounding as a major industry.

Making it through 2018 is important for another reason, too. McNamee thinks bitcoin is still too new for investors to know just what role it could play in the future of the financial markets. But the volatility of 2018 just might make that more apparent.

"You'll have these big swings, up and presumably down, as well. And, you know, wherever that settles out I think will tell us a lot about the role of bitcoin long-term," he said.

"I don't think it will be the end of the story either way," McNamee added.

Bitcoin was recently down 8.4 percent at $14,087.93 on Luxembourg's Bitstamp exchange. The cryptocurrency has rocked back and forth after hitting a high near $20,000 in November.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/28/roger-mcnamee-bitcoin-will-be-legitimate-if-it-makes-it-past-2018.html

The financial services giant is planning on offering digital asset trading beginning in the summer of 2018, sources close to the bank have reported.

OLD MONEY MOVING IN

Goldman Sachs is becoming one of the first large banks in the US to embrace Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies, as the bank is currently building a team to tackle many of the issues that will come from implementing the trading. A major issue now is how the bank plans on storing the assets, as they will have custodial control of the assets.

The bank is also one of the first to support the Bitcoin Futures trading, which has been recently launched by some US exchanges, namely CBOE and the CME Group. Similar scale national banks have held off on clearing those futures, as worries about the volatile nature surrounding Bitcoin’s price along with concerns about the fact that it’s completely unregulated have scared them off.

ADOPTION FROM TRADITIONAL ESTABLISHMENTS

This is just one of the many stories in recent weeks about traditional financial systems hopping on the Bitcoin bandwagon. As more and more established firms support the growing crypto-space, the trend is set to continue and bring more institutional investors on board. Support from banks such as Goldman Sachs also gives a layer of legitimacy to Bitcoin, as many people still view it as the currency of “drug dealers and terrorists.”

Blockchain technology, the decentralized ledger system that powers the Bitcoin network, is being looked at by industries worldwide about how to implement the technology to their existing systems. The concept of an immutable, public, and auditable ledger is very attractive to some, especially banks. Other currencies are already being applied in many use cases worldwide, and some countries have already announced their plans to launch their own, state-sponsored, digital payment systems.

http://bitcoinist.com/goldman-sachs-offer-cryptocurrency-trading/

Bitcoin trading companies in Israel may soon face tighter rules imposed by the country's finance regulator.

According to Reuters, the head of the Israel Securities Authority (ISA) Shmuel Hauser said in a business conference on Dec. 26 that a proposal will be presented to the ISA board next week, which seeks to ban any company that has a major involvement in bitcoin trading from the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE).

Hauser told the news agency:

"If we have a company [and] their main business is digital currencies, we would not allow it. If already listed, its trading will be suspended."

According to Hauser, if the proposal is approved, it would go through a public hearing before the domestic exchange is required to abide the new laws.

Such a move is perhaps seen as a follow-up to the ISA's decision in late August to probe into regulatory laws on initial coin offerings (ICOs). At the time, the organization was said to be planning to release a report for recommendations before the end of December.

In addition, the regulation proposal may also respond to the market trend where public companies have seen their stock price spike after rebranding to something related to the blockchain and cryptocurrency - a trend also reflected on the stock exchanges in the U.S.

As identified by Reuters, at least one public company Blockchain Mining (BLCM.TA) has seen a 5,000 percent surge of its stock price within months after announcing to shift from mining gold to cryptocurrencies. However, the company later changed its name Natural Resources on Sunday, according to the news outlet.

Hauser's comment also followed a volatile market movement of the cryptocurrency since last Friday on Dec. 22, when the market saw perhaps the largest single day correction. The cryptocurrency market capitalization first hit as low as $418 billion, nearly 30 percent down from its all-time-high earlier last week. But it soon bounced back over $500 billion and reaching $584 billion as of press time currently.

Hauser was also quoted speaking to the Financial Times that regulation is necessary "because the public is unprotected."

https://www.coindesk.com/israeli-finance-watchdog-seeks-ban-public-firms-bitcoin-trading/

Новости по HARD CAP

Было решено уменьшить Максимальную Капу ICO до US$ 14.5m (продажи токенов закончаться, когда будет достигнута необходимая сума)

В непредвиденном случае, если все токены не будут распроданы, оставшиеся монеты будут распределены по следующей схеме:

- 50% будут распределены между вкладчиками ICO, для использования в GATCOIN приложении.
- 50% остануться во владении GATCOIN  для маркетинга и расширения.

В недалеком будущем будет доступна продажа Gat токенов через нативное приложение GatCoin app. Их продажная стоимость будет по крайней мере в 3 раза выше, чем во время ICO.

Первый миллион пользователей, которые загрузят наше приложение, получат определенную суму Gat Токенов. Конкретно эти токены нельзя будет продать, они предназначены для приобретения скидочных купонов в ритейле.

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Если я привильно подсчитал, на данным момент собрано ~3 млн. долл.

Earlier today, on December 27, the bitcoin price surged to $16,500, recording a major gain for the first time since December 22, prior to Christmas.





Analysts including John McAfee and cryptocurrency hedge fund co-founder Ari Paul expressed their optimism towards the short and mid-term growth trend of bitcoin, given its latest momentum and overall increase in value throughout 2017.

McAfee wrote:

“As I predicted, Bitcoin is rebounding and rapidly climbing after Christmas. It is still, by far, the best long term crypto investment, and I firmly stand by my prediction of $1 million by the end of 2020.”

Historically, bitcoin has demonstrated a tendency to recover soon after a large correction and work up to an all-time high price within a few weeks. Hence, bitcoin’s speedy recovery after Christmas was expected by most investors in the cryptocurrency market.

However, McAfee’s $1 million bitcoin price prediction by 2020 is noteworthy because other investors such as Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne and Mike Novogratz have suggested a similar figure. Analysts believe that once the market valuation of bitcoin surpasses the trillion dollar mark, it will be able to surpass the market valuation of traditional assets like gold and eventually penetrate into the global offshore banking market.

Byrne said earlier this week:

“We have all these currencies since Bretton Woods, fluctuating against each other, and maybe the dollar hasn’t gone to zero against these currencies but all of them have gone down 95% … versus something that they can’t control like … gold and bitcoin. So bitcoin may be on its way to a million for all we know.”

Investors in the cryptocurrency market are anticipating a variety of factors and events to lead to a bitcoin price surge. The filing for 8 bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Chicago Board Options Exchange (Cboe) for instance is expected to bring many billions of dollars into the bitcoin market.

Given the success of the futures exchanges of Cboe and CME, experts state that the probability of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approving the ETFs of the two institutions is very high.

“Given the success of the launch of our bitcoin futures, several partners are very interested in moving forward with the development of an exchange-traded product,” said a Cboe spokesperson.


Another major factor that could drive the price of bitcoin up significantly is scaling. Currently, it remains unclear whether the Bitcoin Core development team and the community will initiate a block size increase to eliminate congestion on the Bitcoin blockchain network.

The majority of bitcoin users are paying fees in the range of $3 to $5 per transaction. Such high fees disallow users from making payments below $30. Wallets like Blockchain and Coinbase, two of the largest platforms in the market, are recommending a fee of 120 bytes per transaction.

But, innovative scaling solutions in 2018 could enable users to process payments with fees under $1. Notably, solutions like Lightning with SegWit, possibility block size increase, and other second layer solutions could provide efficient scalability.

Japan’s largest financial group, MUFG, is preparing a service that will secure bitcoin adopters’ holdings against any failure or losses suffered by the cryptocurrency exchanges they use.

In what could be the first trust service of its kind anywhere in the world, the Mitsubishi UFJ Trust is preparing to offer bitcoin holders a service wherein their bitcoins are placed in a trust, separate from their cryptocurrency exchange’s assets. Japan has emerged among the world’s largest bitcoin trading markets despite the seismic collapse of Mt Gox in 2014, once the world’s largest bitcoin exchange.

In the event of any failure, mishandling or wrongdoing by the exchange’s operator, the security of holders’ bitcoins will be guaranteed by the trust bank. Mitsubishi UFJ Trust, a member of the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, has already applied for the relevant patent protection, the Nikkei reports.

Bitcoin traders will need to opt-in for the service while trading at exchanges, allowing Mitsubishi UFJ Trust to monitor their accounts. The trust bank will reportedly flag suspicious activity and examine pending transactions. “A late-night sale of a huge amount of bitcoins, for instance, would get flagged for inspection instead of being processed immediately,” an excerpt from the report explains.

Mitsubishi UFJ trust will maintain logs of users’ transactions that used to guarantee will be ‘used to guarantee the safety of holders’ bitcoins’ in the event of any operator-based incident leading to losses. However, holders will not be secured from losses against price volatility.

While the service will entail a fee for users signing up with the financial giant, “customers will feel peace of mind knowing that a trust bank is managing their assets,” explained Noriyuki Hirosue, CEO of Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange.

The trust bank’s service will only be available to bitcoin traders at launch, tentatively in April 2018. Notably, the asset management service will only take shape after Japan’s Financial Services Agency – the country’s financial regulator and watchdog – recognizes cryptocurrencies as an asset akin to real estate or securities that can be placed in a trust.

https://www.ccn.com/japans-biggest-financial-house-mufg-prepares-secure-bitcoin-adopters/

The controversial SegWit2x Bitcoin (BTC) hard fork will go ahead on Dec. 28, according to the project’s official website.

The SegWit2x project, which caused months of debate and infighting among the Bitcoin community prior to its last-minute cancellation in November, now says it will fork off at block 501451, due in around two days’ time.

The project’s Founder and Lead Developer, Jaap Terlouw, stated on their site that the fork aims to address issues of “commission and transaction speed within the Bitcoin network,” adding that currently, Bitcoin is “almost impossible to use as a means of payment.”

Confirmation that the hard fork will, in fact, take place is indicated both in the roadmap on the project’s site, as well as in a direct quote from Terlouw:

“Our team will carry out the Bitcoin hard fork, which was planned for mid-November.”

The founder also promised that in addition to the common practice of crediting BTC holders with equivalent balances of the new coin (B2X), they would also receive “a proportional number of Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoins as a reward for their commitment to progress.”

In total, eight exchanges are listed as official supporters of the fork. The project’s roadmap includes features such as Lightning Network support, smart contracts and, ultimately, anonymous transactions.


In the past six weeks, Bitcoin Cash, another Bitcoin hard fork formed in August, has become the central talking point of the industry, as it sees remarkable growth and sparks shifts in mining and investment behavior, affecting Bitcoin’s price.

The latest incarnation of SegWit2x has so far received comparatively little publicity. However, the website copy conspicuously name-dropped one particular exchange, HitBTC. Speaking about existing SegWit2x futures, Terlouw is quoted on the site as saying:

“At the same time, trading of its [SegWit2x] futures has been carried out on some exchanges for a long time. HitBTC is among them.”

When the project first saw hints of a comeback on Dec. 19, futures prices of B2X coins saw an uptick from under $200 to almost $600, a trend which has remained steady prior to the launch.

Meanwhile, on Christmas Day, a Blockchain Angel Investor debuted his own ‘version’ of Bitcoin, Bitcoin God (GOD), while several other forks are due to join the ecosystem in the coming weeks.

For BTC investors, a key appeal of new Bitcoin ‘versions’ or hard forks  is the duplication of their BTC holdings in the new coin at the time of each snapshot, which essentially provides them with a supply of “free money.”

https://cointelegraph.com/news/hard-fork-take-two-segwit2x-will-return-dec-28-says-founder

Свежие Gat новости:

- Вскоре будет доступна обновленная белая бумага на русском.

- 17 Декабря  —  07 Января: Пресейл с 20% бонусом (1 ETH = 17,760 GAT)

- 14 Января —  21 Января : Основная 1-я  неделя продажи с 5% бонусом (1 ETH = 15,540 GAT)

- 21 Января —  28 Января : Основная 2-я  неделя продажи без бонуса (1 ETH = 14,800 GAT)

Инфографика продажи токенов:

The news channel of China Central Television, CCTV13, reported this weekend that the Zhongyuan Oil Field Public Security Bureau of Henan Province (Henan Police) has been investigating a report filed by a bitcoin investor alleging that funds were stolen from his bitcoin wallet.


According to an incident report filed on July 27, a Henan resident surnamed Wu stated that he lost 188.31 bitcoins, valued at over 3.4 million CNY at the time. Wu is said to be a professional investor who stepped into the new digital currency world in 2016. In early 2017, he was invited into a group of bitcoiners on Wechat, a popular Chinese messenger app.

Wu told the police that the group’s moderator, named Dai, often shared links to news about crypto exchanges being hacked to warn group members how dangerous it is to keep coins on exchanges. Wu gradually began to show his concerns, and added Dai as a friend for the safety suggestions. That’s where his nightmare began. The moderator sent Wu an application to generate a new bitcoin wallet address. The victim downloaded the application, and transferred all of his 188.31 BTC into the new address.

Based on their Wechat history, Wu transferred his BTC on July 16 and only realized his loss a week later on July 26 when he returned home from a trip. Wu immediately told Dai about the incident and demanded to meet the moderator in person, but was rejected. Instead, Dai transferred ¥120,000 to console the victim:

“I feel sorry for you. After all, I recommended you the wallet. Let me pay you 120,000 yuan as a gesture of good will.”

This had prompted Wu to call police as he thought no innocent person would give such a large amount of money just to console a stranger.


The police identified group moderator Dai as a suspect when the preliminary investigation was completed. On August 9 Dai was arrested in Shanghai in cooperation with Henan authorities, with police seizing multiple laptops and 27 credit cards from his room. On one of the computers the police discovered a bitcoin wallet identical to the one downloaded by Wu.

During a police interrogation, Dai admitted his crime. It turned out that Dai was a programmer. He would crack a genuine bitcoin wallet, writing a small program that automatically transmits users’ account names and passwords. Once someone downloads and sends bitcoin into the wallet, Dai would simply transfer the assets into his own wallet, and sell them on exchanges right away. The criminal has committed three separate thefts in such a way, involving over ￥20 million (about 3 million USD). At present, the police have accessed and freezed Dai’s bank accounts with $2 million recovered.


Group moderator Dai will get what he deserves, but he was at least right about one thing: it is unsafe to keep coins on exchanges.

According to a post at 8btc, A crypto investor this Saturday found that he lost 38.8 LTC, 2 ETH and 2,003 USDT at Huobi.pro exchange. As if it wasn’t strange enough, the user noticed that there was no trading history on the exchange. He reached customer service and was told that it was a technical problem which should be solved in 24 hours. But the next day Huobi.pro told him it was not a technical problem and that the user himself shall bear the responsibility for the loss because he didn’t enable Google 2-step verification. Curious, because if that was the case, why was there no record of a trading history? Huobi.pro so far has replied that there would be no compensation to the client and suggested that they let police deal with the incident.

Another one of the big three exchanges, Okex, has also witnessed a couple of safety incidents one after the other since China’s ICO ban in September. China Finance Information reported that nine bitcoiners lost 600 BTC in total this October. A victim surnamed Wang lost 5 million CNY worth of BTC. He told news.bitcoin.com that it was difficult to file a police report because some police authorities think bitcoin is “unreal”, or a ponzi, and refuse to help recover something “unreal”. And when Wang turned to popular media services in the industry, they simply told the victim that they didn’t want to “mess with” OKex. As a result, he could only reach out to traditional media such as Tuoniao and Cfi.cn and ZAKER to report details of his loss.

https://news.bitcoin.com/chinese-programmer-arrested-over-%C2%A520-million-bitcoin-theft/

Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, better known as the Winklevoss twins, still believe bitcoin will remain as the best investment over the next few decades.


In 2012, when Facebook went public, the Winklevoss twins received $45 million from the settlement of Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In spite of their lawyers’ recommendation to take a cash deal of $45 million, the Winklevoss twins received the settlement in Facebook shares. By 2013, the Winklevoss twins amassed a fortune of $300 million, as the shares of Facebook skyrocketed.

After a successful exit from Facebook, the Winklevoss twins started to purchase bitcoin at $10, during a time in which only a handful of investors such as Roger Ver and Charlie Shrem had invested in the cryptocurrency. Over a span of a few months, the Winklevoss twins purchased 120,000 bitcoin at a $11 million valuation.

Today, the 120,000 bitcoins purchased by the Winklevoss twins are worth $1.68 billion, and the Twins have netted the twins a profit of $1.669 billion within merely four years.

While several analysts have stated that the growth of bitcoin is limited given its market valuation has already achieved $236 billion. However, the Winklevoss twins told Nathaniel Poppers of the New York Times that the price of bitcoin will likely increase exponentially throughout many years ahead, as it evolves into a major asset class, robust store of value, and medium of exchange.

The Winklevoss twins further emphasized that they will not sell bitcoin even when its market cap surpasses that of gold at $8 trillion or when its price surpasses $380,950. Tyler Winklevoss noted that bitcoin is better than gold because it is programmable as money and has many advantages over the traditional asset such as transportability, fungibility, security, and divisibility.

“In a funny way, I’m not sure we’d even sell there [when bitcoin price surpasses $380,950]. Bitcoin is more than gold — it’s a programmable store of money. It may continue to innovate,” Tyler told the New York Times in an interview.

More importantly, Tyler added that the Winklevoss twins are not affected by the high volatility and rapid price movements of bitcoin, because they believe in the long-term performance of the cryptocurrency and the technology behind bitcoin.

“We are very comfortable in very high-risk environments with absolutely no guarantee of success. I don’t mean existing in that environment for days, weeks or months. I mean year after year.”


Apart from their success as early-stage bitcoin investors, since 2015, the Winklevoss twins have operated one of the most widely utilized cryptocurrency exchanges in the global market, Gemini.

As a fully regulated cryptocurrency exchange by the US government, Gemini has continued to serve professional traders and casual investors in the US market, accounting for a large portion of the USD-to-BTC trading pair.

Ari Paul, the co-founder of cryptocurrency hedge fund Blocktower and highly respected cryptocurrency analyst, explained that Gemini is an underappreciated exchange. Although it lacks the trading volume and user base of Coinbase and GDAX, Gemini remains as one of the few exchanges US-based investors trust.

“Gemini is an underappreciated exchange, one of the few exchanges I trust as a custodian,” said Paul.

https://www.ccn.com/winklevoss-twins-will-not-sell-bitcoin-even-if-its-price-hits-380000/

The festive season is in full swing and those who celebrate Christmas have enjoyed turkey dinners, presents under the tree and long Christmas specials on TV. But for many of us involved in the world of cryptocurrencies, this has been one Christmas Special we will never forget.

November was an extraordinary month, as Bitcoinsmashed barrier after barrier on its way to the $11,000 mark. Despite multiple corrections, time after time, the virtual currency bounced back from volatile swings in price.

Some called it a bubble, others said is was just the tip of the iceberg, but no one predicted the wild ride Bitcoin would endure in the weeks leading up to Christmas.


Last month the price of Bitcoin reacted strongly to the news that the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) were planning to launch Bitcoin futures - which eventually led to a massive bull run. Both mainstream exchanges successfully launched their new offerings and in both instances the price of Bitcoin reacted favourably, although the CME launch a week after CBOE had far less of an affect on the price of Bitcoin.

The general sentiment ahead of the futures’ launch was that mainstream financial institutions openly trading on the Bitcoin market would cause a greater stream of money to flow into Bitcoin, raising the price. Indeed, that is exactly what happened - for a time. But not long after Bitcoin hit the meteoric $20,000 mark, the market underwent a massive correction, sinking down to just under $11,000 on Friday, December 22.

It wasn’t just Bitcoin that endured a wild ride, as the whole cryptocurrency market saw losses, with the combined market cap dropping $200 bln in a single day.


Another curveball that had some effect on the market was the surprise announcement that Coinbase was launching Bitcoin Cash trading on it’s platform. That saw the price of Bitcoin Cash surge - but the integration was soon marred by scandal.

Coinbase had to suspend buy and sell orders on its GDAX exchange due to significant volatility. A day later, the company confirmed it would also investigate allegations of insider trading by employees, who were prohibited to trade Bitcoin Cash in the lead up to the launch.

Meanwhile Litecoin founder Charlie Lee made two controversial moves. First, he tweeted his belief that a multi-year bear market was coming which could see Litecoin drop as low as $20.

Roughly a week after expressing his views about Litecoin’s future, Lee sold or donated all of his Litecoins, citing a conflict of interest. Lee’s announcement became national news, as the likes of CNBC, Fortune, Forbes and others reported on it. However, The Verge has questioned Lee’s motives, suggesting that for a currency’s founder to sell his entire holdings would seem to indicate a lack of confidence in the currency’s future.

Litecoin also saw a drop in price from it’s recent all-time high at $360 to settle around $280 at press time.


Watching Bitcoin nosedive from $20,000 was quite a sight - and social media platforms were awash with all sorts of memes amid both positive and negative sentiment. Many were adamant that they would ‘hodl,’ while others panicked and looked for advice.

Well-known Blockchain engineer Jameson Lopp summed up the mood perfectly in this Tweet:

While there is still plenty of market volatility across the board - Bitcoin, Ethereum and other altcoins seem to have steadied after what is sure to dubbed the ‘Great 2017 Correction.’

What we do know is that 2018 has plenty in store for the cryptocurrency market. Back in November, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said that a host of institutional investors have been waiting to invest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. However, a lack of trust in current exchange service providers led many to believe they couldn’t risk their clients money.

He estimated that at least $10 bln is ready to be invested into the market. Mike Novogratz has been singing the same tune - saying ‘the herd is coming’ in relation to the changing sentiments of mainstream financial institutions towards cryptocurrencies.

However, following recent volatility, Novogratz has now hit the pause button on a $500 mln fund he was preparing to launch.

The history books will tell us that CBOE and CME were the first mainstream exchanges to actively invest money into the cryptocurrency market. Nasdaq isn’t far behind, given their plans to launch futures next year.

And amid the carnage of a cryptocurrency market freefall, banking giant Goldman Sachs is planning to launch a cryptocurrency trading platform by mid 2018. They would be the first major Wall Street investment bank to actively trading virtual currencies.


Considering that Bitcoin grew in excess of 1,000% in 2017, anything could be possible in the next 365 days. It’s clear that many financial institutions have taken stock of the emergence and establishment of cryptocurrencies and are looking to step into the market. Failing to do so risks getting left behind.

Financial analysts, Blockchain specialists and cryptocurrency experts will be gearing up for an exciting year ahead. With so much already planned, one thing is for certain: digital currency is here to stay.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-christmas-special-2017-was-wild-ride-eventful-2018-seems-likely

Bitcoin’s colossal price swings in recent weeks have certainly grabbed the attention of both advocates and skeptics alike. Within just a couple of days, the digital asset’s price swung by $8,000 from just over $20k down to $12k and back up again to around $13.5k where it currently trades.

The naysayers will be gloating while the investors will be looking at it as a simple market correction which offers another buying opportunity before it surges again after the holiday period. Industry analysts at Russia Today have followed the trends and have lent their knowledge and opinion to the big Bitcoin debate.

STATE COINS COMING

Doctor Jack Rasmus, professor of Political Economy at St. Mary’s College in California had this to say;

"It’s not going to be the currency of the future because the central banks will start issuing their own digital currencies before it threatens the money supply. But it is definitely a speculative commodity bubble. Bitcoins and other cryptos are a commodity play, much like gold, in fact, they’re sucking a lot of money, capital investment out of the gold market, and it’s a speculative play, and I think it’s going to go higher. But it is a speculative bubble, and the key question is will it pose some sort of danger to the financial asset markets in general."

Meanwhile, Max Keiser, host of RT’s Keiser Report said this on the topic;

"What is driving the action at bitcoin is people who are looking to store value and escape the US dollar, which is a tulip bulb of our era. The stock market and bond market are the tulip bulbs of our era. The tulip bulb of 1630 was driven by highly leveraged transactions that are what gave us tulip bulb mania of 1630. Bitcoin is the opposite of that."

ASIAN APPETITE

Dr Rasmus went on to acknowledge that it was investors in Asia who where the main impetus behind the drive:

"Margin and retail buyers in Japan are driving this market. It is not the tech nerds in the US. And whenever you get extreme margin buying, you are going to get a lot of volatility. And it is going to collapse. Most of this trade is located in Japan, and the Japanese financial authority has legitimized this."

Ministers in Germany and France have called for a G20 summit on cryptocurrencies to decide on regulation but according to Keiser they are likely to fail;

"There’s no way to stop bitcoin. It’s unstoppable. There’s nothing they can do to stop the adoption, growth, acceptance of bitcoin as a store of value, as a currency and as a unit of account. That’s the history."

http://bitcoinist.com/big-bitcoin-debate-rages/

On the ninth anniversary of Satoshi Nakamoto's white paper, one of the world's most respected derivatives providers, the CME Group, announced it would launch a regulated bitcoin futures market.

Not to be understated, this was a pivotal moment in bitcoin's history, and quite simply, the future has never been brighter.

It's safe to say that 2017 has been a remarkable year. Almost every single metric of adoption has shown signs of exponential growth: exchange users, wallet downloads, social media chatter, Google search trends, trading volumes, transactions per day, etc.

The price has moved hand-in-hand with these metrics, and bitcoin has reached more people than ever before.

Yet, many of the existing trading platforms have been struggling to stay online 24/7. (Even the CBOE website went down as it launched its bitcoin futures market.) In the majority of cases, these outages are not due to denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks, but the sheer volume of organic traffic.

And with this interest, the futures markets are effectively embedding bitcoin into the traditional regulated markets, adding legitimacy for those that doubted its longevity or who still believe it is a fraud (See: Jamie Dimon). Nevertheless, some bitcoin advocates take issue with the seal of approval from Wall Street.

Author Andreas Antonopoulos has said:

"I am uniquely allergic to the word 'legitimacy,' it makes me want to vomit when warmongering, war profiteering bankers use it to describe bitcoin. That takes a lot of audacity."

And it does seem there's reason to suggest Wall Street isn't directly behind this year's growth.

On March 10th, the Bats BZX exchange had its bitcoin ETF application denied by the SEC due to the unregulated and illiquid nature of bitcoin markets. The decision marked the end of a three-year journey for investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who had long sought to bring such a product to market.

Bitcoin has faced many regulatory challenges in its history, most at the hands of regulators: the LedgerX ETF denial, Chinese regulators halting zero-fee trading and ultimately closing all exchanges.

However, the market capitalization of bitcoin has risen from $20 billion to well over $300 billion in the nine months since those developments.


That's not to say that Wall Street isn't bringing new interest to the market – far from it.

The futures markets have shown that investors want to gain exposure to bitcoin in a regulated manner without having to store the underlying asset. For the average investor, there's a lot of risk is involved with holding bitcoin and this is represented by the significant premiums.

But, aside from the pushing up the price and generating media coverage, the futures market will have profound effects on bitcoin.

Increasing demand will likely lead to more futures markets and creating greater volumes over time. There are currently over 15 applications pending for new ETFs, the volume is coming and to quote Antonopoulos again, there is a long way to go:

"When you watch a trader eat a sandwich while he presses enter on a $10 billion trade, you realize how small this game is. We are going to have a lot of volume and that's not bad, in fact that is the first step to reducing volatility."

The 2017 bull run combined with scaling tension has led to a sustained increase in bitcoin volatility over 2017, breaking the five-year down trend.

The regulated futures markets and potential ETFs may be the antidote; deepening liquidity, closing the spreads and reducing the volatility, all of which will contribute to greater market efficiency, price discovery and ultimately ensure bitcoin will be a better store of value and medium of exchange.


But regardless of the tempting volatility, no sophisticated traders will jump into bitcoin without arming themselves with knowledge. It takes a time and breadth of disciplines to understand bitcoin and its many intricacies – as well as a little bit of faith.

To that end, the "education" phase is well underway, in fact the CFTC (Commodities Futures Trading Commission) launched an online information portal days prior to the bitcoin futures launch. Its aim is to educate the public on digital commodities.

This period of research and analysis will have many positive externalities ranging from more effective regulation to greater capital allocation efficiency within the crypto economy. So far, investing within the bitcoin ecosystem has largely been haphazard. Almost every single bitcoin company has underperformed against bitcoin itself.

A greater understanding of bitcoin will foster an ecosystem that allocates capital with greater efficacy, creating the value feedback loop more prevalent in cryptocurrencies such as ethereum.

Every healthy futures market needs a mixture of speculators and hedgers that hold the underlying assets. Typically for markets run by CME, this may be farmers looking to lock in the price of their harvests by short selling contracts of wheat, corn, etc.

Today, the bitcoin futures market is mostly comprised of speculators, and there is a lack of natural sellers as most traders would have to naked short (short without holding bitcoin). At Interactive Brokers, precautions are so great you need five times the collateral to make a trade. For a contract of $100,000, a trader would need $500,000 as margin.

To quote Richard Heart:

"The history of bitcoin is shorts getting rekt, constantly."


Still, the ability to hedge the price of bitcoin alters the risk profile of other parts of the industry, particularly mining.

Expect more risk-averse companies to venture into mining industry. After announcing they would start mining the top 10 cryptocurrencies Digital Power Corp. saw a stock appreciation of 750 percent. Digital Power are not alone and numerous tech companies are jumping aboard the mining bandwagon.

With the ability to short sell bitcoin to "lock in" mining profits, these companies can do so with drastically reduced risk. For companies like Digital Power, instruments that provide shorting on indices will be invaluable. If this trend continues, Western mining corporations could start to chip away at the currently centralized mining hash power, with 80 percent of it residing in China.

But, it will take time for volumes to build and spreads to close as only a limited number of sophisticated investors are currently capable of carrying out the risky cash and carry arbitrage. No doubt that uncertainties surrounding forking, scaling and regulation will make bitcoin’s journey to an efficient market bumpy.

The most interesting part of bitcoin's rise to the regulated economy is that it took eight years of clamor, belief and HODLing.

To be sure, though, there's more hard work ahead.

https://www.coindesk.com/comes-futures-next-chapter-bitcoin/

The president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, has signed a decree which legalizes cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings (ICOs), and smart contracts. All crypto transactions and related income, including from mining, will be tax-free for the next five years.


President Alexander Lukashenko announced on Friday that the decree “On the Development of Digital Economy” has been signed. He explained, “the main goal of the document is to create such conditions that global IT companies would come to Belarus, open their representative offices, development centers, and create popular products in the world.”

The decree also legalizes cryptocurrencies, ICOs, and smart contracts. Reuters wrote, “Belarus has legalized transactions in cryptocurrencies,” reiterating that it is “part of a drive to foster private sector growth and attract foreign investment by liberalizing parts of its Soviet-style economy.” The news outlet added:

"The decree legalizes initial coin offerings and transactions in cryptocurrencies, including their exchange for traditional currencies on Belarussian exchanges. while all trades will be tax-free for the next five years."

“Individuals will be able to store, change, buy, donate, bequeath, mine, and also exchange cryptocurrencies and tokens for fiat currencies,” Rusbase elaborated. In addition, it is not necessary to declare cryptocurrency profits and income from their operations since they are tax-free until January 1, 2023.

News.Bitcoin.com reported in November on the first Belarusian cryptocurrency exchange gearing up to launch in the spring of next year.


The decree creates unprecedented conditions for residents of the Belarusian High-Tech Park (HTP), which news.Bitcoin.com explained in last month’s article. It allows HTP residents to “become firms that mine and exchange cryptocurrencies,” Sputnik wrote, noting that:

"Belarus has created unique conditions for the world to regulate the sphere of cryptocurrencies, both for ordinary citizens and for companies and investors in this sphere."

Legal entities in HTP can attract investments by issuing their own ICO tokens as well as buying and selling them through crypto exchanges, Rusbase detailed.

Earlier this month, the Ministry of Finance and the National Bank of Belarus said that they do not support the legalization of cryptocurrencies “because it can entail serious risks in the financial market,” Belapan reported. A source in the state administration told the publication, “It is impossible to supervise over cryptocurrencies and trace their movement.”

https://news.bitcoin.com/belarus-legalizes-cryptocurrencies-icos-tax-free/

Etrade, a popular online retail trading platform, has announced it will support Cboe bitcoin futures contracts for its users. The company joins rivals Ally and TD Ameritrade in a bid to capture part of the multi billion USD cryptocurrency market.


Understated, almost begrudgingly, retail online broker Etrade quietly listed the chance for its customers to choose bitcoin futures on Cboe. On the company’s Futures page, just below “Powerful tools, specialized service, and great value,” along with “Integrated mobile and web futures trading,” there it was:

“Now available—XBT-Cboe Bitcoin Futures.”

Previous Etrade pronouncements concerning the world’s most popular cryptocurrency were closer to warnings. What You Should Know About Bitcoin is their most recent missive, posted last month. Cribbed from another source, it contains all the usual scares, shifting easily from SEC cautions, to risks, speculation, and finally scams; not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Etrade largely services a US clientele, something lacking at the Cboe in terms of volume and liquidity with regard to bitcoin futures, which have initially been dominated by South Korean and Japanese traders. Etrade is a discount, do-it-yourself leader in online retail trading. It also serves as a bank with more than two dozen brick and mortar outlets. It boasts over 3 million accounts and nearly 2 billion USD in revenue.

Analysts generally agree Etrade will garner more liquidity within the bitcoin ecosystem. Few were surprised by the move to Cboe. The point of a futures market is to allow retail traders bitcoin access through brokers. Mainstream investors have been skittish about cryptocurrencies, but futures are that midway step away from actually owning bitcoin while participating in price movement without bothering with wallets and keys. 

So far, mainstreaming of the digital asset has been boring, especially when set against initial expectations. Futures are thought dangerous for newer investors due to their being so leveraged. Factoring in how contracts are cash-settled atop bitcoin, and soon ETFs could be settled atop futures contracts, not to mention whatever other creative financial innovations are to come, and the makings of an exciting domino effect are being potentially erected.

Bitcoin futures markets are early days, of course, having a mere couple weeks under their Cboe and CME belts. TD Ameritrade and Ally Financial have jumped in, making Etrade all but obligatory to do the same.

For its part, Etrade asks, “Why trade futures? Trade some of the most liquid contracts, in some of the world’s largest markets. Diversify into metals; Near around-the-clock trading; No pattern day trading rules; No minimum account value to trade multiple times per day; Ease of going short; No short sale restrictions or hard-to-borrow availability concerns; Capital efficiencies; Control a large amount of notional value with relatively small amount of capital,” the website argues.

https://news.bitcoin.com/etrade-joins-increasingly-crowded-bitcoin-futures-market/

How high can Bitcoin go? Someone thinks its remarkable bull market will continue right up to $50,000—and they’re putting their money where their mouth is.

As the Wall Street Journal reports, an unnamed investor or investors have purchased a series of options contracts worth nearly $1 million. The contracts, sold on the LedgerX derivatives exchange, are “calls” that give the owner the right to pay $50,000 by late next year to purchase units of the popular digital currency:

The trade wagering on a move to $50,000 was the first of its kind on LedgerX. … Just under $1 million was paid for the options in one or more trades that took place during the 24-hour period ending at 4 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, the records show. It is unclear from LedgerX’s data who the buyer or buyers were or whether the purchasing was done in multiple transactions or just one.

If bitcoin is below $50,000 on Dec. 28, 2018, the options will expire worthless, and the $1 million will be lost. If bitcoin rises above that level, the options will give their owners the right to buy 275 bitcoins for $50,000 apiece—a transaction that would cost about $13.8 million.

The call options represent an extremely bullish position even for Bitcoin since, as the Journal notes, they will be worthless if bitcoin doesn’t break the $50,000 mark by the end of next year.

Such an increase would represent an approximately 150% percent increase on bitcoin’s all-time high, which almost broke $20,000 this month. This is not improbably given that bitcoin opened the year around $1,000.

On the other hand, the unnamed options owner is not off to a great start. The price of bitcoin has stumbled in the last 24 hours, falling to a recent low of $15,2000 amid a controversy involving the popular exchange Coinbase, and the surge of a rival currency known as Bitcoin Cash.

http://fortune.com/2017/12/21/bitcoin-50000/

The price of bitcoin is down more than 25 percent from an all-time high of nearly $20,000 reached this past weekend, market data shows.

Prices fell to as low as $14,502 to start today's trading session, according to CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index (BPI), about 27 percent from the all-time high of $19,783 reported on Dec. 17.

Overall, bitcoin has seen several notable price drops following Sunday's gains, including a dip below $17,000 on Tuesday that accounted for a roughly $1,800 drop on the day. Indeed, analysts have suggested that the price could experience continued volatility as 2017 comes to a close and new money, brought in by bitcoin's meteoric gains, exits for fiat.

But, others may be testing the waters in alternative cryptocurrencies, as bitcoin is far from alone in having seen its price recently hit an all-time high.

According to data from OnChainFX, which charts price developments for cryptocurrencies, all of the top-20 coins by market capitalization have seen an all-time high within the past four days. Of those, cryptocurrencies like bitcoin cash, dash and litecoin have since posted declines in the last 24 hours.

https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-dropped-22-5-to-weekly-low-from-all-time-high/