Safe storage

If you hold a significant amount of Bitcoin, it is advisable that you store them in a hardware wallet where you control the private keys and keep only the amount that you want to trade with the exchange. Some of the recommended hardware devices are Ledger and Trezor.

https://www.ledgerwallet.com

https://trezor.io/

Cameron of the famous Winklevoss twins has claimed that Bitcoin is primed to increase further in the long term.. Cameron of the famous Winklevoss twins has claimed that the phenomenal rise in the price of leading cryptocurrency Bitcoin is primed to increase further in the long term. He claimed that if Bitcoin has the capability to disrupt gold, then it can appreciate by 10-20 times further because there’s still a significant delta for the number one virtual currency.. In his interview with CNBC in early December 2017, Cameron Winklevoss said that Bitcoin is gold 2.0 as it has the capability to disrupt gold.

Bitcoin's story in India has been punctuated by cautions from the apex bank and finance ministry. They have become more frequent now when prices have touched meteoric heights

The recent surge in exchange rates of cryptocurrencies including bitcoin has at one hand drawn interests of the investors, whereas, on the other, has alerted the regulatory authorities to sound cautions against it, repeatedly.

In at least three instances, the Reserve Bank of India has warned the investors regarding the "potential economic, financial, operational, legal, customer protection and security related risks” associated with the trade of cryptocurrencies.

http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/markets/bitcoin-and-india-a-historic-high-and-a-series-of-warnings-from-rbi-and-the-government-2457417.html

Japan is one of those countries that is known for its laissez-faire approach to digital currencies and exchanges. It let the Bitcoin community thrive by allowing the cryptocurrency to be used as legal tender and giving licenses away to exchanges like candy.

However, Hiromi Yamaoka—Head of the Bank of Japan’s Payment and Settlement Systems Department—is not optimistic about the future of digital currencies. His comments come in the midst of a mass migration of exchanges from China into Japan and other Asian countries that are more accepting of them.

The exodus is happening because of fears that China will tighten restrictions against cryptocurrency trading in the near future. Japan may have also contributed to the bull run that Bitcoin experienced when massive amounts of purchases in the country last month pushed the cryptocurrency’s price above $5000.

If the exodus from China happens on a large scale and targets Japan, it will likely have a strong effect on the island’s Bitcoin trading volume. In the meantime, we cannot expect Japanese banks to by a product that ultimately competes with their markets, no matter how friendly Japan as a nation is to the whole phenomenon.

https://cryptovest.com/news/bank-of-japan-official-says-cryptocurrencies-would-change-the-banking-system-too-drastically/

As FTAdviser previously reported, the product would allow investors to gain exposure to the movements in the value of the virtual currency, without having to own the currency. A notice on the CME’s website currently stated the product will be listed on the exchange in the fourth quarter of 2017.

Earlier this month the European regulator echoed the concerns its British counterpart on the growth of cryptocurrencies and so-called initial coin offerings. The European Securities and Markets Authority expressed concerns that investors are unaware of the high risks they are taking when investing in initial coin offerings.

An ICO is a way of raising money from investors using virtual coins or tokens where these are issued and put for sale in exchange for fiat money for other virtual currencies such as Bitcoin or Ether. The regulator also expressed concerns that firms involved in ICOs may be conducting their activities without complying with European Union legislation.

In a statement this morning, ESMA said investors risk losing all their invested capital if they invest in ICOs, adding that some of these coins had “no tangible value”. In September the Financial Conduct Authority warned investors they should be prepared to lose all their money if they invested in ICOs.

https://www.ftadviser.com/investments/2017/11/22/bitcoin-futures-product-launch-delayed/

People Also Read The State Bank of India has unveiled fresh plans for a blockchain smart contracts beta test, with plans for a rollout of more blockchain processes on the horizon. The bank, which is owned by the Indian government, looks set to trial smart contracts within the next month, in addition to rolling out plans for a blockchain-based system to handle know-your-customer, or KYC, compliance obligations.

The blockchain systems have been devised as part of the bank’s work with BankChain, a consortium of different banks and financial services companies researching industry-specific applications of the technology. The State Bank of India’s head of innovation, Sudin Baraokar, said that the initial smart contract trials will deal with “simple things”, like processing non-disclosure agreements, speaking in support of the work of the BankChain consortium.

We do a lot of IT procurement, a lot of it can be implemented using blockchain…By next month, we should have two beta production solutions ready for use by the 27 banks. At the same time, SBI has announced plans that would see the bank establish a new centre for innovation in Mumbai, which will work with other companies in blockchain research to supplement the efforts of the BankChain group – expected to come on-stream by mid 2018.

Addressing the work of the BankChain consortium, Baraokar said that by bringing multiple industry partners on board at the same time, the group was reducing the risks of investing in blockchain technology. We focused on solutions that the bank does not have…things like smart contracts, which is not regulatory heavy.

https://coingeek.com/state-bank-india-announces-blockchain-beta-test-smart-contracts/

Both the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) have released details on the upcoming futures trading for the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. CME had previously announced that its Bitcoin futures product would be available for trading on December 11.

CME’s website now simply says that Bitcoin futures will come sometime before the end of the year. In a similar statement, the CBOE released details regarding their intention to begin offering Bitcoin futures products under the ticker XBT.

While still under regulatory review, the CBOE blog contained specific details on the nature of the futures contracts. Unlike the CME contracts, CBOE contracts will be 1 BTC, and the tick will be set at $10.

According to the CBOE CFA Russell Rhoads: “The question I am constantly hearing is, “How will the futures prices relate to spot Bitcoin pricing,” and the best (and most honest) answer I can give is, “I don’t know.”. I’ve heard arguments for the futures trading at both a premium and a discount to the spot price, personally I think the best strategy is to see what the market tells us when Bitcoin futures are available for trading.”.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/cboe-cme-bitcoin-futures-details-released

In his latest visit to his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, where he hosts a casual event for business students, one of the attendees asked Warren Buffett a question about Bitcoin. As a clarification, Buffett went on to say that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are “a very effective way of transmitting money, and you can do it anonymously and all that”, but it doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things: “A check is a way of transmitting money, too.

Are checks worth a whole lot of money just because they can transmit money?”. He finished his statement with a harsher criticism of Bitcoin, saying that the “idea that [it] has some huge intrinsic value is just a joke, in my view”.

Buffett tends to lean towards investing in things that have a sustainable inherent value. Meanwhile, Bitcoin is surging past the $8,000 mark even after the SegWit2x drama left its future uncertain.

Although there’s no denying that it’s subject to more volatility than most fiat currencies, there’s a lot to be said about its utility in the market as more stores begin to accept payments in the cryptocurrency. Warren Buffett might not be keen on the idea of pumping capital in Bitcoin’s direction, but other players want a piece of the pie, each for their own reasons.

https://cryptovest.com/news/warren-buffet-the-idea-that-bitcoin-has-value-is-just-a-joke/

Sydney — Bitcoin topped $8,000 for the first time, as investors set aside technology concerns that had derailed its advance earlier in November. Bitcoin rose 4% to $8,015.67 as at 7.47am in London on Monday, paring a rally of as much as 5.2% during Asian hours.

It is now up more than 700% in 2017 after shrugging off a tumble earlier in November. It has been a tumultuous year for the largest cryptocurrency, with three separate slumps of more than 25% all giving way to subsequent rallies.

The digital currency is gaining the acceptance of professional investors, with CME Group, the world’s biggest exchange, poised to start offering futures trading on bitcoin in December. Recent volatility has also stemmed from a pick-up in people switching to alternative virtual currencies, notably bitcoin cash.

New cryptocurrency iterations are springing up as disagreements over bitcoin’s design persist and opportunities for making a quick buck prove hard to pass up.

https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/markets/2017-11-20-bitcoin-hits-8000-on-monday-now-up-more-than-700-in-2017/

CEO of JPMorgan, Jamie Dimon, has also been hard at work the last few months proclaiming bitcoin to be a fraud. Dimon did not limit himself to calling bitcoin a fraud either.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak rebutted Dimon’s comments by emphasizing bitcoin’s legitimacy. He reminded both Dimon and listeners of bitcoin’s qualities as a decentralized, transparent and peer-network operated, thus making it highly resistant to censorship.

Wozniak, apparently offended by Dimon’s comments, went on to add that bitcoin was purely mathematical, as was he a mathematician. Dimon’s accusations of bitcoin appeared to be largely self-serving, being made suspiciously soon after the colossal failure of JPMorgan’s blockchain technology, Quorum.

Other representatives of the bank claimed JPMorgan was open-minded as far as bitcoin was concerned. In an ongoing debate, there is talk of Dimon using the bank to trade bitcoin, and in doing so, circumventing anti-money laundering regulations enforced by Switzerland.

https://btcmanager.com/jp-morgan-found-guilty-money-laundering/

Hong Kong legacy banking outlets are making it difficult, if not impossible, for bitcoin-related businesses to run smoothly. Also read: Life After China’s Exchange Ban – an Interview with Hong Kong-based Binance CEO Zhao “We had just tripled our customer base in a two to three month period,” explains Gatecoin’s Thomas Glucksmann, “the price of bitcoin was rallying, the number of money clients were depositing was increasing – the timing couldn’t have been worse.”.

Gatecoin is a cryptocurrency for fiat exchange based in Hong Kong. “Hong Kong’s bitcoin entrepreneurs say they have been forced to open bank accounts overseas to operate their businesses,” the article continues, “after local banks froze or closed their accounts.”.

Bitspark, a Hong Kong-based remittance company, also had trouble with bank accounts. “The few that do have bank accounts are trying to be as cautious as possible,” Hong Kong Bitcoin Association president Leo Weese said.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority “dismissed claims that a high number of businesses failed to open bank accounts,” the article insists. Do you think Hong Kong’s moves will lessen its business reputation?.

https://news.bitcoin.com/hong-kong-bitcoin-businesses-are-frozen-out-of-banking/

While eggs must always first give way to chickens, in the case of Twitter discussion volume and bitcoin price rising things aren’t exactly clear. Or, did the Twitterverse push ever-upward the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, bitcoin?.

Also read: Initial Troll Offering Fires Back at Wall Street with Paid Ad of its Own “Twitter is clearly taking the lead as the home for discussions related to new monetary technologies,” Social Market Analytics‘ Joe Gits declares to Jared Podnos. Just this week, a Twitterer organized a giant troll campaign to buy mainstream advertising as a way to press bitcoin’s case to a wider professional financial world.

“We’re seeing Bitcoin ($BTC) conversation volume alone exceeding that of the FANG stocks (Facebook $FB, Apple $AAPL, Netflix $NFLX, Google $GOOG) on a daily basis,” Mr. Gits continues. Bitcoin’s reach is beyond that of its mere price, as Mr. Gits noted: “We are also observing the influence of crypto technology on other blockchain related equities.

Mr. Dorsey is also CEO of payments platform Square, who recently announced its trial of incorporating bitcoin into its platform. What do you think of bitcoin’s relationship with Twitter?.


https://news.bitcoin.com/since-2013-bitcoiners-have-flocked-to-twitter-as-bitcoins-price-continued-to-rise/

UBS, the world’s largest wealth manager, isn’t prepared to make portfolio allocations to bitcoin because of a lack of government oversight, the bank’s chief investment officer said. Bitcoin has also not reached the critical mass to be considered a viable currency to invest in, UBS’s Mark Haefele said .

Bitcoin has split investors over the viability of the volatile cryptocurrency and UBS is among its critics. Bitcoin capped a resurgent week by climbing within a few dollars of a record $8,000 on Friday.

“All it would take would be one terrorist incident in the U.S. funded by bitcoin for the US regulator to much more seriously step in and take action, he said. “That’s a risk, an unquantifiable risk, bitcoin has that another currency doesn’t.”.

UBS chairman Axel Weber this month said bitcoin was a speculative investment and not a store of value, while Credit Suisse Group AG CEO Tidjane Thiam described the speculation around bitcoin as the “very definition of a bubble”. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has called bitcoin “a fraud” that will eventually blow up.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/financial-services/ubs-says-it-will-not-make-bitcoin-a-portfolio-allocation-1.3295749

Bitcoin (BTC) continued to push a new all time high today after completely recovering from the 30% correction less than a week ago. Largely due to mining profitability increasing for Bitcoin Cash, thanks to its difficulty adjustment algorithm and large price increase, the swift drop in Bitcoin hashrate has recovered.

This occurred following a difficulty adjustment for the Bitcoin network, which was unable to adjust difficulty accordingly for the drop, which meant elevated block times. Golix, a Zimbabwe-based cryptocurrency exchange saw a sharp spike in Bitcoin price on the news of a military coup to replace dictator Robert Mugabe.

It’s important to note that unlike many other cryptocurrencies, who pay their developers directly through a block reward-based treasury, Bitcoin does not. Bitcoin’s most recent scaling solution, SegWit (SW), decreases the size of each transaction in a block when using a SW address, but has been slow to gain support amongst the gatekeepers of the community.

Future scaling solutions for Bitcoin will likely include many other innovations including the Lightning Network (LN), which offers an off-chain bidirectional payment channels. Very few companies have entered New York State for Bitcoin on ramping and money transmission.

https://bravenewcoin.com/news/bitcoin-price-analysis-institutional-buying-on-the-horizon/

Earlier this week, $16 bln payments app Square officially integrated Bitcoin into its mobile platform, enabling three mln active users to buy, sell and store Bitcoin seamlessly. Jack Dorsey, the CEO at Twitter and Square, particularly expressed his enthusiasm towards the potential of Bitcoin as a robust store of value, and the Square team’s optimism surrounding the long-term growth trend of Bitcoin.

In an interview with Forbes, a Square representative explained: “We’re always listening to our customers and we’ve found that they are interested in using the Cash App to buy Bitcoin. Even large-scale multi-billion dollar companies such as Square and Overstock have started to experience major surges in their market valuations following their integration of Bitcoin and Blockchain technology.

More importantly, the integration of Bitcoin allows major payments app like Square to compete with existing service providers within the cryptocurrency and Bitcoin markets, which are dominated by a handful of companies including Coinbase and Blockchain. In consideration of the company’s optimism in regards to the long-term growth and adoption rate of Bitcoin and its CEO Jack Dorsey’s enthusiasm towards the cryptocurrency market, it is highly likely that the development team behind Square will actively investigate the possibility of full Bitcoin integration throughout its platform.

The integration of Bitcoin into the Square PoS network would immediately enable anyone to use Bitcoin at Square-using merchants such as restaurants, cafes and stores. Whether Square intends to pursue the integration of Bitcoin into its PoS system remains unclear.

Until a large part of the population start to buy Bitcoin, there will always be the risk that it could become another insanely great technology that flopped because it was somewhat ahead of its times.This piece looks at 5ways Bitcoin could be the future of money and to neutralize some of its existential threats One of the ways Bitcoin can solidify its position as the future of money is for its value to continue to outpace inflation for all users. The total supply of Bitcoin that can ever be mined is capped at 21 million BTC; hence, the odds are high that the value of the cryptocurrency will continue to rise as more people start using it as an alternative to fiat.

Bitcoin makes it easy for people to transfer wealth across borders without paying undue fees and without attracting the attention of governments, regulators, or criminals who will be intent on getting a piece of your wealth. Bitcoin's position as the future of money will be guaranteed if it succeeds in driving financial inclusion for the world's unbanked population.

Similar to powering financial inclusion, Bitcoin can be a great tool for helping people create wealth without necessarily getting "approval" from financial regulators. Startups, entrepreneurs, artistes, and people with causes can get financial support through the inherent crowdfunding opportunity that Bitcoin provides.

When you need financial support for a cause, all you need is to provide potential supporters with your Bitcoin address or QR code, and you'll be on your way to getting the financial support without forcing people to fill out any boring forms. © 2005-2017 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article60767.html

One of Asia’s most prominent banking institutions has called bitcoin a ponzi scheme, signaling continued resistance to one of the most groundbreaking developments in recent history. “We see bitcoin as a bit of a ponzi scheme,” David Gledhill, chief information officer at DBS, told CNBC on Wednesday.

In his view, entering the bitcoin space doesn’t make much sense for DBS at this stage in the game. In a recent interview with CNBC, Gartman said bitcoin is a market for criminals and millennials.

“How can you buy or sell a painting using bitcoin, when the change in volatility is 20-30-40 percent in the course of a week?. Naturally, bitcoin’s dramatic appreciation has caught many sensible market participants by surprise.

Bitcoin faced an extreme selloff last week as prices shed more than $1,200. Blockchain alternative Bitcoin Cash (BCH) also gained ground on Wednesday, rising 3.5% to $1,322.

https://hacked.com/asia-banking-giant-labels-bitcoin-ponzi-scheme/

By Frank Chaparro DRW, a Chicago-based firm, is looking to set up a bitcoin trading desk in Singapore to dominate the cryptocurrency market in Asia. The firm has been in the bitcoin game since 2014 via its division Cumberland Mining, which already operates over-the-counter bitcoin trading desks in Chicago and London.

Bobby Cho, the head of over-the-counter trading for Cumberland, told Business Insider the firm is preparing to start up operations in Singapore well-before year-end. In China, where retail exchanges have shut down en masse because of a crackdown by the government, the OTC business has exploded.

OTC trading firms like Cumberland connect buyers and sellers off retail exchanges. From the transaction data of the two platforms of LocalBitcoin and Paxful, the share of BTC-CNY over-the-counter trading in its total amount of over-the-counter Bitcoin transactions rose from about five per cent to about 20 per cent.”.

Cho told Business Insider the firm’s strategy isn’t necessarily to dominate China. Sebastian Quinn-Watson, a partner at Blockchain Global, a cryptocurrency exchange operator, told Business Insider he is very bullish on the crypto-market in Asia.

http://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/2119979/us-trading-firm-setting-shop-singapore-dominate-bitcoin

While the legacy chain’s long-anticipated SegWit2x hard fork was ditched at the last minute, a less politically charged hard fork pushed through smoothly with no issues—in an alternate blockchain universe. Yesterday, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) successfully implemented a hard fork upgrade that would hopefully solve the erratic hashrate supplied by fickle miners.

Throughout the few months since Bitcoin Cash (BCH) came into existence, it has been implementing the Emergency Difficulty Adjustment (EDA), a mechanism allowing it to quickly adjust the mining difficulty in order to attract miners into the pool. While the BCH blockchain needed EDA to survive in its early stages, it also caused its transaction processing times to fluctuate wildly as miners switched back and forth between BTC and BCH, depending on which chain is easier and more profitable to mine at any given moment.

This caused the hashrate to fluctuate wildly and the instability subsequently caused erratic processing times, ultimately hindering BCH from fulfilling the promise of becoming a reliable and stable payment system—the peer-to-peer electronic cash as envisioned by the Satoshi white paper. Yesterday’s hard fork is an upgrade to a new difficulty adjustment algorithm (DAA) that would enable the creation of blocks at roughly 600 seconds (10 minutes), and is based on the proposal from Bitcoin ABC lead developer Amaury Sechet.

The benefits of the new DAA are as follows: Image from Bitcoin ABC As of last checking, majority of the nodes on the Bitcoin Cash network have upgraded to the new software, which means a split is unlikely. Advocates of big blocks have migrated to BCH since SegWit2x was scrapped; Bitcoin Classic recently endorsed Bitcoin Cash as they closed down, saying they are no longer needed as BCH is already achieving what they set out to do.

https://coingeek.com/bitcoin-cash-hard-fork-goes-smoothly/

Bitcoin, the red-hot digital currency, had a wild weekend and that appears to have translated into record-breaking trading volumes across the cryptocurrency market. The 24-hour trading volumes for cryptocurrencies reached a record above $26 billion on Sunday, according to data site CoinMarketCap.com, the highest ever.

To put that in perspective, that is higher than the 5-day average trading volumes for two US stock exchanges. Both IEX, the upstart exchange based in New York, and the Chicago Stock Exchange averaged less than $10 billion in trading each day for the last five days, according to data by Cboe Global Markets.

Still, the record cryptocurrency volumes over the weekend indicate the growing interest in the red-hot market, which until very recently has rarely witnessed daily trading volumes over $10 billion. In a recent note to clients, Bank of America Merril Lynch said higher cryptocurrency volumes could present a $1.6 billion opportunity for Wall Street.

The figure is based on the assumption that cryptocurrency volumes end up at about 10% of current fiat currency trading volumes. Higher volumes, according to Bank of America, could help legitimize cryptocurrencies across Wall Street, which still remains widely skeptical of their credibility.

http://www.businessinsider.in/Cryptocurrency-trading-reached-a-new-record-over-the-weekend-thats-higher-than-volumes-on-some-US-stock-exchanges/articleshow/61638194.cms