[Alleged Bitcoin Launderer BTC-E Admin’s Legal Future Thrown Into Turmoil]

Alleged Bitcoin Launderer BTC-E Admin’s Legal Future Thrown Into Turmoil

A Greek court approved Russia’s extradition request for alleged BTC-e operator and bitcoin launderer Alexander Vinnik, throwing his judicial future into question.

As CCN has reported, Vinnik — a 37-year-old Russian national — was arrested in July while vacationing in Greece in connection with alleged financial crimes he committed while operating bitcoin exchange BTC-e.

Earlier this month, a three-judge panel approved a request to extradite him to the U.S., where a grand jury has indicted him on 21 counts, including orchestrating a $4 billion bitcoin laundering operation connected to the infamous collapse of bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox.

However, regional Russian media sources report that a separate panel of Greek judges met this week to consider a Russian request to extradite him to his native country, where he is accused of obtaining 667,000 rubles (~$11,500) through fraudulent means.

Vinnik and his lawyers have argued that he should stand trial in Russia, not the U.S. Likewise, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs rebuked the Greek court for agreeing to the U.S. extradition request. Vinnik has appealed the U.S. extradition order to the Supreme Court of Greece but has stated that he will voluntarily comply with the Russian request.

Regardless of the Supreme Court’s decision, the ultimate arbiter of Vinnik’s fate will be Nikos Paraskevopoulous, the Greek Minister of Justice, who has the unilateral authority to decide whether to sign extradition orders. That said, the Supreme Court ruling will likely play a role in Paraskevopolus’s decision.

Either way, Vinnik denies the charges against him. He says that he was merely a technician hired by the exchange, while BTC-e denied he was ever employed by the company. In past interviews, Vinnik’s wife suggested that U.S. authorities hope to exploit his technical and intellectual abilities, which is why they have gone to such great lengths to extradite him to the U.S. Others have theorized the U.S. desires to make an example of out of him, much as they did with Silk Road operator Ross Ulbricht.


Source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/alleged-btc-e-admin-and-bitcoin-launderers-legal-future-thrown-into-turmoil/

[Crypto Wallet Eidoo Trolls Jamie Dimon in the Wall Street Journal, Nets 20K]

Crypto Wallet Eidoo Trolls Jamie Dimon in the Wall Street Journal, Nets 20K

Crypto startup Eidoo drew attention to its initial coin offering (ICO) by using a full-page advertisement in The Wall Street Journal to troll JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon, an ardent bitcoin critic.

Last month, Dimon attracted a great deal of media attention by labeling bitcoin a “fraud” and threatening to fire any JPMorgan employee caught trading the cryptocurrency. “It’s just not a real thing, eventually it will be closed,” he said. “It’s worth nothing, he added in a separate interview a week later.

Earlier this week, crypto startup Eidoo fired back at Dimon with a full-page advertisement in The Wall Street Journal. The ad, which was also posted on the news outlet’s website, said “Maybe Jamie will fire you. But you will be free to trade in the crypto world.”



“Maybe Jamie will fire you,” Eido told Wall Street Journal readers, “but you’ll be free to trade in the crypto world.”

Below the fold, Eidoo included a QR code link to the smartphone app for its multicurrency wallet and hybrid exchange.

The ad did not come cheap. Full page ads in The Wall Street Journal can cost more than $350,000. However, PR stunt paid off.

     “The response has been amazing,” an Eidoo spokesperson told CCN. “We have received more than 20,000 more downloads” since the ad ran.

That’s a more than 65% increase since Monday when the startup reported it had reached the 30,000 download mark. Moreover, the ad earned the startup coverage in numerous mainstream media outlets, including Business Insider and CNBC.

The ad also provided a shot in the arm to Eidoo’s initial coin offering (ICO), which is scheduled to end on October 16. At the time of writing, the Eidoo ICO has raised more than 81,700 ether, worth $26.5 million at current exchange rates.

“Jamie has not replied yet,” though, the Eidoo spokesperson added.



Source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/crypto-startup-eidoo-nets-20k-downloads-after-trolling-jamie-dimon-in-the-wall-street-journal/

[Bitcoin is still tiny]

*The article was updated October 15 17:45 UTC

    “- I will have one Big Mac, large French fries and a Diet Coke please

    - Sure, 1200 Satoshis please”

Will there ever be such an exchange or is this just science fiction? In this hypothetical world, 1 Bitcoin is worth $1,000,000, 1 bit is worth $1.00 (1 millionth of a Bitcoin) and 1 Satoshi is worth 1 US Cent. There is no consensus on what the value of one Bitcoin is or should be. The spectrum of opinions ranges from Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan, who thinks it is a fraud and therefore worthless, to Bitcoin maximalists who believe that the sky's the limit. Somewhere in the middle of that, Mohamed El-Erian recently said that “The current prices [of Bitcoin] assume massive adoption, which is not going to happen." He went on to say that Bitcoin should only be worth “a third” of its value at the time - $4,000. Mohamed El-Erian is a smart guy, he is the former billionaire CEO of PIMCO and former IMF economist, could he be right? Has Bitcoin already peaked?

Bitcoin is still tiny

Unlike other cryptocurrencies that may have more sophisticated uses, like smart contracts for Ethereum, Bitcoin’s main uses are being a store of value and a medium of exchange. Its competitors are therefore the established main fiat currencies (US Dollar, Euro, Yen) and Gold. If the Bitcoin price already assumed massive adoption, the market capitalization of all Bitcoins should be close to that of the US Dollar and Gold, right? It turns out that nothing could be further from reality. While the market capitalization of Bitcoin is currently $90 bln, the money supply of the US Dollar, i.e. M2, cash, deposits and money market funds, is $12,500 bln while the value of all the gold ever mined is close to $8,000 bln. This means that Bitcoin is only worth around 1% of the value of its two main competitors. I am not sure this would qualify as “massive adoption”, so I guess I have to respectfully disagree with Mr El-Erian on this one.

Race to the trillion, race to the million

For the Bitcoin price to assume massive adoption, its price should increase... a lot! The following charts illustrates what it would mean for Bitcoin to reach a market capitalization of $1 trillion ($1,000 bln) and for the price of a single Bitcoin to reach $1,000,000.



This illustration assumes that 16.5 million Bitcoins, the number of Bitcoins mined to date, are available. In reality, the pool of Bitcoins available is most likely much smaller. Hundreds of thousands or even millions of Bitcoins may have been lost in the early years, at a time when Bitcoins were basically worthless. Satoshi Nakamoto - Bitcoin’s enigmatic founder - never moved any of his one million Bitcoins (now worth more than $5 bln). So either he is the greatest hodler ever, or he disappeared and his private keys are gone with him.

The head of the IMF said two weeks ago to a room full of Central Bankers that they should not “dismiss” cryptocurrencies as they may very well give Central Banks “a run for their money”. If this is indeed the case, then forget the price of one Bitcoin, the number that everyone will be quoting very soon will be the price of one bit.


Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-has-barely-reached-1-of-its-potential-expert-blog

There’s an old saying, “Don’t let the fox watch the henhouse.” This may well be true when it comes to crypto-industry insiders and their opinions about the price of Bitcoin. But whether anti-Bitcoin fanatics like it or not, the price is steadily climbing toward the $6,000 mark.
Bitcoin liquidity, adoption

With the price of Bitcoin climbing toward the elusive $6,000, the reasons behind this rise are a point of contention. With the industry in an uproar, some market leaders link the rise in price to the increase in Bitcoin liquidity. For example, Luis Cuende, cofounder of Aragon said:

    "I think the rise in Bitcoin prices reflects the enthusiasm that the public has into Bitcoin being a digital currency and new technical solutions like SegWit, that enable more scalability and new solutions for instant payments.”

Not everyone thinks that Bitcoin is a good choice for currency, especially since prices fluctuate so rapidly and massively. Nevertheless, in countries like Argentina, where the fiat currency is effectively valueless, Bitcoin may well be the only option. According to David Henderson, Founder of Sweetbridge:

    “A quick look at Bitcoin’s price history (the two pizzas famously ordered by a developer for 10,000 BTC in 2010 would be worth about $30 million each today!) shows the challenges in using this as a transactional currency or as collateral, as the fluctuations are significant and frequent, unlike most fiat currencies. That said, it can provide an alternative in countries where the local currency is heavily controlled, restricted and subject to very high inflation.”

Bitcoin vs. gold, other assets

Additionally, beyond the liquidity issue, Bitcoin is also carrying its weight as an asset in itself, and has even been suggested as a reserve currency. According to Yonatan Sela, SVP Business Development, YouNow:

    “The soar in the price of Bitcoin isn't surprising, and I expect that while price fluctuations will continue, in the long term Bitcoin will continue to rise in price far beyond $6,000, especially if you buy into the thesis that Bitcoin could become the prominent digital reserve currency. The main reserve currency in the world is gold, with a market cap of ~$7 trillion USD. Bitcoin is currently at ~$94 billion which is less than 1.5% of that. Even if it stays just 2% of gold, it will surpass the $6,000 price point.”

Other leaders were quick to point out that the asset characteristics of Bitcoin are only just now becoming mainstream. As more and more people discover Bitcoin, the price will only trend higher.

In fact, the fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) caused by comments from Jamie Dimon, Larry Fink and others simply adds to public awareness, which in turn drives up prices. Per Serafin Lion Engel, CEO and Founder of DataWallet:

    “Bitcoin proves to be an antifragile asset which, due to its characteristics of immutability, transparency, and disintermediation, thrives in a world of ever-increasing political and socio-economic uncertainty. Comments, such as Jamie Dimon’s, drive the Bitcoin hormesis we are currently witnessing, where adversarial comments by renowned beneficiaries of the current centralized system simply add to the strength of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Furthermore, it also simply boils down to exposure: The more people hear that about Bitcoin, the more people will adopt Bitcoin since its benefits over the past financial system are so abundantly clear.”

However, most industry experts see that the power of Bitcoin is not only in its technology, but in its longevity. As the oldest and most stable cryptocurrency, it has the trust of the digital currency community. Eyal Herzog and Galia Benartzi Co Founders of Bancor said:

    “What’s interesting here to remember is that Bitcoin has at least 4 years of momentum accumulation before Ethereum. This is a great reminder that real value networks don't just spike into existence. They take time and dedication to build and take real root. We should keep this in mind as we look at new alt coins and somehow expect them to skyrocket in days or weeks.”

 Bitcoin instability and volatility

In spite of the huge run up in price over the last few days, the value of the cryptocurrency may well see substantial volatility. Even if Bitcoin does hit $6,000 (which appears quite likely), the price may see another massive drop, just as it did when the $5,000 price point was first touched. Further, any negative news may cause some unrest in the price. According to Bharath Rao, CEO of Leverj:

    “The Bitcoin price has moved from under $1,000 at the beginning of the year to around $6,000. The price should certainly be expected to fluctuate quite a bit, both due to the uncertainty and promise of new technology. We believe that Bitcoin is not yet mainstream and will continue to grow in value as more financial use cases move to crypto. Buying and holding Bitcoin has outpaced every single traditional investment since 2009 and is likely to continue to do so for several years."

Bitcoin long term? 

Among experts, most see the strength of Bitcoin being assured, at least in the short term. While anti-Bitcoin pundits may critique the platform, the reality that Bitcoin has achieved some consensus for mainstream acceptance is clear. According to Rob Viglione, Co-Founder of ZenCash:

    "It's always tough to say what's driving prices, but what we do know is that there's more demand for Bitcoin now than ever. A big part of that is due to the fact that it has steadily achieved more mainstream credibility and that there's now a robust global conversation. For those of us who study cryptocurrency characteristics, there's growing consensus that we're witnessing the birth of a new asset class, and that's huge."

However, many see fundamental flaws within the structure of Bitcoin technology - particularly with block creation. The continued production of blocks depends on substantial electrical use and huge output of resources. Some say that Bitcoin, with its Proof of Work (PoW) protocol, may well be overtaken by other altcoins with the Proof of Stake (PoS) protocol. Technical experts see a need for change, like Lior Yaffe Core Developer at NXT ARDOR:

    “The recent increase in Bitcoin's value is likely due to it being the de-facto exchange currency between the fiat and crypto worlds, much the same as the US dollar is between fiat currencies. It is quite obvious that Bitcoin is not going to replace any fiat currency any time soon due to scaling issues and the waste generated by the POW process. Going forward I predict that most innovation in the crypto world in the mid to long term will take place on POS based blockchains, but being the bridge between the worlds gives Bitcoin a huge short term boost.”

The move toward $6,000 is not only encouraging because of the price point for Bitcoin holders. To some industry experts, the price shift is really reflective of the power of Bitcoin and Blockchain technology to truly change the world. According to Carl Bennetts Co-Founder of Status.im:

    "Reaching milestones against fiat currency certainly aren’t inconsequential, but what’s far more interesting to me is the long term trend at play, and what this signifies for the future of blockchain technologies. While 6,000 USD certainly reflects some market maturity, what’s truly exciting is that we’re slowly edging towards mass-adoption, a world of true financial self-sovereignty, and an open financial system that brings fair access the anyone with an internet connection."

Generally, the consensus among industry leaders is that the Bitcoin bull will continue to run, and $6,000 will be achieved.



Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/industry-experts-believe-bitcoin-headed-to-6000

[Hackers Use Amazon’s AWS Computing Resources to Mine Bitcoin]

Hackers Use Amazon’s AWS Computing Resources to Mine Bitcoin

Security intelligence group RedLock has exposed hackers who were using Amazon Web Services (AWS) computing resources to mine bitcoin.

In a report from the intelligence company it found that at least two companies were targeted: Aviva and Gemalto, both multinational corporations.

RedLock were alerted to the situation after realizing that a number of administration consoles on AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud platforms were not password protected. As a result, these presented opportunities for hackers to gain easy access.

The report said:

    "Upon deeper analysis, the team discovered that hackers were executing a bitcoin mining command from one of the Kubernetes containers.
    
Kubernetes is an open-source platform designed to automate deploying, scaling, and operating application containers.

The report added:

    "The instance had effectively been turned into a parasitic bot that was performing nefarious activity over the Internet.

According to RedLock, access keys and secret tokens were stored in plaintext within the unprotected consoles. The hackers were provided with easy access critical infrastructure where they had the opportunity to cause further damage if they wanted.

This comes at a time when there is growing concern that nation-state hackers are stealing bitcoin. Earlier this month it was confirmed by South Korean authorities that North Korea had targeted bitcoin exchanges in the country to steal the digital currency.

In September, cybersecurity firm FireEye initially reported that a state-sponsored North Korean campaign was taking place to steal bitcoin from South Korean exchanges. Authorities have said that the attacks were in the form of spear phishing attempts. Since July, 25 employees across four digital currency exchanges have been targeted.

A report last month also indicated that digital currency mining malware is on pace to infect two million computers in 2017.

Cybersecurity Labs Kaspersky Labs and technical support site Bleeping Computer found that in the first nine months of the year 1.65 million computers were infected by cryptocurrency mining malware.

Known as botnets, cyberattackers often run mining software in the background with no indication from the computer owner that they are aware their computer is infected.


Source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/hackers-use-amazons-aws-computing-resources-to-mine-bitcoin/

On October 13, the market cap of Bitcoin surpassed that of Goldman Sachs after a meteoric rise in the past three days. With a market cap of $95 billion, Bitcoin surpassed Goldman Sachs by more than $3 billion.

Goldman Sachs, the second largest investment bank in the world, has sustained a market cap of $92 billion throughout the past 12 months but has struggled to demonstrate an increase in growth in terms of market cap.

   "Major milestone: #bitcoin market cap surpasses that of Goldman Sachs at $95 billion 🚀

    Next: $100 billion & eventually $350 billion JPMorgan pic.twitter.com/3H93KtwBaP

    — Joseph Young (@iamjosephyoung) October 13, 2017

Since January of 2017, the market cap of Bitcoin increased from $15 billion to $95 billion, while the market cap of Goldman Sachs remained relatively stable at just over $90 billion.

Surpassing Market Cap of Goldman Sachs was a Major Milestone, Potential Targets

Surpassing the market cap of Goldman Sachs was a major milestone for Bitcoin and it is rapidly approaching towards the $100 billion mark. But, while Goldman Sachs is the second largest investment bank in the global finance sector, Bitcoin still needs to overtake large retail and commercial banks such as Citigroup and JPMorgan, which are valued at $159 billion and $350 billion respectively.

In order for the market cap of Bitcoin to surpass that of JPMorgan at $350 billion, the price of Bitcoin needs to reach around $25,000, which happens to be the interim target of many prominent and highly regarded analysts including Tom Lee, a Wall Street strategist and Fundstrat Global Advisors co-founder.

On CNBC’s Fast Money, Lee emphasized that he sees the Bitcoin price reaching $25,000 by 2022, after refuting claims from bank executives such as JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon that Bitcoin “is a bubble.” Lee stated:

“There are only about 300,000 holders of at least $5,000 of bitcoin. That is like saying the iPhone was a bubble in 2007 four days into the sale because there were 500,000 iPhones sold. Bitcoin is a protocol. Meaning, the actual network itself is generating the value so that the Visa of bitcoin is not going to be as valuable as the blockchain network itself. And that is why, for instance, to make a fraudulent transaction on bitcoin today, it would cost almost $30 billion to create one fake bitcoin.”

Bitcoin is its Own Economy and Financial Network, its Rise in Value is Proving That

As Bank of Finland explained in its latest research paper, Bitcoin operates its own economy and decentralized financial network. It does not require the presence and involvement of intermediaries and third party service providers such as banks.

At first, banks like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs dismissed Bitcoin due to its premature market. But, as the demand for Bitcoin from general consumers, institutional investors, retail traders, and bank clients rapidly increased, even major banks like Goldman Sachs moved toward embracing the digital currency.

Last month, Paul Vigna of The Wall Street Journal, revealed that Goldman Sachs is preparing to launch Bitcoin trading, to address the increasing demand for the cryptocurrency. He wrote:

“Goldman’s effort involves both its currency-trading division and the bank’s strategic investment group, the people said. That suggests the firm believes bitcoin’s future is more as a payment method rather than a store of value, like gold.”

As the global demand for Bitcoin increases and major markets such as Japan demonstrate a rapid growth rate, the Bitcoin market will continue to outperform most assets and currencies.




Source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoins-market-cap-surpasses-that-of-goldman-sachs-at-95-billion/

[Bitcoin’s price isn’t a bubble]

JP Morgan’s chief executive Jamie Dimon, who earlier this year labeled bitcoin a “fraud” and stated that it would eventually be closed because it was “not a real thing,” was recently slammed by Bart Stephens, co-founder and managing partner of San Francisco-based venture capital firm Blockchain Capital, who said he should “do some homework” on bitcoin.

Jamie Dimon’s initial comments, that included him saying he would fire any JP Morgan employee trading bitcoin because it was both “stupid” and against the bank’s rules, have been met with a lot of criticism.

So much so, that a former JP Morgan executive told him to “STFU about bitcoin,“ and that a managing partner for a bitcoin market trading firm, UK-based Blockswater, filed a complaint with a Swedish regulator against him, as JP Morgan became one of the most active buyers of Bitcoin XBT, a bitcoin tracker fund listed on Nasdaq Nordic, following his comments. Dimon then swung at bitcoin again.

Now, Bart Stephens sees Jamie Dimon’s comments as “hypocritical and ignorant” as, according to what he told Fortune’s Term Sheet newsletter, he was speaking to JP Morgan clients about cryptocurrencies, while Jamie Dimon was making those comments, as stated in his tweet:

    While Jamie Dimon of @jpmorgan was bashing #bitcoin, his SF office was hosting @blockchaincap @PanteraCapital @BoostVC and @polychainfund 🤔 pic.twitter.com/0D6Ul1YSdy

    — Bart Stephens (@pbartstephens) September 12, 2017

He further referenced that other Wall Street CEOs, like Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein and Fidelity’s Abigail Johnson, actually make constructive comments on cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.

Stephens stated that blockchain and cryptocurrencies “elicited an emotional response from financial incumbents” and that the technology is, right now, controversial and misunderstood. That being said, he notably encouraged Jamie Dimon, and others, to “do some homework first,” he stated:

    “I would encourage Jamie Dimon and others to do some homework first. It is not a fraud. It is not a Ponzi scheme. It’s a robust technology that is going to impact multiple industries in an additive way. Don’t discount it.”

To Stephens, Silicon Valley has been ignoring “the tsunami” for too long, as many of his friends who are at VC firms tend to dismiss cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology because they don’t spend enough time learning about its potential.

Bitcoin’s price isn’t a bubble

While speaking to Fortune’s newsletter, Stephens also addressed ICOs. To him, people are focusing too much on ICOs, and too little on the underlying idea of a tokenized network, which enables entrepreneurs to finance their businesses in new ways by producing a token on top of the Ethereum blockchain.

He also added that, just like any other technology, ICOs can be misused:

    “Like all new technologies, ICOs can be misused. There will be fraud, just like there are frauds in the regular stock market. Just because a technology is misused or overheated doesn’t mean it’s not a really important technology. And again, the idea of tokenized networks is more important here, not the ICOs itself, the transaction which people tend to focus on.”

That being said, Stephens added that he believes blockchain technology is additive to the existing infrastructure, and will allow startups to take market share away from companies that choose to ignore the technology.

When asked how could a crash be avoidable if it was all just “one big bubble,” Stephens replied that, first, he didn’t think it was a bubble, and that if it was indeed a bubble, it wouldn’t hurt Wall Street and Main Street.

He further added that scale matters and given bitcoin’s $70 billion market cap, about the same market cap as PayPal, we would be talking about one of the smallest bubbles ever seen, when compared to the scale of other financial crises.



Source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/tech-vc-says-jamie-dimon-should-do-some-homework-on-bitcoin/

Bitcoin’s seemingly unstoppable surge to record highs isn’t deterring competitors.

Former Silicon Valley developers are working on at least two new versions of the digital currency. Basecoin is seeking to solve bitcoin’s volatility with a team of former Google Inc. coders that are building what they hope will be a more stable version of the cryptocurrency. Cypherium has former Google, Amazon Inc. and Microsoft Corp. developers building a blockchain that aims to be able to handle an expanded workload more easily.



Competition isn’t new for bitcoin as there are over 1,000 different blockchains, the technology used for verifying and recording transactions that’s at the heart of bitcoin. While many rivals such as ethereum also provide applications, others like zCash and monero already say they’re trying to improve upon the first and biggest cryptocurrency.

So far they haven’t succeeded in dethroning bitcoin. After briefly dipping below 50 percent of the total cryptocurrency market, bitcoin is back at its dominant position.

“When you have a whole new industry, competitors within that industry aren’t really competing with each other, they’re competing with the old industry and generally all boats rise together,” said Peter Van Valkenburgh, research director at Coin Center.

Basecoin’s investors include venture-capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, PolyChain Capital, Pantera Capital and Mark Cuban-backed 1confirmation, among others. The team aims to develop a central bank that’s based on algorithms, performing similar money supply regulation functions done by the Federal Reserve, except it’s on the blockchain, requiring no human discretion. The hope is to have a stable currency that will make commerce more viable than can be conducted given bitcoin’s wild price swings.

In the Cypherium blockchain, developers write smart contracts and do governance work off-chain, so that all the power can be dedicated to transactions. The aim is for the cryptocurrency to handle thousands of transactions per second, compared with bitcoin’s fewer than 10.

Newcomers will have a lot of catching up to do, as bitcoin continues to break new records, now towering above $5,000, as it shrugs off splits on its blockchain that stem from disagreements on fixing the very problems these new cryptocurrencies say they solve.

 


Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-13/bitcoin-competitors-are-being-built-in-ex-google-coders-laptops

[Bitcoin Price Briefly Hits $5,920 Before Minor Correction; Factors For Another Rally]

Bitcoin Price Briefly Hits $5,920 Before Minor Correction; Factors For Another Rally


Earlier today, on October 13, the Bitcoin price achieved a new all-time high for the third time in the past two days, briefly surging to $5,920.



But, subsequent to achieving the new all-time high, the Bitcoin price experienced a minor correction, likely caused by the sudden surge in the price of Bitcoin in the past two days, from $4,500 to $5,920.

Possibility For Another Rally, Analysts Look Toward $6,000

Analysts including long-time Bitcoin investor Tuur Demeester, Trace Mayer, and Samson Mow are looking ahead toward $6,000, expecting yet another strong rally from Bitcoin to emerge in the next few days.

In a previous article, CCN revealed three major factors behind the recent surge in the price of Bitcoin: rise in demand for Bitcoin from institutional investors, strengthening of the Japanese and South Korean markets, and the upcoming SegWit2x hard fork. The article delved into the role of institutional and retail traders in the mid-term surge in the Bitcoin price, but as Blockstream executive Samson Mow noted, the upcoming SegWit2x hard fork in November could play a vital role in the short-term price trend of Bitcoin.

Throughout this week, an increasing number of communities, companies, and miners including the South Korean Bitcoin community and F2Pool have publicly denounced the SegWit2x hard fork, expressing their concerns toward the fork.

As BitGo lead engineer Jameson Lopp noted, F2Pool, one of the member companies behind the NYA Agreement and the SegWit2x proposal, stopped signaling for SegWit2x.

    F2Pool stops signaling SegWit2X support. 15% down, 85% to go… https://t.co/iEjKn1gCgH pic.twitter.com/CU99EnnZ3j

    — Jameson Lopp (@lopp) October 12, 2017

While the majority of leading cryptocurrency exchanges and Bitcoin platforms such as Coinbase and Bitfinex have clarified that they will not list SegWit2x has the majority chain based on hashrate, several companies such as Xapo and Blockchain have revealed their intent to list the original Bitcoin blockchain as BC1 if it has less hashrate in comparison to the SegWit2x chain, despite the backlash and criticism from the community.

“There is a significant possibility that the planned hard fork will result in two bitcoin block chains. In this case, we will follow the chain with the most accumulated difficulty and refer to that chain as Bitcoin. If the minority chain has significant value we will make that value available for customers to hold or exchange for a period of time, as we did with Bitcoin Cash. If the minority chain is the one with 1MB blocks, we plan to call it BC1. If the minority chain has 2MB blocks, we plan to call it BC2,” stated the Blockchain development team.

Experts including Bitcoin investor and Atlanta Digital Currency Fund partner Alistair Milne have previously explained the flawed system of using hashrate as the sole indicator to justify the majority chain, as miners tend to follow profitable chains. For instance, upon the debut of Bitcoin Cash, most of the hashrate from Bitcoin migrated to Bitcoin Cash for a brief period of time before its difficulty adjustment. But, after the adjustment occurred, miners moved back to Bitcoin, as Bitcoin Cash was no longer as profitable as the original Bitcoin blockchain.

Communities and Miner Speak Out Against SegWit2x, Major Factor For Short-Term Price Increase

Because of these issues, miners such as F2Pool and communities like the South Korean Bitcoin community have rejected the SegWit2x hard fork in November. The South Korean Bitcoin community released an official statement which read:

“We, the Seoul Bitcoin Meetup, the largest bitcoin community in South Korea, founded in 2014 with more than 1600 members, would like to voice our staunch opposition to this November’s proposed hardfork. We are confident that BTC, the legacy chain, will not only survive this fork, but continue to flourish as the dominant Bitcoin network.”

The market’s confidence in the original Bitcoin blockchain and its long-term growth would likely position it for another strong rally, and a more stable platform to build upward momentum with the recent minor correction. More importantly, even if the SegWit2x hard fork occurs in November as planned, both supporters and critics of the hard fork would invest in Bitcoin to either express their support towards Bitcoin or to obtain the newly created SegWit2x coins (B2X) in October.



Source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-price-briefly-hits-5920-but-endures-minor-correction-factors-for-another-rally/

Governments around the world will “crush” bitcoin before long, according to two of the most powerful men on Wall Street, who argue that the only real value in the fast-rising virtual currency is as a tool for criminals and money launderers.

At a conference in Washington on Friday afternoon, Jamie Dimon, the chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, noted recent moves to curb the circulation of bitcoin in China and an initiative in Japan to launch an electronic currency pegged to the yen.

These were signs of authorities getting a proper grip on virtual currencies, he said, because “they like to know where the money is, who has it, and what you’re doing with it”.

“A fiat currency is when a government says, this is your legal tender, you have to give it and accept it, and of course the central bank can misuse it and inflate it,” said Mr Dimon, who has sat atop the largest US bank by assets for a decade.

“But what is the use case for bitcoin? You’re in Venezuela, North Korea, you’re a criminal. Great product!” he said, to gales of laughter from a room full of bankers, gathered for an annual meeting of the Institute of International Finance.

Mr. Dimon’s stance was endorsed on stage by Larry Fink, chairman and chief executive of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, who likened the price of bitcoin to an “index of money laundering”.

    "But what is the use case for bitcoin? You’re in Venezuela, North Korea, you’re a criminal. Great product!"
     - Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase

The price of the virtual currency, up about 7 per cent within the past 24 hours to a new high of about $5,690, “just shows how much demand for money laundering there is in the world”, Mr Fink said.

The remarks are likely to stir anger, and some amusement, among some bitcoin aficionados, who have argued that rapid price rises in bitcoin and other virtual currencies are symptoms of a broad collapse of faith in paper currencies.

The exchanges drew instant scorn from Marco Santori, head of the fintech practice at Cooley, a New York law firm, who described alleged links between bitcoin and criminal activity as a “demonstrably false narrative, long disproven, driven mostly by ignorance and wilful blindness, held by financial intermediaries losing their grasp on the market”.

   “Is bitcoin used by criminals? Of course, just like the US dollar,” he said. He noted that the 2013 shutdown of Silk Road, a bitcoin marketplace thought to be a hotspot for criminal activity, had almost no effect on overall trading volumes. He also cited a 2015 report by the UK Treasury, which put bitcoin “dead last” on a list of vectors for money-laundering, behind “every other payment method known to man”.

“There is literally zero data supporting the position that bitcoin is especially widely used for, or especially well-suited to, criminal activity,” said Mr Santori.

Mr Dimon began his rant mock-wearily, drawing a distinction between bitcoin and blockchain — the technology underpinning the virtual currency — which his bank continues to explore as a means of cutting the cost of routine, sometimes paper-intensive transactions. A day earlier, JPMorgan’s finance chief Marianne Lake had made similar noises, saying blockchain could “become very transformational for the financial services industry”.

Bitcoin then received the broadside from Mr Dimon, who appeared with his arm in a sling, following surgery on his shoulder two weeks ago.

“I don’t personally understand the value of something that has no actual value,” he said. “If you’re stupid enough to buy it, you’ll pay a price for it one day.”

The bank chief executive wrapped up by talking about his daughter — “my formerly smart daughter” — who told him recently that she owned two bitcoins. “This is the last time I’m ever going to comment on it,” he said. “I don’t care.”



Source: https://www.ft.com/content/1925f1ee-b04c-11e7-aab9-abaa44b1e130

Jamie Dimon is back on the bitcoin commentary bandwagon.

Just a day after declaring on a third-quarter earnings call that he would refrain commenting on the cryptocurrency, the JPMorgan Chase CEO offered a critical take on those investing in bitcoin.

"If you're stupid enough to buy it, you'll pay the price for it one day," he said today at an event hosted by the Institute of International Finance, according to a report from CNBC. During the event, he reportedly voiced support for the cryptocurrency's underlying technology – an area in which the Wall Street bank has undertaken a number of notable efforts, including the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance.

Per CNBC, Dimon also reportedly said that he "could care less about what [price] bitcoin trades at."

A report from Bloomberg includes additional details about Dimon's latest comments. He reportedly said that bitcoin is "great" for criminals, and that – in a refrain from yesterday – that it would be the last time he would comment on the subject.

"Who cares about bitcoin?" he was quoted as saying.

The remarks are the latest from Dimon, whose now-infamous comment in September that bitcoin is a "fraud" sparked a wave of commentary about bitcoin itself as well as the wider cryptocurrency market. Other Wall Street figures, including Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and ex-Fortress billionaire Mike Novogratz, have also weighed in on the topic.

His comments also come on the day that bitcoin's price rose above $5,800 to hit a new all-time high. At press time, the price of bitcoin is trading at about $5,689, according to CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index (BPI).



Source: https://www.coindesk.com/dimon-breaks-vow-calls-bitcoin-buyers-stupid/

[Jamie Dimon says if you're 'stupid' enough to buy bitcoin, you'll pay the price one day]

Jamie Dimon says if you're 'stupid' enough to buy bitcoin, you'll pay the price one day

>> Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, says Thursday he's "not going to talk about bitcoin anymore" after causing a stir in September by calling the digital currency a "fraud."

 >> But on Friday, Dimon responds to a question about bitcoin by saying if people are "stupid enough to buy it," they will pay the price for it in the future.

>> The banking executive did say he believes the blockchain technology behind bitcoin is valid.



JPMorgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon can't stop talking about bitcoin.

"If you're stupid enough to buy it, you'll pay the price for it one day," Dimon said in response to a moderator question at an Institute of International Finance conference Friday.

The CEO said he could care less about what bitcoin trades at. "The only value of bitcoin is what the other guy'll pay for it," Dimon said. "Honestly I think there's a good chance of the buyers out there are out there jazzing it up every day so that maybe you'll buy it too, and take them out."

Bitcoin hit a record high Friday above $5,800, up more than six times in price for the year.

On Thursday, Dimon said during a post-earnings conference call with media that he's "not going to talk about bitcoin anymore." The executive called bitcoin a "fraud" in September and said it "won't end well."

But the outspoken captain of industry apparently couldn't help himself.

Dimon did add on Friday that he believed the blockchain technology behind bitcoin was valid, but he does not understand the value of "non-fiat" digital coins, that is, digital currencies that are not backed by a government.
 
"Who cares about bitcoin? The world economy is so big," Dimon said, noting the bank moves about $6 trillion in money around the world every day.

In comparison, bitcoin only has a market capitalization of less than $100 billion. Twenty-four hour trading volume in bitcoin-U.S. dollars was $3.7 billion Friday, according to CoinMarketCap.

"This is the last time I'm ever going to answer any questions about bitcoin, because I really don't care," Dimon said on Friday.

"When I made that 'stupid statement' [calling bitcoin a] fraud, my daughter sent me an email saying, 'Dad, I own two bitcoins,'" Dimon then joked, "My formerly smart daughter."

Here's a transcript of some of Dimon's comments:

    "I could care less about bitcoin. I don't know why I said anything about it. The blockchain is a technology which is a good technology. We actually use it. It will be useful in a lot of different things. Gold bless the blockchain. Cryptocurrencies, digital currencies, I think are also fine. JPMorgan moves $6 trillion around the world every day, and we don't do it in cash, it's done digitally. If it can be done digitally with the blockchain, so be it. But it will still be a dollar cryptocurrency. What I have an issue with is a non-fiat cryptocurrency. So crypto sterling, euro, yen, they are all fine. I don't personally understand the value of something that has no actual value. You all can do whatever you want and I don't care.

    "I could care less what bitcoin trades for, how it trades, why it trades, who trades it. If you're stupid enough to buy it, you'll pay the price for it one day. I've also told people that it can trade at $100,000 before it trades to zero. Tulip bulbs traded for $75,000 or something like that.

    "The only value of bitcoin is what the other guy'll pay for it. Honestly I think there's a good chance a lot of the buyers out there are out there jazzing it up every day so that maybe you'll buy it too, and take them out.

    "I quite mean that by the way. People are very good at manipulating the press these days and getting news out. Every day, you have CNBC, nonstop bitcoin — Who cares about bitcoin? The world economy's so big, JPMorgan alone, $6 trillion, we move all this money, and bitcoin in total, all these currencies, $50 billion dollars, maybe a billion dollars trades a day.

    "The other thing I've always [said] about bitcoin, governments — and this is not a technological statement — governments are going to crush it one day. Governments like to know where the money is, who has it and what you're doing with it, in case you haven't noticed. Right?

    "And governments like to control their currency, like to control their own economy. So China's already put curbs on it. Japan, they say Japan accepted bitcoin. No they didn't. What I gather Japan did was they call it J-coin. It's a yen cryptocurrency. It's not a non-fiat [digital currency].

    "People have said legitimately ok, it's close to gold. Not really. Gold is limited, it's been around for along time. [People also say bitcoin is] close to a fiat currency. Not really. A fiat currency is when a government says this is your legal tender, you have to give it and accept it.

    "And a central bank — of course they can misuse it. The central bank [can also] inflate it. So there is a use case for bitcoin. If you live in Venezuela, North Korea, if you're a criminal, great product. I mean that. It's better than cash or deposits in that country. Cuba.

    "But this is the last time I'm ever going to answer questions about bitcoin because I really don't care.

    "When I made that 'stupid statement' [calling bitcoin a] fraud, my daughter sent me an email saying, 'Dad, I own two bitcoins.' My formerly smart daughter."



Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/13/jamie-dimon-says-people-who-buy-bitcoin-are-stupid.html

JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said he is no longer going to discuss bitcoin after much his-publicized criticism of calling the cryptocurrency ‘a fraud’ last month.

Noted bitcoin critic and Wall Street banker Jamie Dimon has been known to make dramatic statements about bitcoin, calling it a ‘fraud’ that will ‘get someone killed’. The chief executive of America’s largest bank by assets also said he would fire any employee trading bitcoin for being “stupid.”

In an earnings conference call today to discuss the bank’s third-quarter performance with journalists today, Dimon has revealed he will no longer make any comments about the world’s most prominent decentralized currency on a day when it surged to a new record all-time high.

Dimon told journalists:

   " I wouldn’t put this high in the category of important things in the world, but I’m not going to talk about bitcoin anymore."

Dimon did leave a parting shot at bitcoin, claiming JP Morgan moves “trillions of dollars a day…digitally. It’s not cash.” The banker has made similar statements belittling bitcoin in the past. In November 2015, Dimon said: “Bitcoin is like 2 billion dollars or 3 billion dollars. We (JP Morgan) move $6 trillion a day.”

In two years since those comments, bitcoin’s market cap has made significant strides due to an increase of awareness, adoption and trust, by people and even governments, around the world. The total value of bitcoins mined currently stands at $86.2 billion.

JP Morgan’s chief financial officer Marianne Lake added to the conversation, telling reporters today:

    "We are open-minded for digital currencies that are properly controlled and regulated."

Jamie Dimon’s comments are in contrast to those of other major Wall Street bankers who expressed more nuanced, open-minded positions with cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein publicly revealed he “is still thinking about Bitcoin” without “endorsing/rejecting” it after reports of the bank launching a dedicated bitcoin trading operation. In a public finance conference last month, Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman called bitcoin “a fascinating development, that’s certainly something more than just a fad.”


Source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/jamie-dimon-im-not-going-talk-bitcoin-anymore/

[Bitcoin Price Goes Meteoric]

The bitcoin price went meteoric on Thursday, surging past $5,400 to shatter the all-time high it set at the beginning of September.

Bitcoin Price Goes Meteoric

Bitcoin’s October rally continued today, enabling the flagship cryptocurrency to finally burst through the $5,000 checkpoint for the first time since briefly touching that mark on September 2. The last time bitcoin hit that mark, traders initiated a minor sell-off that evolved into a major downturn when China began prohibiting initial coin offerings (ICOs) and cryptocurrency trading just days later.

Today, however, the bitcoin price continued to swell after piercing the psychologically-important $5,000 barrier and setting a new all-time high. The bitcoin price has continued to climb on every major cryptocurrency exchange, and it has now risen to a record $5,419 on Bitfinex. This gave bitcoin a market cap of $90 billion; for reference, the total cryptocurrency market cap reached that mark for the first time on May 24 and had fallen to $98 billion as recently as September 15.



BTC Price Chart from CoinMarketCap

Bitcoin now accounts for nearly 55% of the total cryptocurrency market cap. This is staggering dominance, but trader and crypto economist Tuur Demeester predicts it will continue to rise, potentially as high as 60% within the next three months.

Traders Exhibit SegWit2x Skepticism

The primary factor driving the bitcoin price’s record rally appears to be skepticism that the controversial SegWit2x hard fork will be executed in November, or, that if it is deployed, the resulting blockchain will not be able to compete with the incumbent Bitcoin network.

Mining pool F2Pool, for instance, stopped signaling for SegWit2x today, becoming the first mining operation to officially withdraw support for the hard fork. If other mining pools follow suit, SegWit2x proponents would lose their primary argument in favor of the hard fork — that hashpower determines consensus.

Moreover, SegWit2x futures have exhibited dismal performance since Bitfinex listed them last week. At present, BT2 tokens (representing SegWit2x coins) are trading at just 0.185 BTC, while BT1 tokens (representing the incumbent blockchain) are valued at 0.823 BTC. Critics such as Olivier Janssens argue that the futures market is biased in favor of the original coin and is not a reliable indicator of support for SegWit2x, but others believe it demonstrates that the market is bullish on the incumbent blockchain.


Source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/5419-bitcoin-price-goes-meteoric-hitting-time-high/

[Bitcoin just hit a new all-time high above $5,100]

>> The price of bitcoin hit an all-time high of $5,386.23.
>> This was above the cryptocurrency's previous all-time high of $5,013.91 hit on September 2
>> Speculation that China could reverse the ban of cryptocurrency exchanges is driving sentiment

Bitcoin just hit a new all-time high above $5,100
 
Bitcoin hit a new record high Thursday with rising investor interest causing a rally for the price of the cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin climbed 11 percent to an all-time high of $5,386.23, according to data from industry website Coindesk. This surpassed the previous high of $5,013.91 hit on September 2.

With Thursday's gains, bitcoin is now up around 454 percent year-to-date.

Several digital currency enthusiasts pointed to increased investor interest in bitcoin ahead of a scheduled split in November. When bitcoin split into bitcoin and bitcoin cash in August, bitcoin investors at the time received an equal amount of bitcoin cash. However, not all digital currency exchanges immediately supported the offshoot currency.

Other major digital currencies mostly rose as well. Ethereum traded mildly higher around $305. Bitcoin cash, the offshoot of the original bitcoin, traded slightly higher around $316.

Bitcoin year-to-date performance



Source: CoinDesk

Investors also appear to have shrugged off much of the negative news from regulators around bitcoin.

Last month, Chinese regulators banned cryptocurrency exchanges with some of the largest in the country shutting down operations. The government also banned initial coin offerings (ICOs), a way for cryptocurrency start-ups to raise money through issuing tokens.

But reports have emerged in the last few days that trading in the world's second-largest economy could resume. A report by Cryptocoinnews.com, citing Chinese state-owned news company Xinhua, said that bitcoin trading will likely resume with more regulation. This could include new licensing and anti-money laundering regulations to be implemented by exchanges.

"Speculators are bullish on bitcoin's value with the anticipation of China's reintegration with global crypto markets," Aurelien Menant, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Gatecoin, told CNBC by email on Thursday.

Investors have appeared to look past some of the negative tones from big business leaders and regulators.

Putin comments 'water off duck's back'

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that "buyers of cryptocurrencies could be involved in unlawful activities," according to a Reuters report. Russia's central bank also said it would block websites of exchanges that are offering cryptocurrencies.

At the same time, business leaders have also poured cold water over bitcoin. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon called bitcoin a "fraud" in September but said Thursday in a call with media that he's not going to talk about bitcoin anymore.

"The bull is back in the market," Charlie Hayter, CEO of industry website CryptoCompare, told CNBC by phone on Thursday.

"Putin and Russia's comments were water off a duck's back whilst positive sentiment from industry players are driving long positions."

Rising support from large institutions could also be helping the cryptocurrency. Goldman Sachs is exploring a bitcoin trading operation, a company spokesperson told CNBC recently. And former hedge fund manager Michael Novogratz is starting a $500 million fund to invest in cryptocurrencies. Novogratz told CNBC earlier this week that bitcoin could hit $10,000 in the next six to ten months.

Another event is also on traders' radars. Earlier this year, bitcoin split in two, and a new cryptocurrency called bitcoin cash was created. Another so-called "fork" is on its way, which will result in another new cryptocurrency called "Bitcoin Gold". Some people holding bitcoin will receive bitcoin gold, which Menant called essentially "free money".

"Competing bitcoin forks, such as Bitcoin Gold are also encouraging more bullish sentiment as traders look forward to receiving more "free money" in November," Menant said.



Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/12/bitcoin-price-record-high-above-5000.html

Confidence in future gains for bitcoin remained high Thursday, even after the digital currency added nearly $400 in one day to hit a record.

The fact that bitcoin was able to hit an all-time high just weeks after a slew of negative news "signals to investors and traders that bitcoin is 'unkillable,' or at least remarkably resilient," said Ari Paul, chief investment officer at cryptocurrency investment firm BlockTower Capital.

Bitcoin has surged 450 percent this year to above $5,300 despite a split into bitcoin and bitcoin cash in August, heavy-handed Chinese regulation on digital currencies in early September and critical remarks from major Wall Street leaders.

If that history is any guide, investors are betting events in the next several weeks will bring further gains for bitcoin.


Due to disagreements among developers on the best upgrade model for bitcoin, the digital currency is scheduled to split, or fork, as many as two times in November. One upgrade, called SegWit2x, intends to increase bitcoin transactions speeds. The other, Bitcoin Gold, seeks to make the process of "mining" or generating bitcoins less dependent on specialized technology.

The original bitcoin will still trade after the splits, and investors in the digital currency at the time of a split should receive an equal amount of the new coin. Analysts also noted that investors were buying bitcoin in anticipation of receiving the offshoot coins from a split.

Alex Sunnarborg, founding partner of cryptocurrency fund Tetras Capital, pointed out that more developers are withdrawing support for the SegWit2x upgrade, indicating that the original bitcoin will remain dominant.

"With news around structured products, derivatives, and major institutional capital looking at the most liquid and established asset on the horizon," he said, "I remain extremely bullish on bitcoin and think we have significant further upside potential."

That said, few exchanges initially supported the offshoot bitcoin cash. The digital currency traded Thursday around $300, still a fraction of the original bitcoin's price.

Digital currency market watchers like Michael Novogratz, former macro hedge fund manager at Fortress Investment, have also cautioned that bitcoin shows signs of forming a bubble.

But Novogratz said Tuesday on CNBC's "Fast Money" that increased interest from investors will likely send bitcoin several thousand dollars higher to above $10,000 in the next six to 10 months. Novogratz himself is also launching a $500 million fund to invest in digital assets, which would be the largest of its kind.

Financial research firm Autonomous Next estimates about 75 such "crytpo-funds" now exist.

"We think cryptocurrencies are suitable tools for diversifying portfolios. And lots of trading firms are waking up to this fact," said Nick Kirk, quantitative developer and data scientist at Cypher Capital, a cyrptocurrency trading firm.

Other news Thursday added to positive sentiment on bitcoin.

A major U.S. digital currency exchange, Coinbase, announced Thursday it is rolling out instant bitcoin, ethereum and litecoin purchases of up to $25,000 from U.S. bank accounts. Previously, customers using their bank accounts to buy the digital currencies had to wait several days to receive them.

JPMorgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon also said during a conference call with media Thursday he is "not going to talk about bitcoin anymore," after calling it a "fraud" in September. The bank's chief financial officer, Marianne Lake, added that JPMorgan is "open-minded" about digital currencies that are properly regulated.

Bitcoin climbed 11 percent to a record high of $5,386.23 Thursday, according to CoinDesk.

Heavy buying from Asian investors has also supported bitcoin's price gains. Demand for bitcoin in Japanese yen accounted for nearly 60 percent of trading volume Thursday, according to data from industry website CryptoCompare. South Korean won-denominated bitcoin trading accounted for 8 percent of volume, while U.S. dollar-bitcoin trade accounted for about 26 percent, data on the website showed.

Even the Chinese yuan held about 1.5 percent of bitcoin trading volume, despite the closing of many Chinese digital currency exchanges last month due to pressure from the government.

A widely circulated commentary piece from China's state-backed news agency Xinhua last week also raised the possibility of China allowing bitcoin exchanges to operate under licenses.



Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/12/after-bitcoins-record-high-investors-bet-on-more-gains.html

[The wild swings in cryptocurrency investments]

Bitcoin bubble or just the beginning? Or both? Those are the questions being asked on Wall Street to Main Street after the digital currency breached $US5,000 for the first time, pushing this year's gains to more than fivefold.

As recently as December, bitcoin was trading at less than $US1,000. Since then, it has dodged everything from tightening regulations, feuding factions splitting its underlying blockchain and warnings from the likes of JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon of fraud and an eventual price collapse.

The wild swings in cryptocurrency investments

Bitcoin and Ethereum are just some of the digital currencies that have been on a tear this year. But it hasn't been smooth-sailing in the cryptocurrency world.

The latest leg higher is being driven in part by increasing institutional interest, with everyone from Goldman Sachs's Lloyd Blankfein to Dimon saying they're now open to ways to get involved. The change of heart comes amid growing optimism about the blockchain technology.

"This record is an exciting milestone and sign of market confidence in the outlook for bitcoin and the underlying technology," said Iqbal Gandham, a managing director at eToro. "We expect many more milestones like this to come."



Source: http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/bitcoin-mania-takes-off-as-cryptocurrency-surges-past-us5000-for-first-time-20171012-gz02a6.html

Rising price of the cryptocurrency, now worth four times as much as an ounce of gold, has led to warnings of a bubble



The price of bitcoin has smashed through $5,000 to an all-time high.

The cryptocurrency rose by more than 8% to $5,243 having started the year at $966. Bitcoin has soared by more than 750% in the past year and is worth four times as much as an ounce of gold.

But the price has been volatile. The digital currency plunged below $3,000 in mid-September after the Chinese authorities announced a crackdown. Beijing ordered cryptocurrency exchanges to stop trading and block new registrations, due to fears that increasing numbers of consumers piling into the bitcoin market could prompt wider financial problems.

ordan Hiscott, the chief trader at Ayondo Markets, said: “The returns are truly remarkable, especially given the recent ban on bitcoin trading in China, where demand had previously accounted for at least 10% of all global volumes.”

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, called this week for regulation of cryptocurrencies, saying their use “bears serious risks” such as money laundering, tax evasion and funding for terrorism. But he also warned against imposing “too many barriers,” which appears to have given bitcoin a boost.

Despite warnings over a bubble, bitcoin is gaining in acceptance. Last month, a London property developer, The Collective, said it would allow its tenants to pay their deposits in bitcoin and accept rent payments in the cryptocurrency by the end of the year.

Two weeks ago, Japan’s government implemented rules that recognise bitcoin as a payment method. Celebrities have also got involved, with the boxer Floyd Mayweather, the socialite Paris Hilton and the actor Jamie Foxx promoting coin offerings.

Using bitcoin allows people to bypass banks and traditional payment processes to pay for goods and services directly. Banks and other financial institutions have been concerned about bitcoin’s associations with money laundering and online crime because transactions take place anonymously.

The soaring value of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies comes despite growing warnings over a price bubble.

The starkest warning came from the JP Morgan chief executive, Jamie Dimon, who said bitcoin was a fraud that would ultimately blow up. Speaking last month, he said there was a limited market for the digital currency, arguing that it was only fit for use by drug dealers, murderers and people living in countries such as North Korea. He pledged to sack any JP Morgan trader investing in Bitcoin, but also admitted he had not been able to dissuade his daughter from investing.

Dimon declined to comment on the surge in bitcoin during an earnings call on Thursday. “I’m not going to talk about bitcoin any more,” he said.

Kenneth Rogoff, a professor of economics and public policy at Harvard University and a former IMF chief economist, has predicted that the technology behind cryptocurrencies will thrive, but the price of bitcoin will collapse.

“It is folly to think that bitcoin will ever be allowed to supplant central bank-issued money,” he wrote in the Guardian this week.

“It is one thing for governments to allow small anonymous transactions with virtual currencies; indeed, this would be desirable. But it is an entirely different matter for governments to allow large-scale anonymous payments, which would make it extremely difficult to collect taxes or counter criminal activity.”

Daniel Murray, global head of research at EFG Asset Management, noted that in 2013, bitcoin soared twelvefold in just four months but within a month had lost a third of its value and four months after its peak had lost 60% of its value.

“Investors buy [an] asset because they are seduced by the prospect of further rapid gains without necessarily thinking about intrinsic value,” he said. He noted that historically currencies were backed by precious metals, and these days most currencies were based on macroeconomic fundamentals such as inflation, interest rates and growth, and were backed by a central bank and government. None of this applied to bitcoin, although the supply is carefully controlled.

“It is hard to argue that bitcoin does anything better than existing currency arrangements whilst it does some things to a lower standard,” Murray added. “Individuals are already able to transact electronically using a plastic card.”
Since you’re here …

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Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/12/bitcoin-price-5000-cryptocurrency-gold-bubble

[Bitcoin Price Will Reach $10,000 in 6-10 Months: Billionaire Wall Street Mogul]

Bitcoin Price Will Reach $10,000 in 6-10 Months: Billionaire Wall Street Mogul




Former Wall Street giant turned billionaire private investor Mike Novogratz would not be surprised to see bitcoin price hitting above $10,000 in early 2018.

Michael Novogratz, a retired Wall Street investor and noted cryptocurrency advocate who is starting a $500 million crypto hedge fund – with $150 million of his own money – was speaking to CNBC when he revealed he was an early investor in ‘bitcoin, ethereum and a lot of different ICOs.”

Asked to put an estimate on bitcoin’s value in the coming months and years, Novogratz prefaced his take by stating “the herd [is] coming”, referencing several institutional investors getting into bitcoin – a decentralized cryptocurrency traditionally popular with the everyday retail investor.

He went on to predict:

    “I’m pretty confident to say it’s going higher…It would not surprise me if in the next 6-10 months we are over $10,000.

Novogratz was asked if bitcoin’s value gains constituted a bubble, to which he replied in the affirmative while implying that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“Historically, manias or bubbles happen around things that fundamentally change the way we live. If it’s the railroad bubble or the internet bubble, it really changed the way we live,” he stated. “This blockchain revolution, this decentralized revolution, is going to change the way we live. We’ve gone from [it being] an experiment to implementing.”

He added:

    10 or 15 years from now, blockchain and decentralized systems will be everywhere. Yes, it’s a bubble, it’s going to be the great manias of all time…Bitcoin happens to the bellwether of this entire decentralized revolution. It’s the easiest way people can get exposure to it. Bitcoin probably runs the hardest. But things like Ethereum will be the public utility of this new space. We’ve split our bets and we’re betting on a lot of other ICOs as well.

Novogratz hasn’t been shy in making price predictions for cryptocurrencies. Earlier in June, the billionaire investor claimed the entire cryptocurrency marked cap could reach over $5 trillion in five years.


Source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-price-scale-10000-6-10-months-billionaire-wall-street-investor/

[39-Year Old Father-of-3 Sells Everything for Bitcoin, Waits for Boom Time]

39-Year Old Father-of-3 Sells Everything for Bitcoin, Waits for Boom Time

The price of bitcoin has experienced a roller coaster ride in 2017, but that hasn’t stopped one man from selling everything he owns, believing that the digital currency will make him rich.

The man in question is 39-year-old Didi Taihuttu. Speaking with the Business Insider, Taihuttu explained that this summer he and his wife made the decision to sell the family house, the car, a motorbike, electric bikes, clothing, shoes, and the children’s toys. Now he and his family live on a campsite in The Netherlands.

He explained the move by saying:

    People will say, ‘You’re crazy.’ But we are an adventurous family and are going to gamble for a moment to live minimalist lives. If you never take a risk, life is boring.

Prior to selling everything, he and his wife had returned from a nine-month world trip through Asia and Australia with their three daughters. He was also spurred on after losing his 61-year-old dad from cancer.

During their travels, Taihuttu encountered many people involved with bitcoin. However, while he claims to have first become involved with the digital currency in 2010, he said he lacks ‘experience in trading.’

That, however, hasn’t stopped him from jumping straight in at the deep end.

Taihuttu, along with a friend, initially set up a business to mint bitcoin, but when the coin’s value rose in 2013 they sold everything. In hindsight, Taihuttu realizes how much more he could have made if he’d held on to the coins.

    If I had known then that four years later it would have been 10 times more valuable, then of course I wouldn’t have sold everything. But then I thought: I have to make a profit.

It was shortly after when bitcoin’s value dropped that Taihuttu turned his attention to Dogecoin, which, at present, is currently ranked 55th on CoinMarketCap. With Dogecoin’s value rising Taihuttu realized that there was something going on in the market.

After selling their processions – they listed their home for 85 bitcoins, which is currently being negotiated with a buyer – they now live in a chalet on a campsite in The Netherlands. For now the family are embracing the minimalist lifestyle; however, Taihuttu hopes that by 2020 his wealth with bitcoin will be worth by three to four times as much.



Source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/man-sells-everything-for-bitcoin-believes-it-will-make-him-rich/