Joe Biden’s picks to head key regulatory agencies could redefine cryptocurrency policy in the coming years, although it’s unclear exactly how.

The Associated Press declared on Saturday that Biden, the Democratic nominee, beat President Donald Trump, a first-term Republican in an election that was marked by division and the continued spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the former vice president didn’t highlight crypto issues in his campaign, some of Biden’s supporters hope he will advocate for reform on tech policies, while major companies are hoping to escape antitrust investigations.

To be sure, at press time Trump had not conceded and protracted court challenges remain a possibility given the closeness of the race and the polarized environment.

The price of bitcoin (BTC) was down more than 4%, dropping to $14,840.10.

Close to three decades ago as a U.S. senator from Delaware, Biden introduced a pair of bills that would have outlawed encryption, inadvertently spurring the development of PGP keys.

Biden has so far kept a tight lid on who his campaign will nominate to key positions, but his top pick to run the U.S. Treasury Department is reportedly Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard, who is overseeing the Boston Fed’s research into a digital dollar.

Former Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler may also be tapped to help Biden’s team plan out oversight of Wall Street, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

“We’re not hearing many names floating around for the other positions,” Kristin Smith, executive director of the Blockchain Association, told CoinDesk last month.

There could be “a lot of change” in how the U.S. approaches cryptocurrencies under a Biden presidency, though it’s up in the air whether that is good or bad for the industry, Smith said.

“If we’re looking at the administration, I think our ideal scenario is to have someone with a strong familiarity with those positions,” she said.

John Collins, a partner at advisory firm FS Vector, told CoinDesk last month that while crypto is likely to be a low priority for the incoming administration given the economy and other pressing issues, the space should still have room to grow.


“Things like the crypto custody guidance for banks, I don’t see that going anywhere. I wouldn’t expect a Biden [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] to withdraw that but I also think it’ll be difficult to get some blanket acceptance of all token sales,” he said. “There’s an understanding though that financial services is changing and the regulatory structure needs to be dynamic and change with it, and crypto and digital currencies and open payment networks are a big part of that.”

Collins also said Biden’s term is likely to see political appointees who come from the crypto sector, which has been rare so far.

Indeed, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’s team already includes Ryan Montoya, the former chief technology officer at the Sacramento Kings, who oversaw the NBA team’s use of various blockchain-related tools and platforms, according to Decrypt Media.

What is your opinion on this subject?


Source Mickael Mosse Blog

While the United States prepares for the results of the 2020 Presidential Election, a number of data points and traders expect some significant cryptocurrency price fluctuations this week. Statistics from skew.com show bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility has increased to 59% while 3-6 month stats jumped over 62%.

The digital currency economy is hovering at around $388 billion, which is a giant jump from where it was during the last U.S. election in 2016. For instance, during the 2016 presidential race, the price of bitcoin (BTC) was around $709. Since then the crypto-asset BTC has seen a 1,802% return on investment (ROI). Another example is ethereum (ETH), which was trading for $10.83 per unit in 2016, now swaps for $382 in 2020.

For this election, a number of traders and a few points of implied volatility measurements suggest that crypto market participants expect a shake-up this week.

Data from skew.com’s “Bitcoin ATM Implied Volatility” chart indicates that the crypto asset’s options market expects big price fluctuations. Market players trading traditional finance assets envision a similar market shakeup following the U.S. election. At press time skew.com’s chart shows one month implied volatility has spiked and is now hovering around 59% today. Three-month stats have jumped to 62% and 65% for BTC’s implied volatility for the six month period.

Do you expect cryptocurrencies to be volatile following the U.S. election?
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Source : Mickael Mosse Blog

On October 23th, 2020, Payments giant Paypal had said its customers can now buy, sell and hold bitcoin and other virtual coins with the company’s online wallets.
The company also says its customers will able to use cryptocurrencies to shop at the 26 million merchants on its network starting in early 2021.

A report quotes the company’s President and Chief Executive Dan Schulman saying they hope “the service will encourage global use of virtual coins and prepare its network for new digital currencies that may be developed by central banks and corporations.”

According to a report, U.S. account holders can start buying and selling cryptocurrencies in “the coming weeks” while there are plans to expand “this to Venmo and some countries in the first half of 2021.”

The report adds that Paypal, which has secured the first conditional cryptocurrency license from the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), “will initially allow purchases of bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies called ethereum, bitcoin cash, and litecoin.” Paypal has partnered with Paxos Trust Company to offer the service.

I think that the payments giants’ entry is likely to spark the wider adoption of cryptocurrencies given its wide reach.
According to the report, Paypal “has 346 million active accounts around the world and processed $222 billion in payments in the second quarter.”

And you, what do you think of Paypal’s entry into crypto space?


*Source of information Mickael Mosse Blog

Venezuela says it will incorporate bitcoin (BTC) and litecoin wallets to its Patria’s Cryptocurrency Remittance Platform. In an update, authorities in the country say this move will enable Venezuelan citizens to formally receive remittances in cryptocurrency form. Many citizens of hyperinflation hit Venezuela already use bitcoin as a store of value as well as for cross border payments.
Do you think incorporating bitcoin into Venezuela’s national remittance system is going to help Caracas?
Source Mickael Mosse blog

What is Proof of Work (PoW)?
According to Mickael Mosse, PoW was the first consensus algorithm that emerged with the arrival of Bitcoin (BTC) in 2008 and presented by the unknown Satoshi Nakamoto, but in itself, this type of consensus technology had already been conceived many years in the past, such as HashCash by Adam Back.

The Proof of Work algorithm describes a system that requires an amount of effort or work, not insignificant but feasible, to deter malicious agents from taking an action, be it attacking the Bitcoin blockchain network, or performing a 51% attack.

How does the PoW algorithm work?
We know that Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency backed by a distributed ledger known as a blockchain. This blockchain network contains the record of all past Bitcoin transactions organized by registered blocks one after the other so that no unsuspecting user or the malicious attacker can reverse, change or alter any of the transactions added to the blockchain.

To prevent this from happening, the blockchain is totally public and distributed, which means that anyone with internet access can observe all the historical records of BTC, and distributed because it is not stored in any central server, but in the computer of those people who believe and trust cryptocurrencies, or nodes.

This causes an altered version of the blockchain in any part of the world to be quickly discarded, as it would not be in consensus with all other versions.

Blockchain and freedom of exHashes, a large number of strings, and infinite security

The way in which the blockchain, through the Proof of Work algorithm, detects possible manipulations is through hashes, which is the same as long lines of numbers that are proof that the work was accomplished. Which job? That each transaction is unique and was correctly validated by most of the nodes of the blockchain, and therefore it is the same and will always be the same for eternity.

In the event that a transaction has been altered by one party, a completely different hash will be generated, and therefore, as transactions are recorded in subsequent blocks, on-chain, an avalanche effect will occur and a different hash will be generated in all subsequent transactions, resulting in a totally unrecognizable blockchain, and therefore not in consensus with the public and distributed version that most nodes have.

An effort not insignificant but feasible
Generating any sequence of random numbers to validate Bitcoin transactions would be incredibly easy for any modern computer, it is here that what was mentioned at the beginning comes into play, let’s remember that “the Proof of Work algorithm describes a system that requires an amount of effort or work, not insignificant but feasible ”.

An effort or work not insignificant (difficult) but feasible are the keywords, since the Bitcoin blockchain network, for example, establishes a level of difficulty to obtain this verification number.

Specifically, in Bitcoin, the network is programmed so that on average 1 block is validated every 10 minutes. Adjusting the difficulty is accomplished by setting a “target” for the hash: the lower the target, the smaller the set of valid hashes, and the more difficult it will be to generate a valid one.

The miners come into play
Finding a hash number is difficult and highly costly so the PoW algorithm requires a miner to use great computing power to encode the block data and find the solution. It is so much the necessary computing power that the electricity consumption for it is becoming one of the main costs for the miners, and a problem for the ecological and environmental organizations.

Encoding the data of each block (Hashing) means that the miner passes the data of the block over and over again through the hash function, in its attempt to generate the hash of the block.

The block hash works as a unique fingerprint, which identifies the input data and is unique for each past and future block, so the miner will have to provide random data, pass it through the Bitcoin hash function, or any other cryptocurrency, and that at the end matches the hash of the block.

If not, you will have to change your data slightly to get a different hash. Changing even one character in your data will result in a totally different result, so there is no way to predict what an output might be. As a result, if you want to create a block, you are playing guessing.

Bitcoin mining
In short, mining is the process of collecting data from the Blockchain and analyzing it until a particular hash is found. If it finds a hash that meets the conditions set by the protocol, it will transmit the data to the network and you will be paid for your work.

Mining is a competitive process, but it is more of a lottery than a race, and the more computing power you have, the more accumulated computers or the best technology the more chances you have of winning the reward.

This is why miners are grouped into pools to increase their chances of getting the magic number of the hash, which allows validating the block, including it in the chain and receiving the precious reward, which in the case of Bitcoin, is the only way that new BTC is minted.

The article was written By Mickael Mosse — Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Advisor

Let’s demystify the next three myths about crypto trading by Mickael Mosse’s explanations.

The stop-loss configuration is a not needed tool. False.

The configuration of the “stop-loss” is a vital order that traders can determine into their trading plan. Its function is to protect against losses of funds.

Mickael Mosse says, in the case of cryptocurrencies, this order is paramount thanks to their volatility. It means that the price of cryptos can go up right now, and in one hour, it could drop in a flash because of the market movement.

For example, you buy Bitcoin, and you place a stop-loss of 5% below the original purchase price. If Bitcoin drops during your operation, that stop-loss order gets activated. That crypto will sell as that order avoiding the loss of your bitcoins.

We agree that it is better to take a small loss today and continue trading “slowly but surely” tomorrow, than holding crypto that is losing value over time.


Technical analysis VS fundamental analysis, both are useful tools. True.

According to Mickael Mosse, traders use two different points of view to make their market movements:

Technical analysis, which involves knowing how to read a variety of indicators and market statistics.
Fundamental analysis refers to being informed about financial news and company numbers to make decisions from there.
Technical analysis is a way to evaluate investments and identify trading opportunities regarding price trends and patterns charts. In simple words, it is about analyzing statistics and data from the market to know when is the perfect moment to buy and sell assets and get profit from it, says Mickael Mosse.

Fundamental analysis is a method to determine if a stock’s value is fair enough compared with the market price. With this, a trader studies any factor affecting the asset’s security from the economic facts and flash financial or political news.

These elements can be contrasted or considered complementary to having a global perspective of the market, knowing the historical price patterns and stock trends, and reviewing a company’s financials and world economic view.

Take-profit set up is an additional. False.

Take-profit is a trading limit order that indicates the exact price to close out an open position to profit from it. It is a limit order because it closes when it reaches the specified profit level. It is, says Mosse, an excellent tool for traders who want to profit from a quick market bump in the short-term. In general, traders can decide about a stop-loss or a take-profit order depending on their level of training, experience, trading plan, and risk management, according to Mickael Mosse.
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By Mickael Mosse, Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Advisor
You can find more articles and advice about crypto, trading and blockchain on Mickaelmosse.com.

In the volatile world of cryptocurrency, latency becomes even more important than ever before, as prices can move swiftly in a matter of seconds. Furthermore, extremely low latency will be essential in bringing institutional money into these platforms.

The digital nature of cryptocurrency, not to mention the hype and uncertainty that surrounds the majority of the space, can lead to substantial volatility in crypto markets. Only a few seconds can make a huge difference in how successful a strategy is. More than ever, traders need to know that their trades are being posted as quickly as possible. 

Another latency issue that users encounter on cryptocurrency exchanges comes from a lack of standards or uniformity. One exchange may have great infrastructure and speed, while others are lagging behind. This can cause headaches, as many traders interact with multiple platforms, especially arbitrage traders who seek to make a profit from price discrepancies across different markets. These opportunities don’t last long, and having low latency is essential to be able to capitalize on them.

These issues with performance don’t only affect individual human traders. The cryptocurrency space is currently being broken into by institutional investors, and if this trend is going to continue, there needs to be platforms that can cater to high-end customers. Institutions are already expecting the best and fastest services, and only platforms that offer this will be able to attract their business.

This is partly because of a trading technique that is now becoming widely used in the world of digital assets, known as algorithmic trading. Here, trades are made by computers that have been programmed to follow specific strategies. With humans, speed was already essential for being ahead of the competition, but automated trades have pushed this to the extreme and given rise to what is known as high-frequency trading, or HFT.

The biggest Bitcoin transaction in history was sent literally just now!

88,857 $BTC worth $1,15 billion!
(https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/d486aeb0e59181fd1addb4aa69ce04d638188fc1125c424899267e8ed6a8af24)

The ridiculously low fee was $3,54

In comparison, fees charged for this transaction would be:
• Paypal, if international: $50,737,750.32
• Paypal, if domestic: $33,440,790.09
• Stripe: $34,439,536.65

Yeah, this makes the $BTC hype A LOT more tangible.

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