Cryptocurrency has strayed from its anonymous roots. Today, cults of personality and public histrionics define the sector.n
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Harvard University Stages Digital Currency Wars Crisis Simulation
n Harvard Universitys Digital Currency Wars simulation considers a hypothetical future crisis scenario involving a DPRK nuke purchase facilitated by a digital yuann
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Creativity and Value Will Win the Cryptocurrency Exchange Wars
The American gold rush was marked by a host of hard times and a few sudden millionaires. Men gave up everything to travel to California in hopes of striking it rich. But the man who really struck it rich during the gold rush was Levi Strauss, a simple tailor who made tough cotton pants for the miners.
In the 21st century, the digital gold rush has begun with the creation of cryptocurrencies, and particularly Bitcoin. Early adopters owned thousands of Bitcoin, and these few devotees are now massively wealthy.
As the market has grown, however, the major winners in the space have been companies and individuals who offer services to the Bitcoin faithful. Among these service providers, cryptocurrency exchanges are some of the most lucrative.
However, where profit can be made, competition is sure to follow. As the digital gold rush continues, some question exists as to who will win the war to dominate the cryptocurrency exchange market. A number of exchanges have sought to take a bite out of the market. The key, to date, has been a focus on creativity and value.
Creative conquerors
Creative offerings and marketing strategies have already appeared to work in bringing attention to exchanges. Consider, for example, the creative approach Binance took to bring attention to their exchange platform.
The company offered YouTube influencers a 0K prize for those who could create the best and most helpful video about how to trade on the platform. The result was a massive number of new traders, and a substantial number of videos, all of which focused on bringing new traders to Binance.
The traction from this simple but creative marketing plan produced a huge amount of news time, and subsequently, new users. Binance trading numbers increased dramatically with the increased traffic—a sure signal that creativity in the market will produce results.
Other smaller companies are offering creative solutions as well. For example, Nominex, a newcomer to the exchange world, is creating a referral program that will drive business in a similar way.
The Nominex Affiliate Program allows users to share a referral link with friends or spread the word about Nominex through media and community. Each referral receives a bonus, and there’s no limit to the number of referral levels users receive bonuses from. This is unlike any other exchange where those numbers are generally limited to 2 to 3.
Value proposition
Beyond creativity, as the number of exchanges on the market explodes, cryptocurrency traders are increasingly looking for genuine value. Beyond simply fast trades and low fees, traders are seeking a value proposition that moves beyond the simple offerings of early exchanges.
Again using Nominex as an example of a relative newcomer, the company has offered a series of token distributions for early adopters. First, for a month after the opening of the exchange, all users will receive 100% cashback on all trading fees, paid in NMX, the Nominex native token.
Second, after this first phase, the company will continue returning a portion of trading fees as a pool paid to users each day. These bonuses will be paid on a percentage basis of total transaction volume. For example, if a user had 1% of all transactions on a given day, he would receive 1% of the pool.
Other larger exchanges are seeking to create similar value propositions as well. Again, turning to Binance, the company has begun offering up to 8% interest on its BNB native token for those who use the platform’s credit card.
What’s more, the company has also offered to pump certain tokens and companies for free. The main incentive for Binance is to bring a larger user pool onto the site, and the smaller companies (like the recent addition of Perlin) benefit from having the juggernaut crypto exchange on their side.
Junk or jeans?
The future of the cryptocurrency exchange market is still up in the air. But the reality that the market will continue to grow and change can’t be denied. Nevertheless, the power for growth in the market must come from creative marketing concepts and genuine value propositions for users.
Just as in legacy financing options, companies must begin finding ways to differentiate themselves. Whether through referral programs, incentivized marketing, or bonuses on their respective networks, the future winners of the digital gold rush will be like Levi Strauss—selling the best products and the best prices.
The post Creativity and Value Will Win the Cryptocurrency Exchange Wars appeared first on NewsBTC.
Three Fronts in the Global Digital Currency Wars
There are now several competing approaches to building a new financial system, writes Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire. Which will governments embrace
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Currency Wars Bullish for Bitcoin Price? Optimistic Investor Thinks So
While Bitcoin (BTC) in the wake of the Great Recession, the cryptocurrency has never lived through a macroeconomic imbroglio or geopolitical spats.
Related Reading: Goldman Sachs Predicts US-China Trade War to Continue into 2020, Will It Benefit Bitcoin?
But, ten years after the recession that shocked the world, Bitcoin is about to experience all the motions of a global crisis. And according to a number of prominent investors and analysts, this can only be good for the price of a decentralized, scarce, digital asset like BTC.
Bitcoin to Gain Steam in Currency War
Over the past few months, China has been duking it out with the United States. The two economic superpowers have been imposing tariffs on each other, resulting in dramatic tumult in the stock market and the relative value of their respective currencies.
Throughout all this, Bitcoin has managed to stay strong. As reported by NewsBTC previously, since this latest trade spat started in May, BTC has gained over 100%. During the same time frame, the average asset class that Grayscale Investments analyzed has shed 0.5%.
Goldman Sachs just called for a massive #bitcoin breakout. @BKBrianKelly gives his take. pic.twitter.com/mUGJd80HG1
— CNBC's Fast Money (@CNBCFastMoney) August 12, 2019
According to Brian Kelly, the in-house cryptocurrency bull and investor on the CNBC “Fast Money” panel, this is far from the end of Bitcoin’s outperformance.
Speaking to the panel on Monday, the BKCM chief executive officer claimed that macro funds and other investors in this class have begun to use Bitcoin as a “hedge” against a currency crisis.
What’s interesting is that analysts are currently charting a currency crisis. Just yesterday, this outlet reported that the Argentinian Peso had shed approximately 20% of its value. Raoul Pal, a former Goldman Sachs hedge fund executive, claims that this is just the tip of the iceberg.
The Bitcoin bull noted that the Fed Broad Trade Weighted Dollar Index, which tracks the performance of the U.S. Dollar, is about to break past 130 for the first time ever. Simultaneously, the Asia Dollar Index, which tracks the region’s biggest currencies, is on the “CLIFF OF DEATH”, and is poised to fall by over 20% should a long-term head and shoulders pattern break.
Also, there has been talk of a devaluation war between the U.S. and China, which will see the two nations try and devalue their currencies.
Should the crisis happen, BTC should surge, according to the theses of Kelly, Pal, and their peers on Wall Street and on Crypto Twitter. As Kelly explained to CNBC viewers:
“This is the perfect storm for Bitcoin. You have multiple currencies around the world breaking down at the same time that institutional investors are actually embracing this asset class. So the combination of the two things has funneled all the money into Bitcoin.”
Not the Only Macroeconomic Factor to Boost Crypto
The currency crisis that is currently storming isn’t the only macroeconomic factor that may be a boon for Bitcoin.
Here’s a brief list of some of the many issues (most of which deserve their own articles in and of themselves): over trillion worth of negative-yielding bonds (debt), most of which is high-grade; a dovish Federal Reserve that recently cut rates for the first time since the Great Recession; Brexit and other turmoil in the European Union; and currency crises in places like Venezuela, where Bitcoin has already taken grip of the economy.
According to Fundstrat’s Tom Lee, all this is preparing Bitcoin to experience new all-time highs in the near future.
Featured Image from Shutterstock
The post Currency Wars Bullish for Bitcoin Price? Optimistic Investor Thinks So appeared first on NewsBTC.
BCH/USD Price Analysis: Bitcoin Cash Wars Force Giga Watt to File for Bankruptcy
Earlier, Jihan Wu had warned that re-deploying hash rate from Bitcoin network to support Bitcoin Cash ABC could lead to a massive sell off across the market more so in BTC. We are already seeing that print and as BCH/USD prices drop days after forking, Giga Watt is unable to pay creditors.
Latest Bitcoin Cash News
Not only are payment processors, chip-set manufacturers and coin hodlers bleeding but the situation is so dire, Giga Watt is has cash flow problems. It has already filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection meaning the law shall take its course allowing for proper reorganization of Giga Watt’s affairs, assets—of around ,000 and debts whose estimates place at around million to million.
Read: Markets Steady After Yesterday’s Plunge, Analyst Says Bitcoin Is Nearing a Buy Zone
Under the law, the mining firm won’t be liquidated. Instead as the law dictates–the management or a trustee might step in to operate on behalf of 20 unsecured creditors claiming million. At the moment, we aren’t sure whether Andrey Kuzenny—one of the company’s directors owning 10 percent of the firm will continue calling shots or if someone outside the company will take over. However we know the meeting announcing their bankruptcy filing protection was convened by him.
Interesting Read: Huobi Plays Party Line in China, Creates Communist Committee
Although worsening market conditions are obvious contributors, Giga Watt’s plans are grand if not over ambitious. Describing themselves as the Best home for Computing Power the Washington based “world’s first full-service specialized compute power provider” aim was to be a major player in North America crypto mining.
Boosting an impressive resume with 50MW of infrastructure power capacity in operation, complete transparency and offering extraordinarily low effective electricity cost of around 2.8 cents per KWH for mining different coins including BCH via S9 miners.
BCH/USD Price Analysis
Weekly Chart
While most exchanges as BitFinex are yet to re-activate BCH/USD trading, losses are huge all thanks to this expensive ABC and SV hash war. From statistics, BCH is down 55 percent in the last week and is now trading at new lows at 5.
Of course, fading the market is the last thing on our mind and though prices could recover, it mostly depends on how the hash rates between CSW and ABC diverge.
Should the gap narrow or CSW eclipse that of ABC as the number of full nodes running the SV client increase then BCH could drop to super new lows—perhaps below 0.
Daily Chart
What we have in the daily chart is a bear break out pattern. In the aftermath of the hard fork, BCH prices almost halved dropping from 0 to 0 but are now stable.
Nonetheless, this shouldn’t be interpreted as positive because as long as prices are trading below this resistance previous support at 0, sellers are in charge. Therefore, as price action dictates, we recommend selling BCH on every pull back in lower time frames and let the trade run in exchanges that allow BCH trading.
For safe trading, fitting stops should be around 0. In case they are hit then traders would revert back to neutral waiting for convincing pull backs triggering sells and subsequent drop of BCH prices below Nov 20 lows.
All Charts Courtesy of Trading View
Disclaimer: Views and opinions expressed are those of the author and aren’t investment advice. Trading of any form involves risk and so do your due diligence before making a trading decision.
The post BCH/USD Price Analysis: Bitcoin Cash Wars Force Giga Watt to File for Bankruptcy appeared first on NewsBTC.
Blockchain’s Killer App? Making Trade Wars Obsolete
A confluence of technologies is poised to dramatically reshape manufacturing and, in the process, render obsolete the international trade regime.
CoinDesk