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How to Check the Bitcoin Price, Hashrate, Data – The 21 Best Monitoring Sites

22/02/2020 by Idelto Editor

As bitcoin grows in popularity and recognition worldwide, resources dedicated to providing in-depth and diverse stats on all things crypto have exploded onto the scene and continue to proliferate rapidly. This post lays out 17 of the best sites, and divides them into basic categories such as checking price, viewing network visualizations, and more.

Also Read: How to Mine Bitcoin in 2020

Digging Into Bitcoin Data

The proliferation of data available to those looking to geek out on all things bitcoin, or simply check the prices with their morning coffee, can be overwhelming for sheer volume. In the interest of helping readers navigate this fun and a useful deluge of stats, facts, and knowledge, news.Bitcoin.com has sifted through some of the most beneficial sites, and organized them for your perusal. It should be noted that many of the sites listed provide multiple types of data, and there is often significant overlap between the categories.

Info-Rich Price Checking

Perhaps first and foremost on every bitcoiner’s mind is the price. As much as ‘number go up’ may be a silly meme mocking fair-weather crypto fans, when the number does go up, it nonetheless makes most everyone happy. The following are sites for checking crypto prices that also provide rich stores of data and a wide array of information for deeper analysis.

bitcoinwisdom.io – For a truly old school way to check prices across popular exchanges, and view corresponding charts, bitcoinwisdom.io is a solid choice. The classic site affords users the opportunity to check prices in terms of their preferred trading pairs.

bitinfocharts.com – Covering price, volume, transaction value, fees, block time, block size, difficulty, hash rate, mining profitability, and even wealth distribution — not to mention a plethora of other metrics like social media stats — bitinfocharts.com presents a wealth of information and charts all at a glance.

coinmarketcap.com – Many cryptocurrency users find Coinmarketcap especially useful for its comprehensive historical data section, allowing analysis back into the “ancient days” of crypto more than five years ago, and highlighting milestones such as highs and lows in the lives of various assets. Of course, the site and its mobile app are very popular for simply checking crypto prices as well.

markets.bitcoin.com – For a quick, clean check of prices with some interesting special features, the Bitcoin.com markets page is a handy resource. The Gainers & Losers tab shows at a glance which crypto assets are doing the best in the last 24 hours as far as increasing value, and which are not doing so hot. Further, featured SLP token performance can be monitored via the Featured Tokens tab.

messari.io – Much more than just a place to check prices, Messari specializes in research, news, and analysis, and like bitinfocharts.com, provides a wealth of metrics as well as advanced options for downloadable info, customizations, and access to professional research. Some of the features require a paid subscription, but the free information alone is fairly extensive.

Cool Network and Price Visualizations

Checking prices is nice and all, but what about bitcoin transaction and network data coming alive in the form of animated pictures and sounds? For the right-brained analyst out there, the following cool visualization resources are a nice aid in understanding Bitcoin network activity.

bitcoinal.com – Segueing nicely from the last section on price, bitcoinal.com provides a simple-but-fun, customizable price chart which depicts the current bitcoin price in terms of weather. When the price falls, a snowy scene is shown. Conversely, when things are looking green, a springtime scene appears. For those feeling down in bearish markets, just switch the time frame to a longer overview, and the sun will likely come out.

bitcoincity.info – Bitcoincity.info shows transactions as cities occurring “on the road to the blockchain.” Each city has different characteristics depending on the transaction data. Depending on the various values, colors, building size, and shape vary, and users can customize the display.

bitcoinmonitor.com – Probably the oldest such transaction and block visualizer out there, this site has been ticking since 2011, and shows transactions (higher values are higher on the chart) and the creation of new blocks.

bitlisten.com – Probably the most relaxing way to dig into transaction data, Bitlisten turns bitcoin transactions into wind-chimes, with larger transactions being lower in pitch. Users can even choose one of three instruments.

dailyblockchain.github.io – Another cool real-time transaction visualizer, reminiscent of peering into an electron microscope and watching tiny lifeforms (bitcoin transactions) proliferate in zoomable, massive space. Nodes and color-coded inputs and outputs are shown. — BTC transaction data at its trippiest.

fiatleak.com – Fiat Leak shows live conversion of various fiat currencies to crypto, based on the countries where the transactions originate. Tiny bitcoin orbs shoot out from fiat currencies at the bottom of the visual, and land in their respective nations, giving users a bird’s-eye view of the current global situation where fiat-to-crypto conversion is concerned.

Social Markers

Nowadays many in the space practically live on crypto Twitter and Telegram. They also consume mainstream media which increasingly covers bitcoin and cryptocurrency markets. As such, more and more sites have begun to offer data and metrics derived from social media activity and social perceptions.

coingecko.com – Coingecko has a handy feature for checking a coin’s social media status by analyzing stats from Reddit, Telegram, Facebook, and Twitter. The info is seated right next to coin price, making for convenient and quick reference.

Fear and Greed Index – Alternative.me has a handy crypto dashboard with a fear and greed index designed to “save you from your own emotional overreactions.” Viewing fear and greed over time can give bitcoiners an idea when the market is likely overreacting one way or another. Whether that means people panic-selling when they should hodl, or buying up everything at an unreasonably high price just before a correction. The index is formed via data from five areas: volatility, market momentum/volume, social media, surveys, and dominance.

lunarcrush.com – Lunarcrush.com is focused on “social listening for crypto,” with its own scoring system. The site lists some metrics viewable only with the creation of a free account, but the “Galaxyscore,” and a feed which ranks crypto posts across the web as bullish, bearish, or neutral, are available to view without an account. Lunarcrush also provides data on influencers in the space.

Hashrate and Hash Distribution

Seeing which mining pools wield the most hash power, and the respective hashrates for various coins, is another critical metric for keeping a finger on the pulse of crypto. Luckily there are some great resources available.

blockchain.com – Blockchain.com shows popular mining pools’ respective market shares (estimated hashrate distribution) in pie graph form, over intervals of 24 hours, 48 hours, and four days.

coin.dance – For bitcoiners interested in comparing multiple data points and seeing the respective hashrates of BTC, BCH, and BSV side by side, Coin Dance is an indispensable tool. The site provides data on daily average block sizes, transactions, transactions per block, daily average fees in USD and satoshis, daily bitcoin fee/block reward ratio, and total hashrate by mining pool, among others.

data.bitcoinity.org – A wealth of information and clean, data-rich charts can be found at data.bitcoinity.org detailing the various bitcoin mining pools and their hashrates. Price info such as bid/ask spread data across multiple exchanges is also viewable.

Specialized/Technical Resources

Heading to the deeper end of the data and analytics pool, the following sites probably aren’t for the average bitcoin fan who just wants to check the price and some other basic metrics, but they nonetheless provide important info relating to the bitcoin network.

bitnodes.io – For users wanting to check up on the status of bitcoin nodes around the globe, this site provides detailed info on active nodes as well as clean and beautiful visualizations of the bitcoin network. To check up on Bitcoin Cash nodes, bchnodes.online provides a similar resource.

luke.dashjr.org – This resource is a handy pie chart overview, listing bitcoin node branches.

statoshi.info – Not only is the name clever, statoshi.info is an open source node monitoring site featuring dashboards on bandwidth usage, blocks, fee estimates, function timings, mempool, and more. Statoshi.info is also notable for its clean layout and clear, easy-to-read charts.

txstats.com – Txstats.com (formerly p2sh.info) features over 20 dashboards for metrics such as BIP 11 output stats, BIP 69 stats, batching information, and bech32 statistics. The home dashboard shows the amount of BTC held in pay to script hash (P2SH) addresses and the number of P2SH outputs. The site boasts many other metrics, including info relative to the bitcoin block size debate.

Sites Dedicated to Bitcoin Cash

While many of the sites and resources above focus on bitcoin cash as well as bitcoin core, there are also plenty of resources especially tailored for analysis of the BCH network and price. Bitcoin.com’s Block Explorer allows users to check on the latest blocks, transactions, and wallet addresses on either the mainnet or testnet. Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP) tokens built on the BCH network can be explored via the SLP Explorer at simpleledger.info. For an extremely info-rich resource (which is also now available on Tor for privacy-minded users), the Blockchair Bitcoin Cash Explorer lists price, a reward halving countdown, node count, fee info, and a plethora of other metrics and data represented in a variety of lists and charts.

For fans of the aforementioned visualizers like Bitlisten, there are also sites like bitlisten.cash, for BCH. A fun way to watch network capacity and activity is by way of little people boarding buses at txstreet.com, which is useful for comparing the BCH and BTC networks in terms of fees, activity, and congestion. There is an abundance of detailed info to supplement the various elements of the fun, animated resource.

Monitor Away, Bitcoiners

As this post hopefully demonstrates, there is a veritable deluge of information, resources, tools, statistics, and services available for keeping abreast of all things bitcoin. There are of course many more resources than listed here, and finding cool new sites delivering unique metrics in a compelling fashion is part of the fun. So, whether one wants to check up on active nodes in the network, or simply see how many Big Macs their stash of ‘toshis can afford, the internet has got us covered.

What sites do you like to use for checking up on bitcoin price and network data? Let us know in the comments section below.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation, endorsement, or sponsorship of any products, services, or companies. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, fair use.

Did you know you can verify any unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction with our Bitcoin Block Explorer tool? Simply complete a Bitcoin address search to view it on the blockchain. Plus, visit our Bitcoin Charts to see what’s happening in the industry.

The post How to Check the Bitcoin Price, Hashrate, Data – The 21 Best Monitoring Sites appeared first on Bitcoin News.

BTC’s Market Share Drops Consecutively for 14 Days – Dominance Ratio Slides to 60%

15/02/2020 by Idelto Editor

Cryptocurrency markets have been climbing higher in value as coins like BTC have gained over 19% during the last 90 days. However, many other digital assets have seen much larger gains and BTC dominance has been sliding downwards consecutively for the last 14 days.

Also Read: Craig Wright’s $100B Theft Claim – BTC and BCH Used His Database Without Permission

BTC’s Ratio of Market Dominance Sinks to 60%

During the last few weeks, BTC dominance has dropped from a high of 70% to a low of 60%. The term and metric BTC dominance is the ratio of BTC’s market capitalization versus all the other coin market caps. So the current market valuation of the entire cryptoconomy is around $305 billion and BTC captures 61% of that today with a market valuation of around $186 billion. BTC has always been the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization and prior to February 2017, the asset captured more than 80% of the entire cryptoconomy for eight years straight. However, the video tweet below shared in 2018 shows how crypto dominance metrics can change drastically over time.

The evolution of the altcoin market share and BTC dominance #cryptocurrency #cryptosec #Crypto #cryptotwitter #altcoins #cryptotrader #cryptotrading #blockchain #btc #eth #bch #eos #ltc #xrp #bitfinex #cryptoexchange #binance #bitmex #crypto #cryptocurrencynews#cryptotrading pic.twitter.com/1IcerX7BHC

— Cryptosec (@vivasatori) September 15, 2018

After February 26, 2017, BTC dominance slid from 85% to a low of 40% one month later. At the same time, Ethereum (ETH) spiked to an all-time high of 31% of the cryptoconomy’s overall valuation and XRP was at 17%. A number of people believe that BTC’s rising network fees and clogged backlog (mempool) of transactions in 2017 and 2018 attributed to the decline. Alongside this, many crypto proponents and traders referred to the time as “alt season,” in which a variety of alternative digital assets reduce BTC’s share of the entire coin market cap.

After BTC dropped to a low of 40%, the dominance metric slid even lower in January 2018 as BTC dominance was around 33%. Since then, the digital currency has regained a lot of market cap dominance and BTC had risen to close to 70% on September 8, 2019. However, after the jump to 70%, BTC’s share of the cryptoconomy has been sliding once again. From September’s high of 70%, BTC dominance has dropped down to 60% on February 15, 2020, losing roughly 10%. The sliding metric has been due to other digital assets that have done far better percentage-wise as far as gains are concerned. For instance, during the last 90 days, BTC has gained 19%, but ETH jumped 52%, XRP 26%, BCH 82%, and BSV rose by 185% in that time period. BTC dominance has slid consecutively for the last 14 days straight to its current low and only today has it started to rise again slightly. It’s been one of the longest downward slides for BTC dominance since September 2018.

Are Market Valuations and Dominance Important Metrics?

Even though BTC dominance is a metric used by crypto market price aggregation websites, many proponents do not believe the data reflects any real value. Market caps only reflect the current worth of every coin circulating in real-time and some people think the data can be skewed. Despite the fact that a number of crypto proponents believe market caps and dominance are inadequate value metrics and do not necessarily reflect the project’s real worth, these metrics are used by the majority of crypto enthusiasts. In the early days, after assets like namecoin, ripple, litecoin, and mastercoin appeared, the website coinmarketcap.com was developed and the public were able to compare coins based on market valuations. There’s now a great variety of coin market cap aggregation websites that show similar data and provide other statistics too like trade volumes.

Despite some believing that market cap lists are not a good reflection of real value, individuals find the data very important. As mentioned above, investors believe there are significant reasons for BTC dominance declines, whether it was the network stress or alt season that prompted the decline from 85% to 33%. Market caps and dominance metrics show investors the level of risk involved as small-caps, mid-caps, and large-caps see different types of movements.

Traditionally, mid to small market caps are far more volatile than larger-cap cryptocurrencies and they can spike in price and drop in value very quickly. People view market valuation and dominance as a reliability metric because large caps usually present less risk to investors. Smaller crypto market caps provide investors with high-risk trading situations which can be good or bad depending on how the individual is trading.

The fact that BTC lost 61% of the dominance it commanded over the entire cryptoconomy between February 2017 and January 2018 is a metric of great importance to a lot of crypto enthusiasts. When BTC’s dominance climbed from 33% back to 70%, some maximalists and hardcore BTC supporters said that “altcoins were dying.” Although ever since this, altcoin values have been outperforming BTC by a long shot. Lesser known coins are also outpacing many coins in the top 20. BCH and ETH’s rise during the last 90 days did outperform BTC, but coins like presearch (PRE 2,641%), cryptaur (CPT 1,351%), htmlcoin (HTML 333%), vetri (VLD 322%), and Digixdao (DGD 308%) did even better.

Where do you see the cryptocurrency markets heading from here? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Disclaimer: Price articles and market updates are intended for informational purposes only and should not be considered as trading advice. Neither Bitcoin.com nor the author is responsible for any losses or gains, as the ultimate decision to conduct a trade is made by the reader. Always remember that only those in possession of the private keys are in control of the “money.” Cryptocurrency prices referenced in this article were recorded on February 15, 2020, at 9:30 a.m. ET.

Images via Shutterstock, Trading View, Bitcoin.com Markets, Twitter, coinmarketcap.com, Fair Use, Pixabay, and Wiki Commons.

Want to create your own secure cold storage paper wallet? Check our tools section. You can also enjoy the easiest way to buy Bitcoin online with us. Download your free Bitcoin wallet and head to our Purchase Bitcoin page where you can buy BCH and BTC securely.

The post BTC’s Market Share Drops Consecutively for 14 Days – Dominance Ratio Slides to 60% appeared first on Bitcoin News.

$10K Bitcoin Prompts Influencers to Call a Bull Market

13/02/2020 by Idelto Editor

Cryptocurrencies have gained significant value over the last few weeks and it’s causing exuberance among digital currency proponents. Now a number of traders and influencers believe bitcoin and other coins are in bullish territory. Despite the surge to $13K last July and the deep pullback that followed, BTC investors and influencers have no issue believing that crypto is on the threshold of another bull market.

Also read: XRP Still Third Largest Crypto by Market Cap After Founder Dumps 1 Billion Coins

‘Calling the Bull’ Is a Bold Move, But a Number of People Are Doing So After BTC Surpasses $10K

Bitcoin traders, analysts, and thought leaders on social media and forums seem to think that the crypto market is facing another bull run. Statements about a “bull market” and a possible “altcoin season” are littered all over Twitter and news articles about the cryptoconomy’s swift rise. You can find a number of crypto influencers explaining that the bitcoin bull market is overdue for a variety of reasons.

Some people claim the reward halving is pushing BTC’s price up, they say miner capitulation is over, the BTC hashrate has touched an ATH, and most of the non-ideological investors capitulated. Moreover, lots of crypto investors are stressing that “this time is different” even though they know calling a bear or bull market requires judgment and is considered a bold call. But this hasn’t stopped a number of crypto’s influential figures from doing so.

“Early signs of a bull market,” explained @American_hodl on Wednesday. “I am finding myself explaining bitcoin to skeptics and new entrants again. This did not happen during the bear. During the bear, it was just us here.”

Last bull market, this is how fast #Bitcoin moved:

$8k – $10k: 11 days
$10k – $12k: 7 days
$12k – $14k: 1 day
$14k – $16k: 1 day
$16k – $18k: 8 days

Now consider the fundamentals today vs 2017. The next bull run will be insane.

— Bloqport.com (@bloqport) February 10, 2020

However, other people disagree with American_hodl and the others who assume the market has turned bullish. Some individuals have certain price points that need to be obtained until they call the bull. “We aren’t in a bull market until we close above $10.7k,” emphasized @llamamarket. “So I’m patient but it looks more likely I was wrong about $5k at least at this very moment. I’ll keep everyone posted if/when I buy.” The specific price point at which a bull market occurs has been a trend lately and the crypto influencer Luke Martin touched upon the subject on February 6, tweeting:

Fun observation about BTC in a bull-market is the post each day stating: ‘Bitcoin isn’t bullish until we cross $10k’ which quickly turns into ‘Not bullish until we cross $11.6k’ which quickly turns into ‘Not bullish until we cross $14k,’ which turns into ‘Not bullish until…’

Bullish Pomp Tweets ‘Altcoin Season’ Phases, and Never Shorting the Bull

Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano, the well known cofounder of Morgan Creek Digital Assets has been talking about the bull run lately too. On Twitter, Pomp felt the need to give an “important message as we enter the next bitcoin bull market.” Pomp explained: “BTC is very volatile, you can lose all of your money, only invest what is ok to lose, Twitter is not investment advice, don’t buy BTC with credit cards, keep low time preference, [and] do your own research.” When BTC crossed the $10K zone, Pomp let his 309,000 Twitter followers know that he still thinks “bitcoin will hit $100,000 by end of December 2021.” In between all the social media and forum discussions about the bull market, a number of individuals say that “altcoin season or altseason” typically happens before the BTC bull market or comes in phases.

People underestimate how quickly Bitcoin will go from $20k to $50k and then $100k.

Most of the new people have never seen a full bull market. They have no idea how much Bitcoin will pump once it really gets going!

— Bitcoin Macro (@BTC_Macro) February 1, 2020

Managing partner at Blocktown Capital, Joseph Todaro, discussed the altseason topic and the next bull market on Wednesday. “This is the first altseason of the next bull market,” Todaro tweeted. “You only get 3 real altseasons: The early alt pump when bitcoin is still less than ATH (weak), the mid alt pump after bitcoin passes ATH ~$20k (strong), [and] the late alt pump as bitcoin marks cycle top (strong). Bitcoin just hit $10,000.” Todaro also quipped and said:

You know we are in a bull market when Peter Schiff refuses to tweet about bitcoin.

Despite knowing about the prior BTC price dump after July’s $13K high, bitcoiners everywhere are still calling the bull after the $10K position was reached. “Bitcoin is currently in an intense bull market and investors are getting excited,” another individual tweeted on Wednesday.

“Never short bitcoin in a bull market,” explained the BTC thought leader Whale Panda on Tuesday. “Never short bitcoin, period,” the popular Twitter account @Arminvanbitcoin replied to Whale Panda’s statement. Crypto Twitter influencer Paul McNeal from thecryptocurator.com tweeted to his 20,000 followers about the bull market situation as well: “Market Cap goes up – Bitcoin dominance goes down — Welcome to the bull market of 2020.”

What do you think about the investors and influencers calling the bull market or calling an altcoin season? Do you think that crypto markets and BTC prices are in a bull market right now? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation, endorsement, or sponsorship of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Price articles and market updates are intended for informational purposes only and should not be considered as trading advice. Neither Bitcoin.com nor the author is responsible for any losses or gains, as the ultimate decision to conduct a trade is made by the reader. Always remember that only those in possession of the private keys are in control of the “money.”

Image credits: Shutterstock, Twitter, Fair Use, and Pixabay.

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Bitcoin’s $10k Value Pushed Down by CME Futures Price Gap

10/02/2020 by Idelto Editor

Just recently BTC prices surpassed the $10,000 zone and held above that region for around 24 hours. Some speculators believe the price of BTC dipped below the $10k range on Monday, after the price aligned with the price gap on CME Group’s global market exchange. During the course of 2019, crypto traders have noticed that BTC spot market prices have seen quick surges and drops that leave a gap unfilled on BTC futures charts.

Also read: Bitcoin, Tesla Stock, Tron: How Warren Buffett Got His First Bitcoin

After BTC’s Quick Surge Over $10k, Spot Prices Dip Filling the Gap on CME Bitcoin Futures Charts

BTC jumped over the $10,000 price point on Saturday and touched a 2020 high of $10,180 on Sunday. The value dropped to $9,790 per BTC during the early morning trading sessions on Monday. Traders, analysts, and speculators have been noticing a trend that’s happened a few times since early last year and it may be the reason behind this quick price drop.

February 2020’s $10k drop to the $9,800 range follows the unfilled price gap that took place on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Bitcoin Futures chart. The gap appeared when CME’s bitcoin futures closed at $9,850 on Friday and when CME’s global markets opened again at $10,000 the negative action, or unfilled gap, brought prices down $300 in the blink of an eye.

This type of market action is called “filling the gap” or “closing the gap” when people analyze charts and price movements. Spot market and futures market prices can be different as derivatives investors are betting on the future value of an asset, while spot market traders are swapping assets in real-time. Cryptocurrency markets are rare because they operate 24 hours a day and seven days a week. The derivatives markets should grow mature with time and many people think that each market can affect each other by placing different types of wagers on each other.

$BTC still has a CME gap opened in the 8Ks which means we could see a correction.

I’m sharing this in-case anyone was thinking of fomo-ing into the #Bitcoin markets now.

High chance we fill this gap soon! 📉🎯 pic.twitter.com/iOkMGMC1S8

— Mr. Whale 🐋 (@CryptoWhale) February 10, 2020

So a gap forms when the price of an asset like BTC surges faster than usual and it leaves a gap on derivatives market charts while trading hours are closed. Because of this cryptocurrency markets can see a “close the gap” scenario because of the underlying cash markets that are running 24/7. Not only is this done with CME Group’s bitcoin futures but unregulated derivatives markets can be used to close the gap as well. For instance, the Twitter account Whale Trades noticed $2 million worth of BTC bought on Bitmex by a whale and wrote: “Wait for the bounce, then short the corn.”

Not the First Unfilled Gap Scenario

Monday’s action is not the first ‘close the gap’ scenario with BTC and the asset has seen a few unfilled gaps in 2019 as well. During the rally in June 2019, a few gaps were left behind but there were many gaps filled with price corrections following. At the time, traders didn’t know what to expect as gap closures could be bullish or bearish depending on market sentiment.

This breakout is the real deal. Fundamental investment activity is backing this $10k breakout. pic.twitter.com/IDWmhXX2Mj

— Willy Woo (@woonomic) February 9, 2020

This time around, unlike the surge in June, traders and analysts believe the $10k BTC price surge is the “real deal.” Onchain analyst and Adaptive Fund partner Willy Woo tweeted about breaking the psychological $10k zone on Sunday. “This breakout is the real deal — Fundamental investment activity is backing this $10k breakout,” Woo tweeted. Besides Woo, a slew of other traders believe this breakout is quite different than the spike last summer as well.

CME just opened with it’s 3th gap pic.twitter.com/KLnfdL5J6X

— RJ (@RJ_Killmex) June 23, 2019

Price gaps usually get filled but that’s not always the case and there can be a few forgotten gaps over a long period of time. There were plenty of gaps in 2017 when BTC’s price rose exponentially as the value jumped $1,000 in a single day and continued to do this for a couple of days in a row. Looking at the long term cycles of an asset, traders typically visualize forgotten unfilled gaps as strong areas of support or resistance. The gaps still exist, they were just never filled. Long periods of time doesn’t mean they can’t be eventually, as bears and crypto traders who love to short always focus on specific bottom targets.

Is that CME gap filled? Asking for a friend

— Ninja (@Ninjascalp) February 10, 2020

Right now spot markets and futures contracts on CME Group and other crypto derivatives markets charts indicate that prices are near equal. However, CME’s price quotes show that in March, April, and May predictions are in the $10,100 range.

What do you think about the gap closure yesterday and traders leveraging price gaps between derivatives and spot markets? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Image credits: Shutterstock, Tradingview, Twitter, Markets.Bitcoin.com, Fair Use, and Pixabay.

The post Bitcoin’s $10k Value Pushed Down by CME Futures Price Gap appeared first on Bitcoin News.

4 ‘Bitcoin Contenders’ With Zero Use Cases and Barely Any Infrastructure

06/02/2020 by Idelto Editor

Cryptocurrency markets and the industry are extremely competitive and many users believe a single digital asset will reign someday, and that it may not be BTC. Over the last few years, many holders believe the assets they hold are bitcoin contenders with coins like IOTA, EOS, ADA, XRP, and XLM being popular choices. However many of these cryptocurrencies see very little use and have seen their price values slashed enough to make any holder cringe.

Also Read: Market Update: Bitcoin Cash Shines as Crypto Markets Show Bullish Signals

Four So-Called ‘Bitcoin Contenders’

Recently the entire digital currency market capitalization has gained billions of dollars and a great number of people believe an “altcoin season” could happen before the next great bull run. There are definitely people who believe certain coins are BTC contenders. But belief is one thing and numbers often tell a different story as certain digital asset hopefuls are barely being used or have zero products.

The ones that are being used are significantly centralized, have frozen accounts, are plagued with bots and are still down more than 80% since their all-time price highs. Today we’re going to look at four specific digital currencies and see how they stack up to BTC’s market price and onchain performance. IOTA, EOS, ADA, and XLM have been hailed as bitcoin contenders in the past and data explains how they have been doing recently.

4 'Bitcoin Contenders' With Zero Use Cases and Hardly Any Infrastructure — A brief look at IOTA, EOS, ADA, and XLM social benchmarks, price, controversies, and onchain performance.

IOTA — Down 94% From Its All-Time High

IOTA or MIOTA is a “transactional settlement and data transfer layer” aimed at tackling the Internet of Things (IoT). According to the white paper, the system uses a new type of distributed ledger technology called “Tangle.” Developers call the system revolutionary compared to traditional blockchains thanks to introducing new consensus mechanisms. However, the chain has had a myriad of issues including halting for 15 hours during the last week of December 2019.

At press time, IOTA is worth $0.33 per coin and the value is up 30% this year but it’s down 50% against BTC. IOTA reached an all-time high (ATH) of $5.69 per coin 779 days ago and it’s down 94% since that point. The digital asset has around $29 million in daily trade volume compared to BTC’s $5.6 billion in 24-hour trade volume. The IOTA Reddit community has around 113,000 subscribers and 122,000 Twitter followers. The crypto economics benchmark from Coindesk gives IOTA 6.74%, which is lower than usual in comparison to most other cryptos.

Right now lots of people take issue with the downtime and centralization tied to the IOTA Foundation and the current direction of the project. IOTA community member social media posts show they are infighting frequently and IOTA leaders are battling as well. The 24-hour transaction data for IOTA is not something recorded on most data sites including Coin Metrics and bitinfocharts.com.

EOS — Down 80% From Its All-Time High

EOS or the EOSIO platform is another form of distributed ledger technology that was supposed to outpace BTC in the eyes of a few EOS believers. The EOSIO platform was released by the private company Block.one and today EOS is the seventh-largest blockchain by market cap. On February 5, 2020, a single EOS is trading for $4.49 and there is $701 million in reported 24-hour global trade volume. At today’s market prices EOS is down 80% from its ATH of $22.89 per coin.

As far as transactions per day are concerned, EOS has processed 1.7 million transactions in the last 24-hours according to Coin Metrics data. BTC has consistently held a rough average of 300,000 transactions per day since June. Despite the fact that 1.7 million per day is a lot more than BTC’s daily transaction output, skeptics estimate a great sum of EOS transactions are misleading and done by bots. Anchain.ai, an artificial intelligence security company published a report in the summer of 2019 that said a good majority of transaction volume stems from “malicious bot activity” on dapps (decentralized apps) and exchanges.

EOS is accused of the significant centralization of block producers and these entities have been scrutinized for “freezing” accounts. A great majority of block producers stem from China as well. The firm Whiteblock published a report that described the EOS chain as nothing more than a “cloud service for computation.” The EOS Reddit community has around 69,000 subscribers and the project has about 1,400 Twitter followers. This gives the project a social benchmark of around 4.4% according to crypto-economics data.

XLM — Down 92% From Its All-Time High

Stellar is a distributed ledger protocol that allows for digital currency to fiat money transfers and cross-border payments. The network is a fork of the Ripple (XRP) project and was initiated in 2014 by Jed McCaleb. Today, Stellar (XLM) is the 14th largest market cap and each XLM is trading for $0.06 per coin.

According to Coin Metric’s data, XLM has around 600,00 to 1.4 million transactions per day, which is larger than BTC’s 300,000 transactions per day average. Stellar’s social community has a 12% social benchmark with 106,000 Reddit subscribers and 280,000 Twitter followers. Similarly to XRP, the XLM chain has had its share of centralization controversies. In mid-December 2019, Stellar tried to give away 2 billion XLM, but alleged spammers made it difficult. So after they advertised the 2 billion lumen airdrop, Stellar only gave away 300 million.

A few months prior in May, Stellar’s chain stopped processing transactions for an hour. Researchers Minjeong Kim, Yujin Kwon, and Yongdae Kim predicted the outage a month before the chain halted. XLM touched an ATH at $0.93 per token and from that price point, the cryptocurrency is still down 92% today.

ADA — Down 95% From Its All-Time High

Lastly, the project Cardano (ADA) has been considered a bitcoin competitor since the project launched. ADA sees around 1-2,000 transactions per day according to Coin Metrics data. The project is a blockchain concept that was developed by Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK) and aims to offer smart contract services.

The Cardano project has a social benchmark of around 11% with 76,000 Reddit subscribers and 155,000 Twitter followers. The biggest issues people have with Cardano is the lack of usage and use cases. The community has also had difficulties in the past with the Cardano Foundation chairman. Users also complained about the time it took to develop the Daedalus wallet, as people had to store ADA on exchanges prior to its release.

ADA touched an all-time high in 2017 reaching $1.33 per coin and the asset is still down 95% from that price high. The asset saw around $32 million in 24-hour trade volume during the first week of February 2020. This month at $0.05 per ADA, the cryptocurrency is up 56% in the last year as the price sunk much lower during the crypto winter of 2018.

Overall, the data concerning these projects shows each one has certain pros and cons against BTC, but they certainly have a long way to go to even step near the biggest network’s coattails.

Do you think these four coins can compete against bitcoin? Do you consider them contenders? Let us know why you think that or what you think about this topic in the comments section below.

Images via Shutterstock, markets.Bitcoin.com, Coinmetrics, Coindesk’s social benchmark data, Fair Use, and Wiki Commons.

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