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Market Update: Traders ‘Buck the Trend’ Pushing Crypto Market Cap Above $200 Billion

07/04/2020 by Idelto Editor

Digital currency markets have been rising again as the entire market capitalization of all 5,000+ coins has jumped above the $200 billion mark. The increase in crypto trade volume and coin values has followed alongside the recovery traditional equity markets saw on Monday. On Tuesday, most of the digital assets in the top ten are up between 4-14% and crypto trade volumes have doubled in the last 24 hours.

Also read: Hyperbitcoinization: Visions of Bitcoin Fueling the Post Covid-19 Shadow Economy

Top Ten Crypto Assets Gain 4-14% in the Last 24 Hours

During the last few weeks, digital currency proponents and crypto traders have been wondering what will happen to bitcoin and the slew of other coins in the crypto industry. For instance, the entire cryptocurrency market capitalization lost a whopping $44 billion on March 12, 2020, otherwise known as ‘Black Thursday.’ BTC prices dropped to a low of $3,870 on March 12. The following day, BTC regained some of the losses when it was hovering between $5,300-5,600 per coin on March 13.

Since then, BTC has gained 30% since the low and on April 7, prices are currently meandering between $7,300-$7,425 during Tuesday morning’s trading sessions. BTC has gained about 4% in the last 24 hours and the coin is up 15% for the week. Ethereum is priced around $174 per ETH and has gained 13.3% today. Behind ETH is XRP, which is swapping for $0.20 per coin as XRP markets are up by 6.8%.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH/USD) Market Action

Bitcoin cash (BCH) is trading for $259 per coin today and has gained 7.2% in the last 24 hours. BCH is up 18% for the week and has also gained 8.5% during the last 90 days. The top trading pair with BCH on Tuesday is tether (USDT), which is capturing around 63% of all BCH trades. This is followed by BTC (20.71%), USD (9.42%), KRW (2.19%), ETH (1.65%), EUR (0.91%), and JPY (0.82%).

Bitcoin cash has a liquid market cap that’s hovering around $4.8 billion on Tuesday, and BCH is the fifth most trade crypto below EOS and above LTC. BCH reported trade volume is around $4.8 billion, but messari.io’s “real volume” statistics note it’s around $35 million. In 22 hours, BCH will be the first major SHA256 branch to experience a halving. After April 8, BCH miners will go from receiving 12.5 coins per block to 6.25 BCH, plus transaction fees.

Digital Currency Market Prices ‘Buck the Trend’

Market analyst from Etoro, Simon Peters, noted in a recent investors’ report that last week’s financial data was far more worrisome than this week’s changes. “Economic data released last week was worrying, to say the least,” Peters wrote. “Midweek figures revealing a drop in exports from big Asian economies, such as Japan and South Korea, hit equity markets globally, resulting in the S&P 500 and the FTSE 100 both dropping considerably.” Peters remarked that cryptocurrency markets, however, have managed to “buck the trend.”

“From a crypto asset point of view, however, both bitcoin and altcoins have performed well during this difficult period,” the Etoro analyst added. “Bitcoin has been in a consolidation phase, remaining steady in between $6,000 and $7,000. There has been the odd spike, both to the upside and the downside, but overall, I am happy with the solidity of the price at the moment. With the Fed carrying out its policy of unlimited quantitative easing, buying assets left right and center, I think bitcoin is going to be pushing towards $7,500 in the short term.

Crypto Investors ‘Shrug Off Pessimism’

While BTC prices remain above the $7K region and a slew of other digital assets follow suit, many market strategists believe crypto investors are less worried. In just a week’s time, sentiment among crypto traders and investors has changed from bearish to bullish. “[Bitcoin and cryptocurrency] purchases follow the signs of improving sentiment in the stock markets,” noted Alex Kuptsikevich, Fxpro’s senior market analyst. “As soon as risk assets start to attract demand actively, institutional investors may also increase their positions in the cryptocurrency,” Kuptsikevich added on Monday.

Additionally, Naeem Aslam the chief market strategist from Avatrade remarked that crypto investors are far more optimistic now. “Investors are shrugging off the pessimism,” Aslam wrote. However, Aslam said that covid-19 might not be over so quickly and the virus could make it so “we could be in for a longer period of recession.”

The Verdict: Post Covid-19 Uncertainty Remains

Overall digital assets have outshined U.S. stock markets and precious metals as well. The price of BTC has surpassed the S&P 500’s gains and the rest of the top U.S. indexes. Since equity markets started showing signs of recovery, gold has moved very little and has only gained 2% since the start of the year. Despite social media and forums showing a lot more optimism among crypto investors, the multifactorial Crypto Fear & Greed Index (CFGI) shows “extreme fear” is still in the air.

Traders understand that digital currencies are doing very well but economic uncertainty, in general, is clouding most people’s predictions. As far as BTC prices are concerned and a few other digital asset values, key resistance has started to form. If crypto assets can’t break these regions, then another pullback could be in the cards. Despite the looming doubt, researchers believe that the response to covid-19 from governments and central banks will be a positive influence on crypto assets.

“We believe that the downstream impact of the government’s fiscal and monetary response to the crisis will be strongly positive for crypto,” Bitwise’s Global Head of Research Matt Hougan remarked in the firm’s April 2020 Investor Letter.

Where do you see the crypto markets heading from here? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Market Update: Traders ‘Buck the Trend’ Pushing Crypto Market Cap Above $200 Billion appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Tiger King’s Archnemesis Big Cat Rescue Accepts Bitcoin

02/04/2020 by Idelto Editor

The number one show on Netflix in the U.S. right now is a television series called “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness,” and American audiences are eating it up like candy. While the docuseries costar Joseph Maldonado, aka “Joe Exotic,” spends 22 years behind bars, costar Carole Baskin is still the owner of the Big Cat Rescue sanctuary. In fact, the controversial Baskin and her Tampa-based zoo, Big Cat Rescue, accept cryptocurrencies for donations. People can donate digital currencies like BTC, BCH, and ETH to help prevent the trend of big cats kept in captivity.

Also read: Film Reels and Steel: Github Plans to Archive Bitcoin Code for 1,000 Years

Tiger King Story Goes Viral

During the last few weeks, the Netflix docuseries “Tiger King” has been extremely popular in the U.S. and is the number one streaming television broadcast in the country. The story takes place in various states across the U.S. and covers a number of people who own, breed, and sell big cats like Bengal tigers, leopards, and lions. The show mainly features two people who have an extreme hatred for each other, the former GW Zoo owner Joe Exotic and the Big Cat Rescue owner Carole Baskin.

Throughout the myriad of episodes, the audience finds out that the owner of Big Cat Rescue was once a big cat breeder who allegedly changed her ways to stop the captivity and the sale of large cats. For years, her archnemesis was the eccentric Joe Exotic who owned 1,200 big cats at his ranch in Wynnewood, Oklahoma. Moreover, Baskin was accused of feeding her husband to the tigers and inheriting all of her missing husband’s assets. Baskin was able to use this money to battle Joe Exotic in court and managed to liquidate all of his assets. Of course, viewers find out that Exotic spent an enormous amount of time and energy trying to prove that Baskin had indeed inherited her husband’s assets in an evil manner.

Eventually, Exotic was arrested and charged with an alleged murder-for-hire plot against Baskin and was sentenced to 22 years in prison. Lots of people actually think Exotic was the individual in the right during the fiasco and that Baskin covered up some things about the story. Her late husband’s children told the press that she managed to get a majority of his assets while his offspring only got 10%. Even the Grammy-winning rapper Cardi B tweeted about starting a Gofundme account to get him out of jail.

Bout to start a gofundme account for Joe .He shall be free.

— iamcardib (@iamcardib) March 28, 2020

Leveraging Donations, Social Media, and Bitcoin

What’s interesting about Baskin and Exotic’s story is that they both leveraged donations from the internet and lots of traffic from social media to help fund their goals. Joe Exotic, aka Tiger King, is not funding his projects and reality show anymore due to his incarceration. Carole Baskin, on the other hand, is still relying on donations from the online community even though she has an estimated inheritance of $30-50 million in assets. In fact, Baskin and Big Cat Rescue have leveraged cryptocurrencies to help with funding for quite some time. Currently, the Tampa, Florida-based Big Cat Rescue accepts BTC, BCH, ETH and other digital assets via Bitpay.

Even though Big Cat Rescue accepts digital currencies people may not be inclined to donate to Baskin’s cause after watching Tiger King. Bitcoiners may find that the docuseries sheds light on Big Cat Rescue’s agenda and they might even inform other crypto advocates not to donate to their cause. Although, despite the film’s depictions, Baskin has denied the accuracy of the Netflix docuseries and wrote a 3,000-word blog post disputing the show’s alleged facts.

What do you think about the Big Cat Rescue facility accepting cryptocurrencies? Let us know in the comments below.

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Stablecoin Market Caps Swell Over $7 Billion – Volumes Surpass Most Trading Pairs

31/03/2020 by Idelto Editor

While most digital assets have been suffering, stablecoins have been surging since the market downturn in mid-March and tether (USDT) is capturing more than 70% of BTC trades today. Besides tether, a wide range of other dollar-pegged cryptocurrencies have also benefited this month, as the market valuation of eight different stablecoins combined is well over $7 billion.

Also read: Bitcoin Mining Roundup: BTC Regains 100 Exahash, Miners Close Shop, Pre-Halving Shake-Up

Considerable Demand for Stablecoins Pushes ‘Dollarized-Token’ Market Caps Northbound

Crypto assets have seen better days as far as market values are concerned and on March 30 the valuation of all 5,000+ digital currencies is around $182 billion. Today, more than $7 billion from that number represents eight stablecoins including USDT, USDC, PAX, TUSD, DAI, GUSD, BUSD, and HUSD. Most of that $7 billion derives from USDT’s market cap, as the firm Tether has reported it now has more than $6 billion in liabilities. Data shows that the total assets under the company’s control equal: $6,141,809,416. Moreover, there’s a slew of stablecoins with much smaller market caps, but still have seen greater demand since the start of the mid-March market rout.

Stablecoin Market Caps Swell Over $7 Billion - Volumes Surpass Most Trading Pairs — Source: Research report written by Hasu and Coin Metrics data.

On Monday, USDT is commanding more than 70% of trades, which is a lot but not very unusual these days either. As news.Bitcoin.com noted in our recent report about the influx of stablecoin demand, USDC and PAX have continued to remain in the top five BTC pairs globally. Both coins are gathering more than 5% of BTC’s global trades each and both of them combined have seen more trade volume than the U.S. dollar.

Over the past month, fiat-collateralized stablecoins built on Ethereum have seen substantial inflows.

30 day change in supply:
• $USDT: +51.5%
• $USDC: +55.4%
• $PAX: +26.5%
• $BUSD: +186.0%
• $HUSD: +74.7%

Ethereum’s stablecoin economy is growing at a staggering rate. pic.twitter.com/Mp5Yl2k2hE

— Cole Kennelly ⬙ 🦄 (@ColeGotTweets) March 29, 2020

According to sites like coinmarketcap.com, there’s an alleged $118 billion in global crypto trades on March 30. BTC captures $36 billion of those trades and tether (USDT) commands $44 billion. However, stats from messari.io indicate BTC is leading in “real volume” with $1.4 billion in worldwide trades and USDT capturing $1.1 billion. Messari’s data also shows USDT’s reported market cap is larger than XRPs now.

Stablecoin Transfers Touch All-Time Highs, Tron to Launch a ‘DAI-like’ Dollar-Coin

It’s uncertain whether tether is actually doing 22% more volume than BTC, but lots of USDT stats indicate the volume is at least on par with BTC trade volumes regularly. In addition to Pax and USDC, the stablecoins HUSD and BUSD have seen increased demand as well.

Competition has increased a great deal among all the stablecoins and Justin Sun revealed Tron is launching a ‘DAI-like’ stablecoin called “USDJ.” The coin will allegedly be pegged to the USD rate by using collateralized digital assets.

The recent stablecoin demand was noticed by the entire crypto community and Coin Metrics discussed the situation in the firm’s latest report. “Stablecoin transfer value hit an all-time high amidst the market turmoil,” Coin Metrics wrote. The researchers added:

The dual impact of Bitcoin’s USD value halving and massive issuance of stablecoins led to stablecoins’ market cap as a percentage of Bitcoin’s doubling in a matter of days.

What do you think about the demand for stablecoins? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Stablecoin Market Caps Swell Over $7 Billion – Volumes Surpass Most Trading Pairs appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Market Update: Uncertainty Remains Thick as Bears Claw Bitcoin Price Below $6K

30/03/2020 by Idelto Editor

Bitcoin’s price has been dragging downward and on March 29, BTC’s fiat value slipped beneath the $6K zone. Most of the top ten cryptocurrencies are down between 5-8% in the last 24 hours. As the global economy falters and the halving approaches, people are uncertain about the future price of bitcoin as “safe-haven” theories have been steadily vanishing.

Also read: In-Between Bitcoin Halvings: Analyst Proves Bitcoin’s Price Not Bound to 4-Year Cycles

Top Ten Cryptos See Some Percentage Losses During Sunday’s Trading Sessions

The price of bitcoin affects the entire cryptoconomy most of the time and on Sunday, March 29, the story is no different. BTC has slipped beneath the psychological $6K mark after hovering around $6,450 for a while and then $6,200 during the last day and a half. At the time of publication, BTC is swapping for $5,904 per coin and has a market capitalization of roughly $108 billion.

As usual, tether (USDT) is the top pair with BTC on Sunday capturing more than 67% of the day’s trades. This is followed by pairs like USD (8.6%), JPY (6.2%), PAX (5.69%), USDC (5.4%) and EUR (2.18%). The two stablecoins PAX and USDC have been commanding a lot of BTC trade volume since the initial market carnage that started on March 12. At $5,904 per coin, BTC has lost 5.15% during the course of Sunday’s trading sessions.

The second-largest blockchain by market capitalization, ethereum (ETH), is down 3.6% today and trading for $125 per coin. ETH has a market cap hovering around $13.8 billion and about a billion in reported trade volume on Sunday. Ethereum prices are down 18% during the last 30 days, 4.3% for the last 90, and negative 12% for the last 12-months against the U.S. dollar.

The fifth-largest blockchain by market cap, bitcoin cash (BCH) is down 3% today and is swapping for $208 a coin. BCH has around $330 million in global trade volume and the coin’s market valuation is $3.8 billion today. Just like BTC, the top trading pair with bitcoin cash is tether (USDT) capturing 59% of the day’s swaps. BTC is below tether followed by USD (14.5%), ETH (1.5%), KRW (1.4%), and EUR (0.55%). Bitcoin cash is down 3% for the last 30 days, the coin is up 0.27% for the last 90, and BCH is also still up 24% for the last 12-months against the U.S. dollar.

Uncertainty Remains Thick Among Crypto Traders

Right now many traders on forums, Youtube, social media and other avenues are uncertain about the future of BTC’s price and the rest of the crypto market. The popular analyst Peter Brandt noted on March 27 that for BTC, “This is the perfect storm.” However, Brandt added: “If Bitcoin cannot rally on this, then crypto is in BIG trouble.”

“I do not personally think BTC even has that much time to declare itself true or false,” Brandt tweeted the day prior.

Digital asset trader Crypto Michaël tweeted to his 50,000 followers that he thinks “every cycle takes longer than the previous one.” The trader’s opinion was similar to our recent report on Benjamin Cowen’s video about debunking four-year cycle periods.

“What if that also means that we’re going to find support at the 300-Week MA?” Crypto Michaël asked. “100-Week MA was supported in 2012, 200-Week in 2014-2017. 300-Week MA accumulation before the peak to 2025-2026 with BTC at $150,000?” the trader added.

“So you’re saying BTC will be in the range between 3k and 6k over the next 2+ years? I don’t think that BTC holders will be happy with that,” one person replied. “You are right. But I think there will be a new Bitcoin hodler emerging if the price will be $3K,” another crypto proponent added.

The Twitter account The Crypto Fam told his 20,000 followers that he thinks $6K as a long term price is good. “But it’s possible that all markets make another big leg down, even gold, in which case BTC would go with it. Gotta have some cash to buy new lows,” he tweeted.

“In the last 24 hours, I’ve watched BTC climb in the short-term while XRP remains stable in bitcoin price countless times in which it somehow did not affect the USD price of XRP in the meantime. Mathematically, it just doesn’t compute,” the trader Tommy Tourettes said. Presently, a number of traders and analysts have a range of different theories about where crypto prices will lead, but these days most of them are uncertain of what lies ahead.

Where do you see the cryptocurrency markets heading from here? Let us know in the comments below.

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Trader Survey Respondents Predict Bitcoin Price Will Surpass $22K in 2020

29/03/2020 by Idelto Editor

400 Kraken Survey Respondents Predict Bitcoin Price Will Surpass $22K in 2020

San Francisco-based exchange Kraken conducted a poll that stems from the responses of 400 “VIP” cryptocurrency traders. Despite the current economic climate, surveyed participants indicate they still believe the cryptoconomy is in a “bull market.” Moreover, Kraken’s survey respondents think BTC prices will touch a new all-time high at $22,866 per coin.

Also read: 2x Bitcoin — Wanna Double Your BTC to the Moon? Forget About It

400 VIP Kraken Traders Are Still Bullish – Survey Respondents Expect BTC’s Price to Touch $22K in 2020

On March 27, Kraken published a survey called the “2020 Sentiment Survey: Where We Are & What’s To Come.” The poll was conducted with 400 “VIP” traders and 41% said they were “investors,” 40% noted they were “traders” and 15% said they were “institutions.” A small percentage of the respondents were payment firms, crypto exchanges, and miners.

“Kraken Intelligence, our team of in-house research experts, surveyed 400 clients from around the world this January to gauge their sentiments and expectations for crypto in 2020,” explains the VIP client letter sent on Friday.

According to the report, 44% of participants think the cryptoconomy is still in the midst of a “bull market.” Roughly 34% of those surveyed said they were “unsure” at the moment. Further, 22% of the Kraken survey respondents think that the cryptoconomy is facing at “bear market” right now.

Interestingly, surveyed individuals and organizations envision BTC touching a new all-time high (ATH) in 2020. The survey notes that respondents expect the price of BTC to jump to $22,866 per coin at some point during the year. The VIP traders also predict that the price of ETH will reach $810, but ether will not surpass it’s ATH in 2020.

‘Despite Uncertain Times, the Crypto Industry Remains Optimistic’

The respondents also indicated that some of them manage massive amounts of funds as 84% of participants said they manage less than $10 million. But 11% of surveyed individuals disclosed that they manage around $10 million and $50 million according to Kraken’s statistics.

6% said they managed funds between $50 million to $100 million. “Nearly 50% of respondents anticipate that the U.S. SEC will approve a bitcoin ETF this year,” Kraken’s blog post stresses. “Tether (USDT) was the overwhelming favorite (60.4%) among stablecoin users,” the report also notes. Kraken’s report adds:

Despite these uncertain times, it is clear from the survey that the crypto industry still has many advances and catalysts to be optimistic about.

What do you think about Kraken’s recent survey? Let us know in the comments below.

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