Huobi

187,000 BTC Drained: Over $2 Billion in Bitcoin Leave the Top Exchanges Since June

16/10/2020 by Idelto Editor

Cryptocurrency reserves held on digital asset exchanges have been dropping to new lows, as some of the top exchanges have seen significant bitcoin reserve balance drops. A few months ago trading platforms had a lot more bitcoin reserves on hand and onchain data shows a few exchanges have seen customers steadily drain 187,000 bitcoins ($2.1B) from exchange-owned cold wallets.

In February, Coinbase had 1 million bitcoin under management and today reserves are down over 9% as 92,000 bitcoin ($1B) has left the exchange. Today, according to Bituniverse’s online exchange balance rank tracker, the San Francisco trading platform has 908,560 BTC under management.

36,000 BTC ($408M) left Coinbase since news.Bitcoin.com’s reserves report published on June 30, 2020. A number of top exchanges below Coinbase have also seen cold wallets drained during the last three months.

The top seven exchanges in terms of balance holdings on June 30, 2020, according to Bituniverse’s exchange balance rank tracker.

The second-largest exchange in terms of bitcoin reserves held is Huobi and the trading platform is down over 53,000 BTC ($601M) since June 30. Binance’s balances remained the same as the exchange holds 266,000 BTC today and three months ago, Binance held 269k BTC. Similarly, the fourth-largest reserve holder, Bitfinex, didn’t see much movement in the last three months.

The top seven exchanges in terms of balance holdings on October 16, 2020, according to Bituniverse’s exchange balance rank tracker.

Three months ago, Okex had 240,000 BTC on hand but today, Okex only has 198,000 BTC in reserves. This means 42,000 BTC left Okex since June as 17.5% left the exchange in the last three months.

Statistics show out of the top five crypto trading platforms over 187,000 BTC ($2.1B) has left these exchanges since the June report.

Just recently, Bitmex had some legal troubles with the U.S. government and since the incident, a lot of bitcoin has left the derivatives exchange. Three months ago Bitmex had 224 BTC in reserves and today the exchange only has 113,000 in cold storage. Onchain data indicates Bitmex lost a whopping 49.55% in BTC reserves since June 30.

At the time of publication, Glassnode’s “Exchange Balance vs. Bitcoin” stats show that there’s 2.7 million BTC held on exchanges today. Glassnode’s stats indicate that out of the 21 million BTC cap, exchanges hold 12.85% of all that will exist, and 14.59% of the 18.5 million BTC in circulation.

1.8 million BTC out of the aggregate 2.7 million BTC held on exchanges sits in the world’s top five crypto trading platforms. The top five custodial platforms by BTC reserve status include Coinbase, Huobi, Binance, Bitfinex, and Okex.

Exchange balances have been riding lower consecutively for the last 15 months and the last time balances were this low was around May 2019. To many crypto enthusiasts and traders, the low balances on exchanges suggest users are storing assets in a noncustodial fashion as opposed to leaving funds with a third party.

The data from Bituniverse and Glassnode also suggests that liquidity and selling pressure may lower.

What do you think about the low number of bitcoins held collectively on global exchanges today? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments below.

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Bitcoin Mining Rigs Struggle for Profits, Despite BTC’s Hashrate Reaching an All-Time High

16/10/2020 by Idelto Editor

Bitcoin’s hashrate climbed to an all-time high (ATH) this week touching 166 exahash per second (EH/s) on October 14. Meanwhile, despite the recent price rise and hashrate ATH on Wednesday, only a small group of next-generation mining rigs are profiting at current bitcoin exchange rates.

The price of bitcoin (BTC) is hovering just above the $11K region and during the last few days, the network’s hashrate has touched a new ATH. At the time of writing, BTC’s hashrate is fluctuating between 130 to 140 exahash per second (EH/s), and on Wednesday evening (ET) the metric surpassed 166 EH/s.

Interestingly, the rise has continued despite the fact that BTC’s network difficulty has also reached an ATH at 19.69T. This means it is harder than ever before to find a block mining the BTC network, but this hasn’t phased the overall hashrate. The next BTC difficulty change is scheduled to happen in just a hair over two days’ time.

On Thursday, October 15, 2020, there are 18 known mining pools hashing away at the chain and a single unknown mining entity in the group as well. The top five pools mining on Thursday afternoon includes Btc.com (23.9 EH/s), F2pool (20.6 EH/s), Poolin (18.7 EH/s), Antpool (15.9 EH/s), and Huobi (11.3 EH/s).

While looking at the real-time mining hardware aggregator at asicvalue.com, with the filter set to $0.06 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) and SHA256 miners only, the web portal shows only 13 rigs are profiting today by over $2 per day.

There are 30 SHA256 mining rigs that are profiting at $0.11 to $1.89 per day at $0.06 per kWh. If the electrical costs are doubled at $0.12 per kWh then only two machines out of the 43 mining rigs profiting at $0.06 per kWh will profit.

The two top machines include Bitmain’s Antminer S19 Pro (110 TH/s) and the Microbt Whatsminer M30S++ (112 TH/s). The Whatsminer M30S+ follows, alongside the Antminer S19, Whatsminer M30S, Antminer T19, and the AvalonMiner 1166 Pro respectively.

A number of other cryptocurrency algorithms are showing higher profits than the SHA256 consensus algorithm. At the time of publication, the algorithms Equihash, Ethash, Tensority, and Eaglestrong show larger profits for miners mining these types of coins. Currently, miners who mine SHA256 coins (BTC, BCH, BSV) need around $0.06 per kWh to gather some decent profits above $2 per day.

Further, it would be better for BTC miners if the price was $1,100 higher than it is today so miners can recoup from the May block reward halving. In February, the blockchain analytics provider Tradeblock estimated a post-halving mining cost of around $12,500 per BTC.

Currently, the average coinbase reward value during the last 24-hours is around $71,390 per block with around $6,189 (0.54 BTC) in transaction fees. With BTC’s hashrate rising to new levels, the expected difficulty adjustment on October 17th will be increased a touch more than today.

What do you think about BTC’s hashrate touching all-time highs and the current mining rig profitability? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

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Canadian Firm 3iQ’s Bitcoin Fund Listed on Gibraltar Stock Exchange

30/09/2020 by Idelto Editor

The Gibraltar Stock Exchange said Tuesday that it listed a new bitcoin fund belonging to 3iQ Corp, a Canadian investment fund manager that focuses on new technologies and crypto assets.

The announcement follows GSX Group’s recent launch of what it calls the Grid, “a venue to create and deploy debt securities, funds, and equities as ‘smart securities’ in tokenised form”. GSX is the parent company of the Gibraltar Stock Exchange.

According to the exchange, the newly listed fund tracks the price of bitcoin by using a special index feed, which was developed by crypto market data provider Cryptocompare and Vaneck Europe, an asset management firm.

3iQ’s regulated BTC fund is already being traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange since April, but this is the first time it will be entering European shores. The exchange-traded fund aims to provide retail investors with “access to bitcoin without the burden of buying and safekeeping coins,” said the company in a statement shared with news.Bitcoin.com.

U.S. crypto exchange Gemini is providing custody to the bitcoin held in the fund. 3iQ already manages two private investment funds: 3iQ bitcoin trust and the 3iQ global crypto asset fund.

Nick Cowan, chief executive officer of the Gibraltar Stock Exchange, noted that the listing of “innovative asset classes” such as the bitcoin ETF will “in turn lead to increased adoption”.

Fred Pye, president, and CEO of 3iQ said the Gibraltar listing gives financial players such as sovereign wealth funds and pension funds, which face restrictions in buying licensed, regulated exchange-listed products, access to those instruments. He added:

Being listed on the Gibraltar Stock Exchange extends the reach of the bitcoin fund within the burgeoning European digital assets market.

Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory on Spain’s south coast, has emerged as one of the most crypto-friendly countries in the world, with notable global platforms such as Etoro, Huobi, Xapo, and Bitso operating from there.

Two weeks ago, the country’s Financial Services Commission updated its guidance notes for distributed ledger technology providers to include recommendations for risk management, as well as clarify aspects around the issuance of digital assets.

What do you think about the 3iQ bitcoin fund being listed in Europe? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

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BCH Hash Watch: Majority of Miners Signal BCHN, Coinex Exchange Announces Futures

24/09/2020 by Idelto Editor

Bitcoin Cash proponents have recently noticed that the last 612 blocks or more than 61% of the last 1,000 blocks have been mined using BCHN, according to Coin Dance statistics. Moreover, data also shows that 82% of Bitcoin Cash hashpower is signaling BCHN, as the prominent miners Btc.com and Antpool have started signaling.

BCH fans are patiently waiting as there’s 53 days left until the November 15th Bitcoin Cash upgrade. News.Bitcoin.com reported on September 1, on how there’s a high chance the BCH blockchain will bifurcate into two networks.

At that time, our newsdesk detailed how prominent members of the BCH community bid the Bitcoin ABC developers farewell, and a number of mining operations began signaling the node BCHN.

Today, Coin Dance statistics show 612 out of the last 1,000 blocks have been mined using the BCHN full node software. Toward the end of September, two new pools joined the fray of BCHN signalers, as Btc.com and Antpool started signaling BCHN in their coinbase parameters.

This means currently 82% of the entire BCH hashrate has been signaling BCHN. Pools included in this group include Binance, Antpool, Btc.com, Btc.top, Bitcoin.com, Huobi, Okex, MY7A, easy2mine, and Bejn.

During the last 12 hours, around 2.6 exahash per second (EH/s) of hashrate has been directed at the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) chain. Additionally, the trading platform Coinex revealed contingency plans for the upcoming upgrade, as the announcement mentions the possibility of a network split.

🔥The Bitcoin Cash network will undergo a semi-annual hard #fork upgrade on Nov 15.

🔥To provide users with better services, we are going to launch futures markets of #BCH forked coins on Sep 24, 2020. #BTC #bch #crypto #coinex #hardfork #bchforkhttps://t.co/8zEHNGXYwE

— CoinEx (@coinexcom) September 23, 2020

Coinex also announced the introduction of futures slated to drop on September 24. Bitcoin Cash supporters will also be waiting for other exchanges to reveal contingency plans as well going forward.

The futures listed on the crypto trading platform Coinflex show ABC versus BCH futures are still 10-to-1 in favor of BCH. While BCHN blocks crossed the 60% range, BCH supporters on the Reddit forum r/btc discussed the changes. Many expect the number of BCHN-mined blocks to increase during the next few weeks.

One Redditor noted that since Antpool just recently joined with 20% of the hashrate, the “[seven] day average should reach ~75% in [five or six] days time.”

What do you think about the hashpower signaling BCHN and the recent futures announcement from Coinex? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

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Turbulent Crypto Markets Expected – 87K Worth of Bitcoin Options Set to Expire on Friday

21/09/2020 by Idelto Editor

Markets are expected to be volatile this week, as a great number of bitcoin and ethereum options are set to expire this Friday. Data shows more than 87,000 bitcoin options will expire and 77% of the action is held on the Deribit exchange.

U.S. stocks dropped hard on Monday, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 700 points during the stock market’s afternoon trading sessions.

Meanwhile, bitcoin (BTC) took a hit on spot markets dropping over 4% in value. A number of other cryptocurrencies like ethereum (ETH -8%) lost even bigger percentages on Monday. However, crypto analysts are eying this Friday’s crypto options expiries, as there’s a large number of derivatives contracts across Deribit, Okex, Ledgerx, CME Group, Huobi, Bakkt, and Bit.com that will expire.

Data from Deribit shows there are over 87,000 BTC options that are set to expire this Friday. The exchange also details that 67k worth of those options (77%) are held on Deribit. Moreover, 459k worth of ETH options are set to expire on the same day and 414k or 90% is also held on Deribit.

The other three competitors, that pale in comparison to Deribit’s numbers, include; CME Group, Okex, and Ledgerx respectively.

On Monday morning (ET), Deribit’s Head of Risk and Product, Shaun Fernando, spoke about BTC’s volatility and the coin’s price action this month. “In the month of September, we have seen the BTC price trading between USD $10k and $12k,” Fernando said.

“The 1 month ATM volatility hit a high of 70% before falling to its level of 46% and we have seen volatility in the skew.”

Fernando further added:

The Deribit Index is currently trading more than 2.5% below the settlement of nearly 4 hours ago which could suggest some interesting realised vs implied strategies. If the trend carries, expect a run on vol. If we bounce back, we could see some interesting moves around the 11k strike where over 10% of the Sep open interest is stacked.

The researchers from Skew.com spoke about the cryptocurrencies implied volatility as well on Twitter. “Some capitulation in bitcoin,” Skew wrote. Options market as trading remains rangebound, one-month implied vol

There’s been a number of occasions where crypto derivatives produced volatile crypto spot markets, while other times expiry dates can be lackluster.

What do you think about the number of BTC and ETH options that are set to expire on Friday? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

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