Find the best CRYPTOtrends

On the exterior, cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Litecoin seemingly have many common features as they are both decentralized crypto coins, but they differ in many ways. Fiat currencies like the US Dollar depend upon central banks backing for different factors as speculation of legitimacy, controlling circulation and value, cryptocurrencies are free of centralized authority. Cryptocurrencies are reliant on the cryptographic transparent network and integrity. Litecoin was released in 2011 by Charlie Lee, the Google engineer- who addresses Litecoin as Bitcoin’s lite version. The developers designated Bitcoin the gold status and Litecoin the silver.

Bitcoin is a virtual currency, cryptocurrency, or a digital currency, created in January 2009 – It is completely virtual or online cash. One can purchase goods and services with bitcoin, but some countries have completely banned it. However, more and more companies are buying it today, including PayPal, which started accepting BTC last October. Its ideas are set out in whitepaper by a pseudonymous individual or team called Satoshi Nakamoto.

Bitcoin and Litecoin share the same Proof of work for their ecosystems. Both the cryptocurrencies are mined, i.e., they are generated, then authenticated, and finally added to the blockchain or the public ledger.

Gold and other precious metals like silver, etc., are good stores of value as they have a perpetual shelf life, and so is a nation’s currency.

According to the Economy Forecast Agency or EFA, as per the long-term Litecoin price forecast , Litecoin is predicted to rise to $260 in January 2022 and go down to approximately $100 by the end of October 2022. It will increase to 2023 in the first quarter in March to $193 and $174 in January.

Bitcoin is a powerful coin and is expected to grow astronomically. It will go beyond USD 100,000 to one million USD per BTC in the time to come.

Bitcoin and Litecoin are both decentralized cryptocurrencies, but the difference in other aspects is the price, mining time, store of value, and predicted futures. Bitcoin enjoys a store of value, and Litecoin is presumably expected to go up somewhat. There is a cap of 21 million on Bitcoin mining, and Litecoin will be mined to 84 million. Litecoin is faster and can make many transactions simultaneously, whereas Bitcoin cannot. It takes approximately 9 minutes to mine a bitcoin and only 2.5 for Litecoin. Even though Litecoin has an edge on Bitcoin technology-wise, Bitcoin’s price is expected to go up beyond $100,000.

Bitcoin prices climbed above $60,000 for the first time in two weeks, raising prospects that the cryptocurrency would keep rising into the new quarter after closing the previous one almost 100 percent higher.

Nevertheless, analyst Robbie Liu noted that the recent Bitcoin rally has resulted from “overheated retail action.” The OKEx researcher highlighted rising premiums for the quarterly contract BTCUSD0625 that jumped from $3,000, or 5.7 percent, last Friday to its current $5,200, or 8.7 percent. The level was almost the same last month when Bitcoin had established an all-time high above $61,000.

“Following the rise in premiums are the funding rates for perpetual swaps, which began to rise midweek and have now reached over 0.15% per eight hours,” explained Mr. Liu. “These figures are certainly entering a more dangerous range.”

“If the price does not break out to the upside in a short period of time, then traders attempting to chase the rally high with high leverage will have to close their positions, thus putting downward pressure on the price,” he added.

More clues for an imminent downside correction came from Bitcoin’s margin lending ratio.

In retrospect, it is spot market trading data showing the ratio between users borrowing USDT versus borrowing BTC in USDT value over a given period of time. This week, it fell from 9.5 to 8.2, which indicated that leveraged spot traders are beginning to unwind their positions after securing profits.

“The current overheated bullish sentiment is already visible in several indicators from OKEx trading data,” added Mr. Liu. “If price cannot break the $60,000 psychological mark quickly, it is likely to form a bearish divergence on the RSI indicator for the four-hour chart, prompting a correction.”

The latest rise in the Bitcoin market indicated stabilization after a strong upside rally earlier this week.

Traders grappled with the prospect of Joe Biden’s new government spending plan worth $2 trillion. They also took cues from PayPal’s decision to add a crypto-checkout option on its legacy platform and Morgan Stanley’s SEC filings that showed the investment banking giant revealing that it might allocate 25 percent of its institutional funds’ portfolios to cash-settled bitcoin futures and Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.

“The ~$57,500 area rejected BTC in February, but it looks like BTC turned this exact same level into support a couple of days ago,” said a pseudonymous market analyst. “Now it’s about follow-through from here. And we’re seeing some follow-through today.”

Bitcoin trader and analyst Willy Woo says a growing Bitcoin supply crisis will launch the asset towards a multi-trillion dollar evaluation.

In a new interview on Real Vision, Woo explains that by following the movement of Bitcoin into and out of exchanges, it is clear that BTC supplies are drying up.

The analyst expects the market to see a supply crunch even more drastic than the one which caused the flagship cryptocurrency to rise in price by roughly 2,000% in 2017.

“We can see this from tracking the flows of coins out of the exchanges, where typically people speculate or buy and sell their coins, and they have a set inventory, some of which is allocated for speculation. We’ve just seen an unprecedented amount of depletion of that inventory.

If you look back in the 2017 bull market, we saw like a five month depletion of inventory, and that was enough to propel the bull market of 2017 right up to the $20,000 [mark] from what initially was about $1,000 to $1,500 when the inventory depletion ended, and now we’re in this zone of the Lehman’s 12 months of inventory depletion.”

As the market runs out of Bitcoin and institutional investors continue to learn of its benefits, Woo expects the market cap to balloon and well surpass that of gold, with the price of a single BTC surpassing the $2 million mark.

“Once you get a glimpse of something that’s easy to access like Bitcoin without the trouble of holding assets like real estate, it’s going to take a big chunk out of that. There’s no way Bitcoin is going to stop at the market cap of gold, which is $10 trillion, it’s going to go a lot higher, which means that we’re going to be going into the millions of dollars per coin, which is hard to believe right now but if you look at the sheer fundamentals and stretch it off over the long term, that’s how cheap Bitcoin is today.”

Woo also anticipates that as Bitcoin matures and the asset gains a larger share of the market, it is unlikely that future Bitcoin bear markets will be as harsh or volatile as those of the past.

“There is a general trend downwards and there’s no crazy predictable trend downwards in volatility so I think actually, we’re due to start to drop down into the lower volatility range that – well, I don’t have the charts right on hand, but I think it will surprise a lot of people how low the volatility can drop and beyond a certain part of size of capital base, volatility drops to zero because it becomes the new monetary base.

If it does become this unit of account, obviously there’s different variations on that theme that could be a basket of assets that becomes the new monetary base but ultimately, the volatility will drop very, very low because there’s the new monetary standard part of it.”

Featured Image: Shutterstock/Tithi Luadthong

With more than $12 billion in market capitalization, the cloud-based storage system Protocol Labs’ native crypto Filecoin [FIL] grew by 134.0% in the last seven days to briefly become the 10th largest crypto-asset by market cap. In fact, according to data from CoinMarketCap, FIL had even overtaken another popular altcoin, Chainlink’s LINK, in the process.   

FIL’s aforementioned surge up the rankings chart came on the back of the crypto-asset climbing to a new all-time high of $236.84 on 1 April 2021. FIL’s performance has been exceptional this week, especially since it rallied at a time when the world’s largest cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ether, were stagnant at their respective levels.

Now, Filecoin’s bull run could be due to the ‘ Grayscale effect ’ since the crypto-fund manager recently decided to offer five new trusts based on altcoins, with FIL being one of them. A similar outcome was seen with Livepeer’s native crypto asset, LPT, which made news a week ago. The crypto recorded a 1,000% surge in price soon after Grayscale Investments launched the trusts, which included LPT as well. 

However, a primary reason for the crypto’s price surge could be due to Filecoin’s support in China. 

According to local reports , the Shenzhen-based computer hardware giant Xinyuan Technology recently invested $89 million into the Filecoin mining ecosystem. Interestingly, the hardware firm used the words “Distributed Storage Center Project” instead of Filecoin.

Chinese crypto-journalist Colin Wu, who reported the development, clarified that the company deliberately avoided the project’s name in order to appease Chinese authorities, especially since the region has resorted to strict rules concerning the trading and ownership of cryptocurrencies.

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) March 17, 2021

According to Wu, China is “crazy for Filecoin,” with the journalist adding that the nation’s largest crypto-exchange, Huobi, saw FIL’s 24-hour trading volume surge to $24 billion on the charts. 

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) April 1, 2021

Wu believes that with a shortage of BTC and ETH mining machines, Filecoin has “become the third option for Chinese miners,” something that is contributing to FIL rallying on the price charts.

It’s worth noting, however, that FIL was registering strong corrections at press time, with liquidations worth $228M seen. And yet, according to Wu, “the overall market has not changed much.”

What’s Ripple CEO’s take on the biggest XRP hypothetical?

South Korean govt sells 2017 Bitcoins, making $10.8 million profit

Alisha is a full-time journalist at AMBCrypto. Her interests lie in blockchain technology, crypto-crimes, and market developments in Africa and the United States

Why Bitcoin mining firms based in Inner Mongolia are on the move

500.com acquires mining pool BTC.com from Jihan Wu

China: Beijing to issue 10M digital yuan to increase utilization

Not enough chips to support production of Bitcoin mining rigs

China: Suzhou’s DCEP trial sees digital yuan on JD.com, Meituan, and Didi

Bank of Japan’s Governor supports digital currency research, not issuance

A crypto expert has highlighted 2 crypto assets that he expects would likely push higher in the near term.

Tyler Swope a highly revered crypto trader recently announced some relatively unknown crypto assets via his YouTube channel that he anticipates would likely push higher in the near term.

On the YouTube video, he started by endorsing Chainlink’s (LINK) node service provider LinkPool (LPL), adding credence to its strong structure within the niche segment it occupies.

His next pick was Alchemist Coin (MIST) a non-fungible token (NFT) project, on account that it could permit early users to get limited edition NFTs known as crucibles. These first version non-fungible tokens could help owners with major value in the future as the protocol grows, notes Swope.

READ: Investor buys first Crypto artwork for $70 million

“The proposal is overwhelming, yes, and ended today. It proposed, that v1 (first version) crucibles be limited to those using the terminal or PowerShell… a.k.a technical user. Once the frontend UI (user interface) launches, those users will get v2 (second version) crucibles using that interface. The crucibles, are NFTs, thus having a v1 limited edition could be a valuable thing down the road.”

Davis, a top crypto strategist also highlighted his bias that altcoins could provide investors with incredible returns and why investors should not just focus on the flagship crypto.

“2021 is seriously one of the biggest opportunities of your financial life. The potential for life-changing money to change your financial destiny in 2021 is incredible.

“But here is the truth, if you just buy Bitcoin, you are not going to see the exponentially huge gains. You will get decent returns but if you want to make the big money you got to invest in altcoins.”

Olumide Adesina is a France-born Nigerian. He is a Certified Investment Trader, with more than 15 years of working expertise in Investment trading. Message Olumide on Twitter @tokunboadesina. He is a Member of the Chartered Financial Analyst Society.

Crypto traders and investors can trade these sports tokens on Crypto exchanges like Chiliz.net, Binance and others.

A growing number of football teams are now venturing into crypto for obvious reasons. With a Covid-19 battered global economy, football teams have had their stadium gates closed in compliance with lockdown measures aimed at curtailing the spread of the virus, leading to billions of dollars in losses.

Data from Deloitte, revealed that major football league clubs will have lost over €2 billion in revenue by the end of the 2020/21 season, including amounts foregone in respect of 2019/20, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, primarily due to:

READ: Cristiano Ronaldo becomes first footballer to earn Crypto

Taking into account that the top 20 football clubs generated a combined €8.2 billion in 2019/20, down 12% on the prior season (€9.3 billion), it then becomes unsurprising that football clubs would be searching for other revenue channels and innovative strategies to keep their fans engaged.

Sports teams take advantage of the feeling of ownership exhibited by their fans. It is logical, therefore, for football teams to explore avenues that strengthen fan loyalty and their passion for the game.

Juventus the best-supported football club in Italy became the first team offering the world’s first fan token.

Holders of the Juventus Fan Tokens ($JUV) will be able to vote on some specific decisions made by the club, such as changes to the club’s jersey. They can also earn rewards while doing so, as well as access exclusive content and memorabilia.

READ: Ex-Real Madrid Striker, David Barral becomes first-ever footballer to be bought with Bitcoin

Recall that the world’s highly respected footballer, Cristiano Ronaldo collected about 770 Fan Tokens ahead of Juventus’ match against Benevento some weeks ago, as a way of marking his record-breaking goal milestone.

It is the first time a footballer has been rewarded with Crypto, which is becoming a prominent feature in the interaction of fans with the world’s most popular sport.

A growing number of fans holding the leading Italian football team’s token are obviously smiling to the bank. At the time of writing this article, the fan token has already generated returns of about 596.98% within a span of 11 months according to Coinmarketcap.

Barcelona FC has also seen its token rise by over 1,500% since its launch at $2; and now trades at about $35 (at the time of writing this article), posting massive gains to holders of such asset.

Manchester City Football Club is the latest football club exploring sports fan tokens. Registered Manchester City fans can use these tokens to get rewards or giveaways organized by the football club, play mobile games, access promos, and vote on the club’s polls.

READ: Cryptos likely to gain at least 1000% very soon

Besides Manchester City Football Club, Barcelona and Juventus, other clubs that have signed deals with Socios.com, a first-of-its-kind mobile app for football fans to vote on club-specific decisions, include AC Milan and Paris Saint-Germain.

Manchester City Football Club has announced that it will be rewarding all registered fans with free $CITY Tokens. Such offering is seen as a reward for fan loyalty and, therefore, increases the clubs’ engagement with their fans. Other teams like Liverpool Chelsea, Arsenal, and Manchester United are also towing the path.

The use of crypto in sports will also address geographical challenges and trigger the global expansion of sports and teams. Football clubs are now using blockchain to facilitate better experiences for their fans and presently, Chiliz is the crypto used in buying these sports fan tokens.

Crypto traders and investors can trade these sports tokens on Crypto exchanges like Chiliz.net, Binance and just recently, HitBTC added AC Milan (ACM), Juventus (JUV) and Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) fan tokens to their platform.

We have successfully added AC Milan (ACM), Juventus (JUV) and Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) Fan Tokens to our platform.

Trade $ACM, $JUV and $PSG against $USDT, visit: https://t.co/nGfrMnquKU pic.twitter.com/DpeoEAoojJ

— HitBTC (@hitbtc) April 2, 2021

Nairametrics anticipates that such engagements with these football clubs via blockchain will open more economic opportunities and leverage the wider audience via collaboration with the industry’s global brands.

However, as this market segment grows and becomes increasingly concentrated, Crypto education also becomes necessary. Supporters of the most popular sport games need to adapt and work adaptively with their respective football teams in utilizing these tokens more efficiently rather than for just speculating price movements.

The total crypto market volume over the last 24 hours was $167.59 billion, which makes a 0.55% decrease.

High buying pressure from the two leading Crypto assets by market value has pushed the crypto market valuation near $2 trillion.

The flagship Crypto, Bitcoin, which was significantly responsible for this feat, has posted gains of more than 16% in the last 7 days, while Ethereum hit the $2,000 mark. At the time of writing this article:

Crypto pundits have cited that the heightened interest in these cryptos is emanating from a growing interest from institutional investors as seen from trend-following hedge funds, and lately, the powerful banks; coupled with credible reports hinting that Coinbase, the world’s most valuable online crypto trading platform, has gotten approval for its direct listing at the Nasdaq.

Experts also buttress on market indicators revealing that 78% of Bitcoin’s circulating supply is illiquid meaning that it is harder for a growing number of retail investors to have access to the prized Crypto at a fair value.

Adding credence to this bias, includes data from Glassnode revealing Bitcon’s number of Exchange Deposits (7d MA) just reached a 1-month low of 2,845.357, meaning there are fewer sellers of the world’s most popular crypto asset.

Previous 1-month low of 2,847.935 was observed on 26th March 2021.

Previous 1-month low of 2,847.935 was observed on 26 March 2021

View metric:https://t.co/v3uKq4dCjX pic.twitter.com/S8hZkdlnsi

— glassnode alerts (@glassnodealerts) April 2, 2021

In addition, Crypto assets have enjoyed exponential gains, as global financial markets become awash with record stimulus deals, triggered by global central banks using such dovish strategies in supporting the fragile global economy.

The incredible feats seen lately shows that the ever-changing financial market is enjoying strong buying pressures on the bias that global investors are keen on hedging against inflation-prone assets like currencies.

When a billionaire discusses which cryptocurrencies they hold and why, the world pays attention. 

And now, Shark Tank star and Dallas Mavericks co-owner Mark Cuban has revealed that 60% of his crypto portfolio is in Bitcoin — with another 30% in Ether and 10% spread across other coins.

Despite Cuban not believing in the future of Bitcoin as a form of currency because it is slow and hard to use, he believes BTC has strong potential to outperform gold as a safehouse for wealth. Speaking to The Delphi Podcast, he said: 

Cuban has famously spotted tech trends in the past, having founded tech start-up MicroSolutions and streaming service Broadcast.com, which he sold to Yahoo! for nearly $6 billion. His predictions of what’s coming next in the world of technology have served him well so far, as his net worth is estimated to be around $4.5 billion. 

He now believes that Ethereum is the closest thing to “real currency,” which is the reason that he now holds a lot of ETH.  

Cuban has said that the creation of smart contracts is really what’s changing the entire technology landscape, and compared with the beginning of the internet on a massive scale. He argues that the fact smart contracts can control everything about a transaction or a process — all while remaining decentralized — can cause a lot of disruption and spark a new wave of business applications. He added: 

Cuban rationalizes that NFTs prove how smart contracts work and that the future will be more unique business applications that use NFTs. 

And offering a word of advice for would-be investors, Cuban suggested:

More investment flowed into cryptocurrency in Q1 2021 than in the entire 2020. According to CB Insights data, large investments from venture capitalists flowed into crypto firms such as BlockFi, Dapper Labs and, Blockchain.com.

As per data, 129 startups in the blockchain space raised roughly $2.6 billion in Q1 alone. This is bigger than the $2.3 billion raised by 341 startups in the whole of 2020.

2020 was one of the most bullish years in the history of cryptocurrency. The price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies rose sharply towards the end of the year, breaking several new highs. At the time, though, it seems the VCs were waiting on the sidelines to see what happens. The bullish move continued in 2021 and has mostly been sustained, thus boosting their confidence.

Tesla’s investment in Bitcoin was also a great motivator that opened the door for more investors to come in. The influx so far is unprecedented, and more confidence-boosting strides may be on the way. 

For instance, Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, has moved to get publicly listed. This could greatly increase VCs’ willingness to invest in the crypto space, which means much more capital flow.

Bitcoin and some top cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum have been growing this year as a reflection of the capital inflows.

Bitcoin reached a new all-time high of $60,000 last month, and after a pullback, it is back close to the record high. Ethereum also hit a record high of $2,000 in February before retracing but is now back above the level again.

With the rapid growth in the crypto space, analysts have set high expectations for cryptocurrencies, but time will tell if these expectations will be confirmed.

At the time of this writing, CME (Get Ratings)’s price is down $0 (0%) from the hour prior. This is a reversal of the price action on the previous hour, in which price moved up. From a hourly perspective, the market looks fairly choppy; clear trends aren’t showing up on the 20, 50 and 100 hour timeframes. The moving averages on the hourly timeframe suggest a choppiness in price, as the 20, 50, 100 and 200 are all in a mixed alignment — meaning the trend across timeframes is inconsistent, indicating a potential opportunity for rangebound traders.

Currently, CME’s price is up $1.86 (0.91%) from the day prior. This is a reversal of the price action on the previous day, in which price moved down. As for the trend on the daily timeframe, we see the clearest trend on the 100 day timeframe. The moving averages on the daily timeframe suggest a bullishness in price, as the 20, 50, 100 and 200 are all in a bullish alignment — meaning the shorter durations are above the longer duration averages, implying a sound upward trend. Cme Group Inc’s price action over the past 90 days can be seen via the chart below.

News traders keeping an eye on CME may find value in this recent story:

Bitcoin Is Trading Near Record-High Again But Analyst Says We Are Staring At A Meltdown

Bitcoin’s (BTC) recent gains may be short-lived and “the whole rally in crypto is getting very long in the tooth,” according to Boris Schlossberg, a leading foreign exchange expert. What Happened: “I think we’re very, very close to perhaps an intermediate-term top here. A little bit of a correction is certainly due at this point,” Boris Schlossberg, managing director of FX strategy at BK Asset Management, said Tuesday on CNBC’s “Trading Nation.” BTC traded 0.54% lower at $59,354.38 over the past 24 hours at press time, but was up 11.2% over the past week, indicating a recovery. It has an all-time high of $61,683, hit last month. See also: How to Buy Bitcoin (BTC) Bitcoin’s Recent Gains: The cryptocurrency’s recent gains came after PayPal Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL) said it will allow its U.S. customers to use their cryptocurrency holdings to pay at millions of online merchants around the globe. PayPal’s move came a day after payments giant Visa Inc (NYSE: V) said it would allow payments to be settled directly via cryptocurrency on the Ethereum blockchain. Schlossberg noted that Bitcoin’s high degree of volatility will likely mean transactions on platforms such as PayPal’s will be “infinitesimally small” compared to regular currency. However, he feels Bitcoin is a better store of value than gold. See Also: Why Is Ethereum Surging, Outperforming Bitcoin Today? CME Group’s Plan: Further, Schlossberg said that derivative exchange CME Group Inc.’s (NASDAQ: CME) plan to launch Micro Bitcoin futures contracts on its platform in early May could rattle bitcoin’s price even if investors like it or not. The Micro Bitcoin futures will be one-tenth the size of one Bitcoin. Schlossberg noted that Bitcoin topped out the last time CME launched bitcoin futures in late 2017. Matt Maley, chief marketing strategist at Miller Tabak, said in the same “Trading Nation” interview that if Bitcoin moves to the downside below $52,000, its going to be a “big warning flag” and give the cryptocurrency its first lower low of the year. Maley added it Bitcoin breaks above its recent highs of $61,000, it “should see another leg higher.” However, he agreed with Schlossberg that bitcoin is going to see a lot more big declines along its way in a very volatile session. Read Next: 5 Best-Performing Cryptocurrencies Of Q1 (No — Bitcoin, Dogecoin Don’t Make The Cut) See more from BenzingaClick here for options trades from BenzingaTesla Will Be Employing A Lot More People At Giga Texas Than It Thought It WouldCramer Says Forget Tech And Look To These Sectors In Q2© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

Want More Great Investing Ideas?

9 “MUST OWN” Growth Stocks for 2021

5 WINNING Stock Chart Patterns

7 Best ETFs for the NEXT Bull Market

Coinbase, one of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges, announced that the company is expecting the trading of its Class A stock to start on 14 April. The digital exchange revealed plans to go public via a direct listing earlier this year.

According to an official announcement, the stock of Coinbase will begin trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol COIN. Coinbase revealed its cryptocurrency investments in a filed prospectus ahead of the company’s public listing.

Looking Forward to Meeting You at iFX EXPO Dubai May 2021 – Making It Happen!

“Coinbase today announced that its registration statement on Form S-1, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), relating to a proposed public direct listing of its Class A common stock was declared effective by the SEC on April 1, 2021. Coinbase anticipates that its Class A common stock will begin trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol ‘COIN’ on April 14, 2021. A copy of the prospectus related to the registration statement may be obtained by visiting EDGAR on the SEC website,” the exchange mentioned in the official announcement.

Want to Stay Ahead of the Curb in 2021? You’ll Need Your Data in Real TimeGo to article >>

Founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong, Coinbase is one of the largest digital exchanges in the world. According to a recent report by crypto research firm Messari, the custody service of the American cryptocurrency exchange accounted for nearly 11% of all digital assets in 2020.

The US-based digital exchange has a strong presence in the cryptocurrency market. The company mentioned that it is building the crypto economy to establish a transparent financial system enabled by cryptocurrency assets. Coinbase acquired cryptocurrency trade execution startup Routefire in January 2021.

“At Coinbase, we’re committed to bringing the potential of crypto to everyone. As part of this commitment, we will always strive to provide our customers with the highest levels of security, trust and transparency. During periods of extreme demand,” Armstrong mentioned in a blog post on 17 December 2020.

Rachel’s note: On Wednesday night, our colleague Teeka Tiwari hosted one of the most critical presentations of his career.

For those who don’t know, Teeka’s been pounding the table on bitcoin for years – while so-called experts in the mainstream mocked him. But now, bitcoin’s officially broken into the mainstream… hitting all-time highs this year.

Teeka says that’s opening the door to even bigger money-making opportunities in the crypto space. And on Wednesday, he pulled back the curtain on the trillion-dollar windfall he sees ahead.

It’s something nobody in the mainstream investing world sees… something the media isn’t reporting… and something no member of the financial elite wants you to find out.

More than 45,000 people tuned in to watch… and learned all the details on how to capture some of the gains for themselves. If you missed it, we made a replay available for you here.

Then, make sure to check out Teeka’s essay below.

By Teeka Tiwari, editor, Palm Beach Daily

Since 2016, I’ve been fighting a long battle to educate everyone about the value of bitcoin.

Over that time, I’ve had my reputation impugned… been maligned and ridiculed… and even received hate mail for my conviction in bitcoin.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably been laughed at by your family or friends just for talking about the idea of bitcoin.

There were some tough times. From the heights of the 2017 crypto bull market to the depths of the 2018 Crypto Winter… I asked my readers to keep the faith and let time do the heavy lifting.

And those who stuck with me should congratulate themselves… Because we’re starting to reap the rewards of that faith.

Not only was bitcoin the best-performing asset class of 2020… it also obliterated its old highs. We saw bitcoin rise 308% in 2020 – and recently it was as high as $61,600.

Here’s why I feel vindicated: Bitcoin is now the most valuable financial service in the world by market cap. This is something I’ve been predicting for years.

Today, bitcoin’s value is more than $1 trillion. That’s more than the market caps of Visa ($478 billion)… JPMorgan Chase ($469 billion)… Mastercard ($361 billion)… PayPal ($290 billion)… and Bank of America ($341 billion).

Friends, I want you to understand how far we’ve come since 2016. It’s just a sea change in sentiment.

Five years ago, people called bitcoin a “fraud,” a “scam,” or a “Ponzi scheme.” But I said that if you could have faith in a future that’s different than the one the mainstream media is portraying… you’d see a day when institutional money would flood into bitcoin.

That’s because my research suggested bitcoin would become a bedrock reserve asset for institutional investors. And if you could just hold onto that vision and be patient… you’d see it come to pass.

That’s exactly where we are right now.

So the question now is, where does bitcoin go from here?

Right now, we have a brand-new area of demand for bitcoin as a corporate treasury asset. It’s incredible. Corporations are sitting on trillions of dollars of capital. So even a small weighting to bitcoin can have a profound effect on the price.

For instance, ARK Invest put out a recent report on crypto. According to the report, non-traditional assets like real estate and emerging markets make up 5–6% of institutional investors’ portfolios.

So if pension funds and banks allocated a similar weighting to bitcoin, the report suggests bitcoin’s price could go to a half-million dollars.

Now, will that happen overnight? No. Will that happen in a straight line? No, absolutely not.

But we’re already seeing big institutions buy bitcoin. Back in December – when bitcoin was only about $18,000 – 169-year-old insurance giant MassMutual bought $100 million of the crypto…

And last month Tesla announced it had bought $1.5 billion worth of the crypto when it was just under $38,000… So the shift is underway.

As I’ve told my readers all along, what’s more important than anything else is understanding an asset’s trajectory. So I invest my intellectual capital in determining what the trajectory of an asset is… not the exact timing.

I’ve made a lot of money, not by knowing the specific date when something will happen, but by placing my faith in my research that shows me what will realistically occur over time. And not over 100 years, 50 years, or even 20 years. But within a reasonable frame of time we can all survive long enough to enjoy… just like we’re enjoying right now.

So as I look out through 2021, it’s very pro-bitcoin.

We’ve reached the tipping point among professional investment managers, where they’re running the risk of potentially getting fired if they don’t own bitcoin. And that’s a complete 180 from five years ago.

Heck, just two years ago, it was a career-ending risk to put your neck out and own bitcoin, or even talk about owning bitcoin. And that’s completely flipped now.

Look at MicroStrategy, which bought $1.125 billion of bitcoin for its corporate treasury and continues to purchase more… The stock price is up more than 400% since acquiring that initial bitcoin.

Now, I can guarantee you corporate boardrooms across the world − not just the country − are paying attention to that. Everyone is thinking about this. So this is another demand-driver we need to model into the price of bitcoin.

Even in my wildly bullish dreams, I didn’t think corporate treasurers would be prepared to put bitcoin in their corporate treasury this early.

I figured we’d probably have to see $40,000−50,000 bitcoin before they’d even consider it, because that’s when the market would have reached $1 trillion.

But here we are today… and we have major companies with billion-dollar market caps holding Bitcoin in their corporate treasuries.

It’s more evidence that, in my opinion, bitcoin will continue to be the most valuable financial service in the world.

Let the Game Come to You!

Teeka Tiwari Editor, Palm Beach Daily

P.S. Bitcoin has reached escape velocity – and everybody sees it.

Billionaires are in a frenzy buying it… The world’s largest payment networks are adopting it… And Wall Street’s most respected firms are rushing to get in. We are at a “tipping point,” to put it in the words of Citigroup.

But what nobody sees… what the media isn’t reporting… and what no member of the financial elite wants you to find out is this…

Behind the scenes, the smart money has now begun to go all in on what I consider to be Crypto’s Next Trillion-Dollar Coin.

Back in 2016, I recommended bitcoin, what became crypto’s first trillion-dollar coin by market cap. That’s why last week, I revealed what I believe will be the next $1 trillion crypto for free.

There’s still time to catch up. Just click here to stream the recording… you don’t want to miss out.

TL;DR Breakdown

American billionaire entrepreneur, Mark Cuban, is notably one of the big-name digital currency believers and investors. While a sizable percentage of his cryptocurrency portfolio is allocated to Bitcoin (BTC), he admitted to owning a lot of the second-largest crypto Ether (ETH), which according to him, is “the closest to a true currency.” He revealed this during a recent episode of “The Delphi Podcast.”

The billionaire disclosed that 60 percent of his cryptocurrency holdings are in Bitcoin, while as much as 30 percent are held in Ether. The remaining 10 percent covers other digital currencies. Mark Cuban opined that the capabilities of the Ethereum blockchain are improvable; hence, it’s “adaptable over time.” 

“I wish I had bought it sooner, but I started buying it four years ago, simply because I think it’s the closest we have to a true currency,” he added.

For Bitcoin, Cuban doesn’t welcome the idea that the leading cryptocurrency is better off as a currency. Instead, he sees BTC more as a better store of value. “People said bitcoin is a currency, and I’m like, ‘It’s just not going to work.’”

Mark Cuban sees BTC as a better alternative to gold. This is the more reason why he hasn’t sold of his Bitcoin position.

Mark Cuban didn’t specify what other cryptocurrencies made of the remaining 10 percent of his crypto portfolio. However, he recently purchased some Dogecoin (DOGE) for his son, which he said was just for fun and educational purposes. In a similar development, the billionaire founder of SpaceX and Tesla, Elon Musk, also bought some of the meme cryptocurrency for his kid. 

Could Dogecoin be referred to as the billionaires’ favorite fun coin?

For the first time ever, Ethereum has topped $2,000, building on recent gains after Visa’s decision to conduct a stablecoin transaction on its legacy payment platform. As bitcoinist notes, the dollar-pegged token in concern was USDC, which functions atop the Ethereum blockchain.

Source: Bloomberg

Meanwhile, on April 1 (believing it was not the April Fools prank), billionaire investor Mark Cuban admitted that he owns many Ethereum tokens, praising its smart contracts features that would back the now-booming decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens sector.

“That’s what changed the game,” the television personality added, "That’s what got me excited. [And] that’s why it’s a lot like the internet.”

Mr. Cuban’s portfolio comprises 70 percent Bitcoin, 30 percent Ethereum, and 10 percent miscellaneous cryptocurrencies.

Notably, prices have been rising as the amount of ETH held by exchanges, like BTC, has been dropping sharply this year.

Source

Bitcoin also topped $60,000 once again, recovering from the flash-crash earlier in the week...

Notably, Morgan Stanley revealed in its SEC filing from April 1 that 12 of its mutual funds may have indirect exposure to the Bitcoin market via cash-settled futures or Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust.

ETH is outperforming BTC once again, having found support around 0.03x (BTC/ETH) once again...

The gains in bitcoin and altcoins has lifted total crypto market cap to within inches of $2 trillion ($1.94tn). The previous peak in January 2018 saw cryptos at $831 billion...

Source: CoinMarketCap

Bitcoin is now the 8th largest asset in the world (just behind silver's total capitalization and above Facebook) and Ethereum is the 45th largest asset (just above Coca-Cola and behind Netflix).

This resurgence in interest in crypto hasn't gone unnoticed by the People's Bank of China (PBoC), who admitted that strong interest in its CBDC project is partly being driven by Bitcoin's recent surge, despite cryptocurrency still being banned in China.

image courtesy of CoinTelegraph

As CoinTelegraph reports, PBoC research bureau director Wang Xin said interest in the digital yuan was driven in part by the ambitions of other countries to follow suit, and also by Bitcoin’s price hike. According to CNBC’s mandarin translation of his comments, Xin said:

China has run numerous pilot tests of the digital yuan in the past couple of years, with its experimentation extending to biometric hardware wallets, on-street ATMs, national lottery draws, and more.