Marc P. Bernegger started his first internet company in 1999 and had two successful exits. He began working with Bitcoin in 2012, is on the board of Crypto Finance Group, Swiss Blockchain Federation and CfC St. Moritz and is a member of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Expert Network for blockchain. The recent CoinDesk opinion article “10 Reasons Quant Strategies for Crypto Fail” by Jesus Rodriguez makes for a great headline, but it overlooks relevant developments and key data in the sector.  While Rodriguez makes reasonable points about the weakness of quant technology for crypto, a growing number of professional crypto quant fund managers address these through their strategies, demonstrating clear success. Going forward, crypto assets are set to become the perfect asset class for quant strategies. By signing up, you will receive emails about CoinDesk products and you agree to our terms & conditions and privacy policy.See also: Crypto Long & Short: The Surprisingly Sunny Outlook for Crypto Hedge Funds The 2020 PwC–Elwood Crypto Hedge Fund Report says the most common crypto hedge fund strategy (48% of those surveyed) is quantitative (or taking a systematic approach to the market in either a directional or a market neutral manner), followed by discretionary long only (19% of funds; meaning funds that are long only and whose investors have a longer investment horizon), discretionary long/short (17% of funds; meaning funds that cover a broad range of strategies including: long/short, relative value, event driven, technical analysis and some strategies that are crypto specific, such as mining), and multi-strategy (17% of funds; meaning funds adopting a combination of the above strategies). To understand why almost half of all crypto hedge funds worldwide are focused on quant strategies requires a look at the broader (crypto) hedge fund sector. It is important to note that the models used by quantitative funds usually extend beyond digital asset datasets. Many quantitative crypto fund managers come from the traditional finance world, their strategies are defined based on decades of data from traditional asset classes, and these strategies are tested thoroughly before being applied to the crypto market.  Additionally systematic strategies are superior to human decision-making procedures in an environment of irrational and volatile markets, which is definitely the case with most cryptocurrencies. The crypto market is still dominated by traders making decisions by monitoring the price action on the charts. This increases the strength of trends and favors a quantitative approach based on time series analysis. Traders can retrieve a vast amount of  information by analysing digital asset datasets – particularly when taking on-chain metrics into account (e.g. transaction values, miner fees, etc.). That can be used by quantitative funds to garner some element of predictability instead of relying on technical price data alone. While Rodriguez makes reasonable points about the weakness of quant technology for crypto, a growing number of professional crypto quant fund managers address these through their strategies. With outliers, most quantitative strategies can take advantage of the short-term inefficiencies presented by digital assets and actually profit from the outlier events. The key attraction of many quantitative funds is their informational market advantage and the hedging capabilities they offer, particularly during down-markets. As such, outliers may present a challenge, but these periods have been proven quite profitable for some quantitative crypto funds as evidenced by their track records. Quant funds that generally trade very liquid exchange-listed crypto assets provide better liquidity to investors than a fundamental investor targeting early-stage projects or a multi-strategy, where the fund manager needs to consider the various strategies and instruments in its portfolio. Most serious and regulated systematic crypto hedge funds are quite transparent with their numbers so investors are able to find actual assets under management or monthly performance figures on platforms like Barclay Hedge or Nilsson Hedge. Based on available data, systematic crypto funds are outperforming “passive HODLing strategies” (meaning long only), discretionary long/short and multi-strategies significantly and generate sustainable alpha: In 2019, the average crypto hedge fund performance by strategy was as follows: Quantitative +58%Discretionary Long/Short +33%Discretionary Long Only +42%Multi-strategy +19%  In 2018, which was a very challenging year for digital assets, quant trading was the only strategy generating positive returns: Median quant fund +8%Median all funds -46%Median fundamental fund -53%Median discretionary fund -63%Bitcoin -72% So looking at the performance of crypto hedge funds in 2018 and 2019, it is obvious that crypto quant funds are working. A growing number of investors, including more and more fund of funds, are investing in systematic crypto hedge funds and crypto quants exclusively, which enables the whole ecosystem to evolve quickly. With most regulated crypto hedge funds that accept money from external investors being quite transparent about fund performance and assets under management, the growth in investments is becoming apparent. Increases in assets being allocated to crypto hedge funds in the last few months and increasing indications that bitcoin is a digital store of value and a new hedge against inflation, show that the demand from investors is accelerating. A majority of today’s crypto hedge funds, including crypto quants, were created less than three years ago, illustrating that this industry is still very young. See also: Jesus Rodriguez – 10 Reasons Quant Strategies for Crypto Fail Assets under management of crypto funds worldwide doubled from 2019 to 2020 (from $1 billion to $2 billion) and there are clear indications that they will roughly triple till the end of this year. A big part of this new money will be allocated to systematic crypto funds. As CoinDesk’s Noelle Acheson wrote recently, “the outlook for crypto hedge funds is sunny.” Investing in a crypto hedge fund instead of direct investment in the market is a more attractive option for many investors: they do not need to worry about custody, best execution, or liquidity crunches. These elements can be especially important for traditional investors, who are not deeply involved in the underlying technology and look at crypto assets primarily as a new alternative asset class to diversify their existing portfolio. With these arguments, and professional crypto quant fund managers that address known challenges with their strategies to achieve both performance and growth today, the potential for systematic crypto funds to surpass other investment strategies and outperform the market by the end of 2020 looks increasingly probable. Opinionquantitative financeDisclosureThe leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.What is undefined?

Tony Spilotro · @tonyspilotroBTC | Nov 25, 2020 | 15:00

As Bitcoin soars toward a new all-time high and has recaptured the interest of the world of finance, a sizable supply of liquidity is building on exchanges, not in BTC, but in stablecoins. The rising supply alongside surging crypto valuations suggests that the recent rally is “liquidity-driven,” according to one cryptocurrency quantitative analyst.

That liquidity as it continues to stack up on exchanges everywhere could soon bring the most “unprecedented buying pressure in history” to the crypto market. Could the likes of Tether and USD Coin be the key to unlocking the prices in Bitcoin that experts someday predict?

Bitcoin price is nearing $20,000, and at this point, the asset has gone parabolic, and most technical analysis has gone out the window. Trendlines no longer hold the unstoppable cryptocurrency back, and indicators have been overheated for weeks on end with not so much as a stumble, let alone a significant pullback.

Beyond technical analysis, fundamental analysis – consisting of quantitive and qualitative analysis – can also be used to determining the health or strength of an asset and its expected performance. Data showing that BTC was moving off of exchanges was perhaps the most useful information leading up to the recent rally.

With no BTC on exchanges to buy and a diminishing supply, a sell-side liquidity crisis played out, sending the cryptocurrency from $10,000 to $20,000 in a few months flat.

With Bitcoin still trending hard and technicals remaining unreliable, quantitative data is king. And according to a leading crypto quant analyst, there is plenty of reason for more upside. In fact, billions and billions of reasons are pilling up on exchanges right now.

According to Ki Young Ju, CEO of Crypto Quant, the stablecoin supply is growing rapidly on cryptocurrency exchanges. This liquidity, he claims, will soon drive “unprecedented buying pressure” in crypto markets. The capital pouring in tells the CEO that the current rally is liquidity-driven, and is set to continue henceforth.

The data is yet another factor backing up the theory that Bitcoin has begun a new bull trend, and could reach some of the astronomical prices that experts predict.

In the past, sharp-eyed crypto analysts notice a correlation between new Tether minted and Bitcoin rallies. That relationship is all due to the liquidity that the stablecoin supplies, which eventually flows into the Bitcoin and crypto market cap.

But liquidity pouring in like never before, things will only get more bullish for Bitcoin and crypto from here on out.

But now, the excitement for newer blockchains is growing. Part of the problem Ethereum and Bitcoin face is to do with interoperability. As a matter of fact, there exists no common network that would connect these technically diverse blockchain networks.

If the internet could overcome the problem of diversity and work as a single strong network, so can blockchain. Up until now, the blockchain interoperability hiccups are being addressed only at the transactional layer. What does that mean?

Let’s assume blockchain X is attempting to connect Bitcoin and Ethereum.  It will basically follow this approach:

Bitcoin Transaction -> X Transaction -> Ethereum Transaction

And vice versa.

Unfortunately, there is a Gordian knot in this solution.

As progressive technology, the blockchains will keep evolving. Sometimes the progress may happen in the form of faster TPS (transactions per second).  And sometimes the transaction format itself might change. In short, the biggest roadblocks for interoperability are factors relating to consensus models, smart contract functionality and transaction schemes.

That means the blockchain X will never be future-proof.

Inspired by Vint Cerf, one of the fathers of the internet, Team Quant took a unique approach to the interoperability issue. Instead of creating a new blockchain to connect the Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) networks, it created something that runs on top of blockchains. That comes in the form of Quant’s patented Blockchain OS, Overledger.

Designed to run on top of blockchains, Overledger doesn’t concern itself with the blockchain, the consensus method or any other aspect to connect the blockchains. This setup ensures Overledger is a future-proof way to connect blockchains.

To explain this in simple terms, let us examine the following transaction.

Alice wishes to buy a pizza from a marketplace multi-chain application (MApp) owned by Bob that uses Overledger. This particular transaction chain involves Alice, Bob, the restaurant, and the delivery man.

Let’s say Alice pays for her pizza in BTC, but the restaurant only accepts ETH and on top of that the delivery man accepts only XRP. Do you smell trouble?

Bob has a multi-chain smart contract on MApp. According to that, when Bob receives BTC, a part of the payment will process as ETH towards the restaurant and another, as XRP towards the delivery man.

Overledger has multiple layers where ledgers remain isolated. These are transaction layers, messaging layers, filtering and ordering layers, and the application layers.

The BTC transaction received from Alice goes to MApp-1 and invokes Bob’s contract. The BTC transaction thus heads to the BTC ledger of the MApp-1 transaction layer. It extracts the transaction info which is directed to the messaging layer. This layer then lets the filtering and ordering layer create a verification block. That is how the application layer gets to know that it has to make an ETH and XRP payment to the restaurant and delivery man respectively.

The MApp used by Alice uses Quant’s patented fingerprint verification technology called TrustTag. This assigns digital fingerprints to physical goods, documents or any other item to make sure it is secure and maintains the integrity of transactions.

GoVerify is another such MApp that is currently in use to verify invoices, letters, emails, and texts. Lloyds Bank, government authorities and logistics organizations have trialed it for verification.

This point is very interesting. We can sum up the advantages of MApp over a decentralized application or DApp as below:

Front end– Easy to integrate front ends into existing apps. It has also released an Overledger SDK (software development kit) for quick developments.

API- This programmable interface allows Bob to store the MApp rules to interact with the Overledger OS and the multiple blockchains.

Treaty Contracts– Multi chain contracts

Blockchains– Decentralized networks of nodes with no smart contract capability necessary.

Regulated by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), the QNT token is a utility token. It provides digital access to an application or service. Anyone can access the Overledger OS by using the QNT tokens. These are required to pay the annual license or platform fee.

Quant might not be aggressively going after exchange listings or GitHub commits but it has an impressive business development pipeline that comprises over 300 clients at enterprise levels.

It is running an ongoing project with SIA, the European ICT giant. SIA has over 580 banks in its networks and it intends to use Quant to process all these banking transactions.

At the time of publishing, the QNT price is trading at over $5. It had seen an all-time high in July 2019, a surge of almost 800%. But as we understand, Quant is a project that is bridging the interoperability gap between blockchains. And that makes it a high-value proposition in the ecosystem. It is thus no wonder that Quant made it to our top altcoin blockchain protocol list.

—

The information discussed by Altcoin Buzz is not financial advice. This is for educational and informational purposes only. Any information or strategies are thoughts and opinions relevant to accepted levels of risk tolerance of the writer/reviewers and their risk tolerance may be different than yours. We are not responsible for any losses that you may incur as a result of any investments directly or indirectly related to the information provided.

Do your own due diligence and rating before making any investments and consult your financial advisor. The researched information presented we believe to be correct and accurate however there is no guarantee or warranty as to the accuracy, timeliness, completeness. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are high-risk investments so please do your due diligence. Copyright Altcoin Buzz Pte Ltd. All rights reserved.

Amazing review of this outstanding project. Love how in depth you went with your research! This level of research is the reason why altcoinbuzz is one of the best sources out there in the cryptocurrency space. Can we expect a video version of this overview?

“The achievement of a fully interoperable blockchain network, through our collaboration with Quant Network, is another key element in our path of bringing innovation and state-of-the-art technologies for supporting banks, financial institutions, corporates and public administration bodies to extend their capabilities in integrating different DLT business applications,” said Daniele Savarè, Innovation & Business Solutions Director SIA. Described as a ‘breakthrough’ by SIA, the achievement came with integration of Quant Network’s Overledger technology into the SIAchain private blockchain infrastructure. This leveraged 580 European network nodes within SIAnet (a 200,000km fibre optic network with high-speed and low-latency). The integration makes it possible to bridge permissioned blockchain instances between SIAchain and other external networks – ones which could not be previously connected. The effect is to have cross-platform applications and services delivering (for example): The development of the solution began in mid-2019. The program of testing involved: Quant Network and SIA will now work together on a go-to-market approach. They hope to develop and implement additional use, and applications, which explore blockchain interoperability challenges. “The partnership between Quant Network and SIA has been extremely positive and productive from the very start,” said Gilbert Verdian, CEO, Quant Network, “and both companies are confident that this development will play an integral part in building the financial infrastructure of the future globally.” SIA designs, creates and manages technology infrastructures and services for financial institutions, central banks, enterprises and the public. Among its offerings are solutions for: The SIA Group provides its services in >50 countries. An example of activities is its digitalised (sic) management of sureties based on blockchain technology. Sureties requested by law are mandatory for certain types of economic transactions like calls for tenders in the public sector, supply contracts between companies and payment of advances for the purchase of properties under construction between private individuals. Sureties are often linked to problems involving: SIA’s use of DLT makes it possible to: SIAchain is the private infrastructure created by SIA to develop, in a secure and protected manner, blockchain applications based on DLT. It is a partnership between SIA and R3 aimed at speeding up the global development and adoption of blockchain applications. Quant Network developed its own blockchain operating system – Overledger. It not only interconnects blockchains, but also legacy networks to blockchain. The problem Overledger seeks to solve is that ‘traditional’ DLT lacks seamless inter-communicability internally among ledgers and externally with existing networks. This limitation forces distributed applications to be single-ledger-dependent. From a technology perspective, the fact that distributed or decentralised applications are single-ledger-dependent makes them difficult to select for a specific business purpose.  The Overledger OS proposes to remove this single-ledger dependency, by introducing an approach which enables the design, deployment and execution of multi-ledger decentralised applications. While other approaches exist (for example, Interledger), most such solutions only allow communication between two blockchains at the same time. Overledger, as demonstrated with SIA, is different because it can conduct operations across multiple blockchains In this way, Overledger connects all blockchains and can add an arbitrary hash of a message to a host. By introducing a multi-layer approach via Overledger, Quant Network says it moves information in the layers above, thereby creating a common interface among ledgers. Quant Network and SIA believe their partnership is an important milestone for the finance sector. Their approach will allow banks and financial institutions – through the SIAchain infrastructure – to: These are big claims, and there is a dearth of detail about what has been achieved and how. In addition, the partners will have to contend with offerings from the like of Kadena, LedgerConnect or Polkadot.

With many Bitcoin bulls and hodlers feeling vindicated after the rally to above $19,000 this year, the CEO of blockchain analytics firm CryptoQuant says whale activities are decidedly bearish.

On a new episode of The Coinist Podcast, Ki Young Ju says a key whale ratio is above 95%, which indicates sideways or selling pressure will continue in the short term.

“The whale ratio is calculated by the top ten transactions from users on exchanges divided by the total inflows, and it indicates how many whales there are and how many Bitcoins are deposited from whales. When this value goes above 95%, it means 95% of deposits are from the top ten deposits, and the market is likely to be bearish or going sideways according to historical data.”

Ki Young Ju says that some of the bigger miners are likely influencing some selling pressure with the hopes of keeping the price at a level that discourages other miners from entering the industry.

“Even if I were an OG whale, I wouldn’t want to sell at this price and liquidate just yet, but it looks like some OG whales are trying to sell some Bitcoins. I would say that would be some miners who want to keep prices lower than $20,000. For example, miners have to keep Bitcoin price levels below $20,000 since they don’t want new competitors joining the mining industry. Or some whales, some market manipulators, they want more consolidation.

We can’t understand the purpose of those selling… On-chain data can’t tell us the inflows of institutional spot beats, but it tells us it’s a battle of OG whales versus retail investors.”

The quant analyst goes on to reveal the key things that he would want to see before going long on Bitcoin.

“I think when the whale ratio goes below 95%, and if there are no significant changes on exchange inflows and outflows, especially inflows, and when the whales start withdrawing from exchanges, that’s going to be a short-term bullish signal I would say…

I’m still short-term bearish or going sideways, but the thing that makes me worried is that on-chain data can’t see the spot beat inflows from institutional investors like MicroStrategy and others, so the buying pressure from those spot beats inflows and also sentiment from people… People are [FOMOing]. It’s really scaring me so I’m thinking of closing my shorts if the price is going sideways for about three days.”

Featured Image: Shutterstock/Maria Harvey

TL;DR Breakdown:

The founder of the Australia Nuggets News, Alex Saunders, alerted on the dropping ETH reserves. Following the Crypto Quant chart shared, crypto exchanges started to see a notable drop in the cryptocurrency’s reserves. This coincided with the recent correction in the crypto market, which saw ETH trading below $1,000. The exact reason for the development remains unknown. 

However, it’s agreeable to note that these moved ETH may be leaving to DeFi decentralized exchanges, the Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract, or hard wallets for self-custody.

Currently, ETH is trading at $1,208 on Coinmarketcap, with a market capitalization of $138 billion. 

Three notable products of the Quant network are GoVerify, Atlas, and TrustTag.

GoVerify serves to verify that any email, SMS, or phone call is legitimate.

Atlas enables cross border open banking. Many of you crypto enthusiasts out there may not like banks. However, banks are currently some of the most powerful and well-funded organizations in the world. As has been evidenced with Ripple, any solution which solves problems for banks can have massive potential.

Enterprises do not want to spend the money, time, or exercise the effort needed to run a node on a new blockchain in order to access multiple other blockchains. The Overledger creates an easy and realistic way for them to quickly access multiple blockchains and internet of things applications with one Operating System.

Think of Overledger like the App Store or the Play Store for multiple blockchains and/or multiple existing types of institutional infrastructure. It has the potential to connect and make use of almost any type of digital system you can think of to another, it’s not limited to just blockchains.

Most enterprise interoperability solutions target just permissioned, centralized blockchains. The Overledger creates a network between enterprise permissioned blockchains, public decentralized, permissionless blockchains, and existing networks.

Connecting existing networks is huge because it means that Overledger is not limited to just crypto to crypto use cases.

The Overledger OS is centralized in that only they have access to their backend and their patented technology. Nevertheless, they enable developers to create MApps connecting decentralized, permissionless blockchains. In this sense, they are using a centralized technology to help spread the use of decentralized technology.

The MApps that Quant Network talk of stand for Multi-chain or Multi-protocol applications. This means that developers can use Overledger to create applications that for example leverage the security of Bitcoin and the smart contract capabilities of Ethereum.

We’ve talked about how Quant is interoperable and simple to use. Like pretty much all crypto projects, they claim to be stable and secure. The difference here is that we have to trust them because their backend code is proprietary meaning no one but them can prove that it is stable and secure until their technology is used on a mass scale by external parties. They further claim that it is fast and scalable. Finally, they call their operating system “future proof”. This aspect is important as blockchains and tech is constantly changing so it’s paramount that the Overledger system maintains its compatibility.

There is no way Cryptocurrencies are stopping their price evaluation in 2021. The price of Bitcoin on the first of January was $7,238. And by the end of 2020 (31st December 2020), the price has reached $29,039. Within just a year, Bitcoin has seen almost 300% price evaluation. 

Bitcoin is the Cryptocurrency with a market cap. And the market cap is growing day by day. This is an eye-opener for us to understand the hidden potential of Cryptocurrencies.

Although Cryptocurrencies are the best assets to invest in, more than two thousand Cryptocurrencies are present in the market. Not every Cryptocurrency is as profitable as Bitcoin. If you are thinking of investing in Bitcoin, coinmarketcal.com might help you get the best deal.

The Current Crypto trade market works on a selected few Cryptocurrencies. That means, although there are Cryptocurrencies that have the potential to become a mainstream currency, there are some currencies that are not for investment.

2020 has certainly been a great year for Cryptocurrencies. However, if we are precise, it has been a great year for a selected few Cryptocurrencies. Let’s explore the unexplored Cryptocurrencies and see which currency has been least popular in 2020.

Fusion is considered to be the next era of the Cryptocurrency finance system. Fusion is focused on creating an efficient environment for the financial sectors. The Fusion protocol is responsible for proving the infrastructure for the financial application. 

The Fusion has three prominent features that are considered to be a level above the rest of the smart contracts. It features a rich environment for businesses to make time-based transactions in various industries.

Despite having all the features, it needs to have the upper hand in the market, lack of user databases has pushed these Cryptocurrencies away from the main market. 

Unibright is a Germany based company that focuses on offering a unified framework to bring smart contracts and Blockchain technology to the mainstream market. Unibright was launched in 2018 after the first successful rally in 2017.

Unibright follows the no-coding approach with smart contacts. Hence, all the smart contracts are generated automatically, deployed, and are updated after the conditions are met.

Ubibright comes with the enterprise solution and generates process modeling tools for the industries. It also helps the new business to build their roots and offer an incredible ecosystem for the business to grow. 

Smart contracts have become quite popular in the Crypto trade industries. The popularity is so high that today you will be able to make several kinds of smart contracts. For instance, Fantom focuses on smart contracts that use DAG-based blockchain.

The main aim of Fantom is to reach 300K transactions per second. They want to change the whole transaction system. The best part of Fantom is that its technology can support several industries.

Matic Network aims to boost the adoption of the blockchain. They are using scalability and the user experience as a mode to do so. Recently, they have accepted that they are trying to reach 65,000 transactions per second.

Matic wants to create a network that will develop an environment where the users and Cryptocurrency can communicate. The key feature of the Matic Network is to scale up the development of decentralized applications. These Dapps can be used in several industries to boat their business activities.

Quant focuses on creating a network that is not only user-friendly but also provides a secure digital connection. Quat emphasizes digital security and tries to create an environment over the internet that can be trusted. 

Quant works on an operating system named over the ledger. This ledger connects all the isolated networks to form a network. This network includes the followings:

All the Cryptocurrencies mentioned are fast, smart, and work on enterprise based Blockchain networks. Despite catering to so many advanced features, they are the least popular currencies in the market. Anyone who sees these Cryptocurrencies from a technological perspective will be able to measure their potential.

If you like the article then check Technoroll for more informative articles.

And buying crypto couldn’t be easier: exchanges are doing everything they can to get would-be investors on board. 

The service will allow users to buy over 80 cryptocurrencies at market price — including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum and the app’s native, Crypto.com coin (today trading at $0.067). 

Regulatory push

Crypto.com’s push comes as the company rapidly grows: it is racing to spread cryptocurrency adoption worldwide — just last month, it announced that it had surpassed five million worldwide users, three months after it reached the three million mark. The platform says it wants to reach 100 million users within five years. 

The one-stop, crypto-shop has a wallet, a credit card (with cashback offers), an interest-yielding savings account, an automated quant trading service and a loans product. 

But in order to get retail investors on board, it is pushing for KYC compliance. 

Know your customer — or KYC — is a way for financial institutions to verify their users. A KYC check involves identifying the identity of the client when opening an account and periodically over time.

It has become bigger in crypto recently as regulation becomes the norm — and major exchanges are hopping on board to please regulators. 

According to a 2020 report by blockchain analysis firm, CipherTrace, 56% of virtual asset service providers still lack strong know your customer (KYC) practices. 

In order for companies like Crypto.com (which operates in over 50 countries) to get people involved in cryptocurrencies, knowing their customers is a must. 

To keep track of DeFi updates in real time, check out our DeFi news feed Here.

Bitcoin price faced an extreme correction earlier today. Over the span of 12 hours, BTC plunged from the $41,000 region to lows on spot exchanges below $33,000. 

January 11, 2020 | AtoZ Markets – The past 12 hours have been rather tense on the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin, as well as other cryptocurrencies, went through a massive correction, resulting in almost $1.4 billion liquidations in 12 hours.

Today, January 11, the price of the leading cryptocurrency fell below the level of $33,000. At around 6:48 GMT, Bitcoin price plummeted to $32,365 on Bitstamp cryptocurrency exchange. However, at the time of writing, the BTCUSD pair is trading at $34,530

The fall in price led to the liquidation of traders’ positions in the Bitcoin derivatives market in the amount of $1.49 billion in 24 hours. The volume of liquidated positions for all coins amounted to almost $2.7 billion. The largest single liquidation order happened on BitMEX on the ETH perpetual contract and it was worth a whopping $22.24 million.

Northman Trader founder Sven Henrich noted earlier that buyers had raised the weekly RSI in Bitcoin futures to above 93, indicating the asset’s highest overbought level.

Crypto Quant CEO Ki Yoon Joo drew attention to the local maximum of the index of positions of miners – this means that they sell bitcoins, fixing profits.

Moreover, well-known trader Ton Weiss believes that the price correction will be short-term. By the end of January, Weiss expects new historical highs in the quotes of the leading cryptocurrency.

Together with Bitcoin, prices of other leading cryptocurrencies have also dropped. Market capitalization fell below $1 trillion (according to CoinMarketCap).

Think we missed something? Let us know in the comment section below.

A fresh Bitcoin (BTC) breakout is "imminent" and most likely to the upside, hedge fund Vailshire Capital Management says.

In a tweet on Jan. 19, Jeff Ross, the firm's founder and CEO, described the outlook for BTC performance as "wildly bullish."

Using a combination of on-chain metrics and macro insight, Ross highlighted an upcoming end to the ranging and conolidation seen in the Bitcoin price this week. 

"Update on #Bitcoin technicals... Breakout imminent. Direction still undecided. Macroview: Wildly bullish. On-chain analysis: Wildly bullish," he wrote.

His comments come as Bitcoin sentiment appears to return to "business as usual" after the holiday break, with asset management giant Grayscale making its biggest one-day BTC buy ever — around $700 million as of Tuesday.

Vailshire meanwhile is not alone in its optimism over Bitcoin's prospects this week. In the latest update to his stock-to-flow Bitcoin price model, quant analyst PlanB eyed the possibility of BTC/USD soon passing the "point of no return."

This, he explains, would occur should January's monthly close be substantially higher than the current spot rate — around $48,000, for example.

In so doing, Bitcoin would cement its status within stock-to-flow's theories, including its transition to an asset with a market cap of up to $29 trillion, as dictated by PlanB's stock-to-flow cross-asset model (S2FX).

"A larger monthly jump to #bitcoin $48K would create a nice gap between monthly dots. These gaps usually mark the point of no return (red arrows), i.c. the phase transition to #phase5," he commented while uploading the chart to Twitter.

Not everyone was convinced. In an update on Tuesday, Cointelegraph Markets analyst filbfilb warned that the next few days would be critical if Bitcoin is to avoid bearish pressure.

The reason, he said, came from repeated warning signals delivered by his Predator trading tool. 

"Predator printed its second yellow candle in the Bitcoin run-up," he explained.

Most alternative coins have resumed their recent bull run, including double-digit increases on behalf of most of the large-caps, including Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV, Chainlink (LINK), Ripple, Litecoin, and Cardano. The second-largest, Ethereum, has also surged to new highs and has come about $100 away from the 2018 record of $1,450.

Simultaneously, BTC has stalled slightly around the $41,000 mark, and its dominance over the market has reduced to 68.5%.

CryptoPotato reported yesterday that most large-cap altcoins took a break following a few consecutive days of charting gains. However, the situation has changed entirely over the past 24 hours.

Ethereum leads with an impressive 12% surge to a near 3-year high of $1,350, as of writing these lines. Thus, the second-largest crypto by market cap came about $100 away from breaking its ATH record from January 2018. CoinGecko data shows that ETH’s highest price tag was at $1,450.

Binance Coin (6%) and Polkadot (7%) have also added some value to $44.5 and nearly $10, respectively. However, the rest of the top ten altcoins have surged by double-digits, including Ripple (11.5%), Cardano (11.5%), Litecoin (11.2%), and Chainlink (18%).

Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV have stolen the show on a 24-hour scale with massive gains of 44% and 55%. As a result, BCH has exploded above $600, while BSV has neared $300.

Further gains are evident from Maker (73%), Dash (45%), Ethereum Classic (30%), Bitcoin Gold (30%), Holo (27%), EOS (26%), Zcash (25%), Qtum (25%), Quant (23%), 0x (23%), Compound (22%) and more.

Overall, the total cryptocurrency market cap has reached a new all-time high of nearly $1.120 trillion.

While most altcoins have gone on a wild ride, the primary cryptocurrency seems more relaxed, this is a typical key of an altcoin season. Bitcoin marked its latest all-time high at $42,000 a few days ago and almost immediately dumped below $39,000 on two occasions.

However, the asset reclaimed most losses rather rapidly and broke above $40,000 yesterday. In the past 24 hours, BTC initiated a leg up to $41,500 before retracing around $41,000 where it currently sits.

Nevertheless, the impressive gains registered by the altcoins have reduced BTC’s dominance over the market. The metric comparing bitcoin’s market cap against all other coins has dropped to 68.5% after hovering above 70% just a few days ago.

Article source

By Dave Liedtka and Eric Lam

(Bloomberg) – Bitcoin jumped to another all-time high on Wednesday as extreme swings continued to buffet the world’s largest cryptocurrency.

The famously volatile digital coin advanced as much as 6% to $35,842, surpassing the previous high set Jan. 3, and was trading at $34,757 as of 8:17 a.m. in New York. It had plunged as much as 17% on Monday. Bitcoin quadrupled in 2020.

A range of factors have been cited for Bitcoin’s ascent, showing how hard it is to pinpoint the proximate cause for the latest bout of volatility. Some traders pointed to a JPMorgan Chase & Co. long-term price forecast of as much as $146,000, while others cited fear of missing out, or FOMO, on the record rally.

“Clear bull market, and we’re not getting 30% to 40% drops like in 2017,” said Vijay Ayyar, head of business development with crypto exchange Luno in Singapore. “The market is more mature with bigger buyers. Keep in mind though that we’re in a parabolic phase and they do top out.”

While the latest price swings may be reminiscent of past boom and bust cycles, Bitcoin’s ability to reverse its slide so quickly this week suggests institutional investors are not abandoning the space, said Matt Long, head of distribution and prime products with crypto brokerage OSL in Hong Kong.

“Monday’s dip was instructive as institutional investors used the opportunity to buy in,” he said. “Institutional investment is firmly in the digital asset sector, and potentially accelerating.”More institutions and noted investors, from Paul Tudor Jones to Scott Minerd and Stan Druckenmiller, have either started allocating funds into Bitcoin or have said they’re open to doing so.

“The chase higher is back on based on the notion that bigger main street investors are interested in building longer-term positions,” said Stephen Innes, chief global market strategist with Axi. “This is all about the new age embrace of blockchain technology to which Bitcoin is so uniquely intertwined.”

Some argue that the cryptocurrency offers a hedge against dollar weakness and inflation risk in a world awash with fiscal and monetary stimulus.

“If inflation picks up, or even if it doesn’t, and more companies decide to diversify some small portion of their cash balances into Bitcoin instead of cash, then the current relative trickle into Bitcoin would become a torrent,” Bill Miller of Miller Value Partners LLC wrote in a blog post.

But others say retail investors and trend-following quant funds are pumping up an unsustainable bubble.

“Bitcoin is better at being gold than gold is at being gold,” Anthony Scaramucci, founder and managing partner of SkyBridge Capital, said in an interview Tuesday. The firm is the latest to get on the Bitcoin bandwagon, launching a crypto-centric fund this week.

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Most alternative coins have resumed their recent bull run, including double-digit increases on behalf of most of the large-caps, including Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV, Chainlink (LINK), Ripple, Litecoin, and Cardano. The second-largest, Ethereum, has also surged to new highs and has come about $100 away from the 2018 record of $1,450.

Simultaneously, BTC has stalled slightly around the $41,000 mark, and its dominance over the market has reduced to 68.5%.

CryptoPotato reported yesterday that most large-cap altcoins took a break following a few consecutive days of charting gains. However, the situation has changed entirely over the past 24 hours.

Ethereum leads with an impressive 12% surge to a near 3-year high of $1,350, as of writing these lines. Thus, the second-largest crypto by market cap came about $100 away from breaking its ATH record from January 2018. CoinGecko data shows that ETH’s highest price tag was at $1,450.

Binance Coin (6%) and Polkadot (7%) have also added some value to $44.5 and nearly $10, respectively. However, the rest of the top ten altcoins have surged by double-digits, including Ripple (11.5%), Cardano (11.5%), Litecoin (11.2%), and Chainlink (18%).

Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV have stolen the show on a 24-hour scale with massive gains of 44% and 55%. As a result, BCH has exploded above $600, while BSV has neared $300.

Further gains are evident from Maker (73%), Dash (45%), Ethereum Classic (30%), Bitcoin Gold (30%), Holo (27%), EOS (26%), Zcash (25%), Qtum (25%), Quant (23%), 0x (23%), Compound (22%) and more.

Overall, the total cryptocurrency market cap has reached a new all-time high of nearly $1.120 trillion.

While most altcoins have gone on a wild ride, the primary cryptocurrency seems more relaxed, this is a typical key of an altcoin season. Bitcoin marked its latest all-time high at $42,000 a few days ago and almost immediately dumped below $39,000 on two occasions.

However, the asset reclaimed most losses rather rapidly and broke above $40,000 yesterday. In the past 24 hours, BTC initiated a leg up to $41,500 before retracing around $41,000 where it currently sits.

Nevertheless, the impressive gains registered by the altcoins have reduced BTC’s dominance over the market. The metric comparing bitcoin’s market cap against all other coins has dropped to 68.5% after hovering above 70% just a few days ago.

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As the recent price rally in bitcoin and ether cools down, investors and traders are taking a closer look at alternative tokens (“altcoins”), particularly those from the decentralized finance (DeFi) subsector.

Multiple DeFi tokens this week saw double-digit gains, including 0x (ZRX), aave (AAVE), and maker (MKR). Prices for 0x were at $0.52 at the time of writing, up 20.42% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinDesk 20. Maker’s price, at the same time, saw near-160% growth year to date.

“I think the biggest thing is bitcoin’s momentum finally cooling and giving DeFi tokens some room to breathe,” Ryan Watkins, research analyst at Messari, told CoinDesk. “On top of that there are a lot of exciting new releases coming out in DeFi these next one to two weeks which is creating momentum as well.”

0x, an Ethereum-based decentralized exchange, announced its version 4 upgrade plan on Jan. 7, which caused a sudden rally in the protocol’s ZRX token. The upgrade will include new customizable modules that are able to execute trades without interruption and gas efficiency optimization. The vote for the upgrade is scheduled for Jan. 16.

Trading volumes on major decentralized exchanges also saw rapid growth in the past month, up 95% to approximately $37.58 billion, according to data from Dune Analytics. On derivatives exchange FTX, perpetual futures for their DeFi index were also trading near their all-time high again as of press time.

However, this time is unlike the last “alt season” that appeared temporarily after bitcoin’s bull run in 2017 or the “DeFi summer” boom, which was caused by “hype” on high yields from liquidity mining, according to Peter Chan, lead trader for crypto trading firm OneBit Quant. He told CoinDesk he does not see any new exciting projects that are attracting particular liquidity to altcoins. 

Rather, the current renewed growth in DeFi has some wondering whether DeFi will become something that is much bigger than just the potential high returns from so-called “yield farming.”

Read More: What Is Yield Farming? The Rocket Fuel of DeFi, Explained

In a Financial Times op-ed written by Brian Brooks and published Tuesday, the outgoing acting head of the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) wrote on the  future “self-driving” banks, raising the possibility that the DeFi sector is here to stay if regulations are able to catch up with the fast-growing technology and ensure compliance and safety.

“Although these ‘self-driving banks’ are new, they are not small,” Brooks wrote. “They are likely to be mainstream before self-driving cars start to fly.”

Watkins said that “continued growth and maturation of DeFi infrastructure” is the next move for the DeFi sector, which involves increased layer 2 adoptions, more protocol-to-protocol corporations and cross-chain DeFi projects.

Improved fundamentals are usually good news for DeFi tokens, which could see continuous price growth in the long term, according to Watkins.