TL;DR Breakdown

Bitcoin price established a solid support near the $43,000 and $44,000 area at the beginning of the week after dropping sharply from its new all-time high of $58,000 last week. The world’s largest cryptocurrency had infiltrated the bottom boundary of a rising price channel during the decline, displaying signs of weakness as February’s bullish momentum came to a halt. 

Earlier this week, after a consolidation phase within a falling wedge pattern, Bitcoin price successfully penetrated the upper boundary, sparking a frantic rally that reached $52,500 as of yesterday. This morning, the world’s leading cryptocurrency lost its grip of the $50,000 price level amid a wider liquidation in both equities and the cryptocurrency market. 

The flagship cryptocurrency has shed over 7 percent of its price over the last 24 hours and at press time, it is trading at a market price of $46,613. Regardless of the dip, data by Glassnodes indicate that long term Bitcoin holders were stockpiling despite the sell-off. So far, the daily price range is in between $46,300.00 — $48,376.20. 

After rallying towards $52,500 yesterday, Bitcoin price retraced back to below $50,000, moving below the bottom boundary of an ascending parallel channel. Besides, the $52,500 price level represents the Golden Fibb retracement level of the decline from $58,000 all-time high price and last week’s low of $43,000. As such, Bitcoin price appears to be trading in a bearish market for the short term. 

Moreover, Bitcoin’s correlation to the S&P 500 reached a 5-month high this month. Bitcoin has been correlated to traditional financial markets over the last several months and this was evident a few weeks ago when Bitcoin price trailed stocks at close range. The last time Bitcoin and stocks followed each other this closely was back in November last year. 

Today, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell delivered a disheartening speech that resulted in both S&P 500 and NASDAQ to shed about 3 percent of their value. The Fed chief noted that he “would be concerned” by constraining the financial terms as increasing yields on government bonds exert a great deal of pressure on the cost of borrowing. Following in the footsteps of S&P 500 and NASDAQ, Bitcoin price declined sharply and it is still dropping at the time of writing. 

The comments by Powell comes amid a raft of mixed predictions by popular analysts on the future of Bitcoin. Bloomberg’s Mike McGlone used historical data to suggest that Bitcoin price is journeying towards $100,000 on March 4. McGlone points out the rising discount for shares in Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust. The discount applies to when the price of Grayscale shares is trading at a lower price than the underlying crypto asset, and it is currently at the level it was during the March 2020 crypto market crash. 

Crypto Twitter analyst, MasterChangz, tweeted to his followers that the Bitcoin price will hit $200K before we get in June 2021. According to him, the next rally will be towards $77,000 in two weeks time. 

Bitcoin’s price has seen its fair share of ups and downs over the past month. While the coin has been able to set record highs in 2021, there have also been strong pullbacks.

In the past 24 hours alone, Bitcoin breached the $50,000-mark after days, before succumbing to selling pressure again to trade under the said level. However, as always, the question remains – How far away is the next price rally to its latest ATH. Interestingly, there are signs that traders won’t have to wait too long before such an uptrend materializes.

Large holders of the coin have played a key role in BTC’s growth over the years and 2021 has only highlighted their importance when it comes to price appreciation. According to data provided by Santiment, Bitcoin’s largest holders with over 1,000 Bitcoins currently hold around 42.56% of the total supply.

On 8 February, this was around 43.29% – a 54-week high, and one can argue that this fueled the Bitcoin run that established a new ATH that month. With its value inching towards 43%, traders can expect this to be an indication that whales are looking to fuel another rally in the coming weeks.

Bitcoin’s market data backed up this possibility. In Bitcoin’s market cycle, there has always been a balance between hodlers selling and re-entering the market at a lower price point. The smart money scenario may play a key role this time around as well.

Long-term supply decreases as Hodlers take profits during bull markets and increase in re-accumulation phases at cheaper prices. This lends context to the latest price dip as Bitcoin still retains strong fundamentals. In fact, its price corrections are symptomatic of hodlers selling high only to buy low and boost the price and complete a market cycle. Such has been the case over the past few months and this is likely to continue in 2021 as well.

It is also important to note that Bitcoin’s rally, despite being a few months old, can be considered to be in its mid/early stages. Data provided by Glassnode highlighted this aspect of Bitcoin’s price action by taking into consideration the coin’s reserve risk and contrasting it with its previous bull runs.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s volatility was continuing to rise. In fact, according to market data provided by BitPremier, the 30-day BTC/USD volatility was observed to be around 5.35 percent – a level not too far away from its 6-month high of 6 percent.

Increased volatility makes the coin open for further price action in either direction. Ergo, it also slightly increases the possibility of the cryptocurrency noting a greater pullback. If BTC is unable to sustain a breach of the $50k level, it could be trouble for its price aspirations in the short-term.

However, given its strong fundamentals and past precedents backing a renewed rally, traders can take consolation in BTC’s long-term prospects. Then again, this depends on the resistance being flipped to support – a scenario that will materialize if Bitcoin is able to gain substantial buyer momentum in the coming days. Such a trend reversal will enable it to take further advantage of its strong fundamentals while pushing it towards its latest ATH.

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Jude Gerald Lopez is a full time News Editor at AMBCrypto covering the US and Indian market. He is a post-graduate in English literature with around 4 years of teaching experience in Indian literature.

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Bitcoin: Has the bull market faded?

The foundational technologies underlying Bitcoin are a secure, distributed transaction ledger, timestamp server and proof of work algorithm implemented as a blockchain ledger. As Satoshi put it his seminal paper, these make it "computationally impractical for an attacker to change if honest nodes control a majority of CPU power" on the Bitcoin network. While Satioshi didn't invent blockchain technology, his implementation has proven particularly robust and led many technologists to see blockchain as a solution to all manner of problems. 

Sadly for the blockchain evangelists, enterprise successes have been elusive. Indeed, as is regularly pointed out here, blockchain often looks like a technology in search of a problem. Such cynicism is understandable, but unfortunate since blockchain includes several security technologies that can improve conventional databases and transactional applications. Oracle sees the potential and has embraced blockchain technology via several features added to its ubiquitous database to provide what it calls crypto-secure data management.

In making the case for Oracle's blockchain-based security technology, Juan Loaiza, the company's EVP of Mission-Critical Database Technologies, notes that conventional data security techniques like passwords, role-based access controls (RBAC), data encryption and network firewalls are designed to prevent unauthorized actors from reading data. Unfortunately, these methods are powerless to stop insiders or attackers that have acquired employee credentials from retrieving, modifying or deleting sensitive information such as financial or legal records, customer and employee personally identifiable information (PII), business transactions or intellectual property.

Oracle introduced blockchain tables for its eponymous database at OOW 2019 as a way to make existing databases tamper-resistant. It recently expanded blockchain features in Oracle 21c that it now markets as a four-pronged approach to cryptographically-secure data. The key capabilities and associated Oracle features are:

Similar features form the foundation of most blockchain systems and cryptocurrencies, however, integrating them into Oracle provides enterprise systems blockchain-class data protection without requiring significant changes to existing applications.

Many types of financial, government and logistics data serve as a permanent record of transactions, events or decisions that should not be altered, only updated. Oracle protects against such tampering via immutable and blockchain tables. Immutable tables prevent existing data from being changed or deleted by anyone, even database administrators. Specifically, immutable tables block the following actions:

Attackers could still try to exploit an unknown Oracle or OS vulnerability and bypasses immutability controls to directly manipulate an immutable database. Blockchain tables expose such post hoc modifications by adding a cryptographic hash to each table entry that cannot be forged. As the name suggests, Blockchain tables chain rows in sequence by using a SHA-512 cryptographic hash of the row contents plus (for all but the first row of a table) the hash value of the previous row. Thus, any attempt to modify existing data or insert (rather than append) a row) will break the hash validation of all subsequent rows. 

While immutability and blockchain-ing data thwart tampering, they don't address attackers adding bogus data under a stolen identity or prevent a group of conspirators from replacing the entire database. Oracle hinders unauthorized data additions by allowing users to cryptographically sign inserted data using public-private key cryptography and digital certificates. Users sign new data with a private key and since the database system validates signed entries against the user's certificate, attackers that have only stolen a user's login credentials, but not their private key, can't add data with a valid signature. 

Immutability, blockchain and data signing stymie the vast majority of data modification shenanigans, but they can't prevent Enron-style fraud by determined insiders. For example, conspirators with the right access rights might decide to replace an entire blockchain database with a phony replica. Such coordinated assaults are impossible to prevent without a Bitcoin-like peer-to-peer system, but Oracle can expose them by automatically distributing a cryptographic digest to trusted external repositories. Since the digest is a one-way hash that doesn't mathematically allow inferring the starting data from the hashed result, publishing the digest (as public blockchains and cryptocurrencies do) doesn't compromise database security. For example, a digest might be sent via email to an audit firm, published to an independent cloud store using REST APIs or added to a public Ethereum network. Coordinated rip-and-replace database attacks can easily be spotted by comparing the current contents to previously published digests.

As mentioned, entirely preventing illicit database-bypass changes requires a Bitcoin-like distributed blockchain that replicates a database to independent third parties that must reach consensus for every change. Most consensus algorithms entail solving the Byzantine Generals Problem using either a proof-of-work (PoW) (used by Bitcoin) or proof-of-stake (PoS) algorithm (used by BitShares and others, with Ethereum moving to this mechanism). Such systems have proven resistant to coordinate 51-percent attacks, but as Loaiza pointed out in explaining Oracle's blockchain technology, distributed consensus in a peer-to-peer system doesn't mesh with existing business processes and relationships.  He adds, "Overall, peer-to-peer provides very effective illicit change prevention, but at the expense of significant complexity for mainstream use-cases."

Both immutable and blockchain tables are core Oracle 21c features and have been backported to 19.11 and 19.10, respectively.

Blockchain and related crypto features are an example of Oracle's single-database strategy I detailed an earlier column in which it adds new data types and capabilities within the familiar RDMS construct. Oracle illustrates the value of this all-in-one approach by repackaging features like immutability, blockchain tables, data signing and distributed hashes as security enhancements with broad applicability. While the label "crypto-secure data management" doesn't roll off the tongue, it's a reasonable way of categorizing these additions to core database functionality within Oracle's broader set of security features designed to keep attackers from accessing a database. However, once they've breached the castle walls, cryptography and blockchain can limit the damage. 

Bitcoin prices crashed 11% on Tuesday morning and is currently trading below the mark of $50,000 at $49, 379 level. Not only Bitcoin, but other popular cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum and Litecoin also plunged on Tuesday morning.

Sumit Gupta, CEO & Co-Founder, CoinDCX, a cryptocurrency exchange, said, “After reaching an all-time high of $58,000, Bitcoin saw a price correction today. This was expected as markets go through such correction cycles. However, the market showed signs of recovery after falling nearly 17%. Investments in Bitcoin, like any other asset, should be from a long term perspective as the fundamentals are still going strong. Hence it is advised that investors buy the dips and hold with a long term perspective.”

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, tweeted his concern over the weekend that the price had risen too high too quickly. His company Tesla has recently invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 20, 2021

While cryptocurrencies are plummeting, the US treasury secretary Janet Yellen also said that Bitcoin is “highly speculative” and “inefficient” for transaction. While addressing the 2021 DealBook DC Policy Project she said, “Bitcoin is an extremely inefficient way of conducting transactions and the amount of energy that’s consumed in processing those transactions is staggering.”

Is Bitcoin a bubble ?

The latest report from J P Morgan report titled “Digital transformation and the rise of fintech: Blockchain, Bitcoin and digital finance 2021” states that Bitcoin has already achieved the fastest-ever price appreciation of any must-have asset to which it is often compared, such as gold (1970s), Japanese equities (1980s), tech stocks (1990s), Chinese equities (2000s), commodities (2000s) and FANG stocks (2010s).

The report states, “We estimate about $11bn of cumulative institutional flows into Bitcoin since the end of September, but we believe that a significant component of institutional flows into Bitcoin reflects speculative investors seeking to front run other more real-money institutional investors. We believe Bitcoin, at current market prices, has already surpassed gold in risk capital terms.

Tesla’s recent announcement that it has invested $1.5bn in Bitcoin or 8% of its corporate cash reserves surprised markets by the magnitude of the purchases and re-invigorated expectations that other corporates will follow with their cash reserves. Irrespective of how many corporates eventually follow Tesla’s example, their announcement abruptly changed the near-term trajectory for Bitcoin by bolstering inflows, although the longer-term implications for Bitcoin prices remain unclear. ”

Vikram Rangala, CMO, ZebPay, another cryptocurrency exchange, earlier said when Bitcoin crossed $50,000 mark for the first time, “This latest high for bitcoin is not the big news. The big news is why. It’s not just speculation. It’s smart value investing by institutions, individuals, and even governments in a breakthrough technology. Bitcoin is an inflation-proof, corruption-resistant store of value backed by more reliable and transparent accounting. That is real value. In the near future, we’ll see $60,000, $70,000 and $100,000. In between, we’ll also see volatile dips and the usual reports about the bubble bursting. Bitcoin isn’t a bubble. It’s a part of our economy now.”

There are challenges around determining intrinsic value of Bitcoin. With lot of institutional money started chasing Bitcoin, experts say it is a tricky call and only time will tell whether bitcoin is a bubble or not.

Bitcoin, the world’s largest digital currency, lost around 10% of its value on Friday after the panic among retail traders triggered a $100 billion sell-off in the crypto market. As of writing, BTC is trading near $46,200 with a total market cap of $860 billion.

The cryptocurrency later parred with gains marginally to trade at levels of about $47,000 as sellers rose, increasing the sale-side attack, at some point even touching the $46,500, down 1.30% intraday, during early Friday. In doing so, the crypto major jostles with the recently flashed intraday low of $46,013 while keeping the previous day’s break of an ascending trend line from January 27.

The decline on BTC started after Elon Musk tweeted saying that Bitcoin and Etherium prices do seem high, pushing a wave of investors to sell their holdings in the cryptocurrency.

No doubt that the top cryptocurrency is still going to go up and continue its rally in a while, but as of now, it’s struggling. The prices have already fallen from $58,000 to currently $47,000, which is more than 15% in just a few days. We believe retail investors are panic selling, and big whales are buying in. For Example, just the day before yesterday, Microstrategy invested $1 billion in Bitcoin at an average purchase price of around $52k.

BTC price went as high as $52,076.32 in the past 24 hours, after more than 13,000 BTC, worth roughly $650 million, were moved out of institution-focused Coinbase Pro exchange Wednesday afternoon. This move is usually a bullish sign for the markets, reflecting institutional investors’ support to bitcoin’s long-term value, as they move their bitcoin to custody wallets.

According to the latest data published by crypto analytics, around $900 million worth of long cryptocurrency positions got liquidated in the last 24 hours as Bitcoin and Ethereum lost nearly 10% of their values in a single day. Approximately 142,000 crypto traders were liquidated during the last 24 hours.

Ethereum had traded in a range of $1,461.18 to $1,669.24 in the previous twenty-four hours. Over the past seven days, Ethereum has seen a drop in value, as it lost 23.12%. The volume of Ethereum traded in the twenty-four hours to time of writing was $24.23 billion or 17.04% of the total volume of all cryptocurrencies. It has traded in a range of $1,370.4504 to $2,040.7922 in the past 7 days.

Meanwhile, Coinbase, one of the largest cryptocurrency trading platform on Thursday released documents for its public debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange via a direct listing.

In the filing, the digital trading platform cited as a risk factor BTC creator, Satoshi Nakamoto – the pseudonym used by the person or group of people who created bitcoin. Bitcoin’s value has largely been driven by its deflationary tendencies. If 1.1 million bitcoins were released into the market, the digital currency’s price would almost surely fall.

The filing also referenced Nakamoto’s personal stash of the electronic coin, which totals over 1 million. As of February, one BTC was worth about $50,000.

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Prediction – February 24, 2021 On February 21, BTC/USD tested the $58,000 resistance as Bitcoin crashed to $45,000 low. The price is consolidating above the current support as the market resumes upward. The recent crash is not unconnected with the overbought condition of the market. Resistance Levels: $58,000, $59,000, $60,000 Support Levels: $40,000, $39,000, $38,000

Following the bulls’ failure to break the resistance at $58,000, the market crashed to $48,000 low. The bulls promptly buy the dips to push the coin to $54,000 high. However, the selling pressure persisted as Bitcoin plunged again to $45,000 low. After the second breakdown, the price consolidated above the current support. The candlesticks are portraying long tails. The long tails indicate an attraction of buyers at lower levels of price. BTC price has recovered as it rises above the high of $50,000. The bulls are trying to resume a fresh uptrend. The target price is $60,000 high. The upward move is likely as the price finds support above the 21-day SMA. Indian Banks Put Crypto Traders’ Account Under the Microscope Crypto currency traders and investors in India are facing account closure by global banking operations. HSBC, HDFC, and Citi banks are now requiring crypto traders in India to make available information about their activities or risk losing their funds. According to Economic Times reports that customers of private banks in India have sent notices to the customers to clarify crypto-related transactions, or visit their local bank branch in person. One such letter is stated as follows: “To comply with the regulatory guidelines, banks are advised to exercise due diligence by closely examining the transactions carried out in the account on an ongoing basis to caution users, holders and traders of virtual currencies including Bitcoins regarding risks.”

Bitcoin price is recovering after the breakdown to $45,000 low. The king coin will risk further decline if the $45,000 support is breached. On February 23 downtrend; a retraced candle body tested the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level. The retracement implies that BTC price will rise to level 1.618 Fibonacci extension. That is the low of $36,666.10.

Bitcoin Price Prediction (BTC) – February 27

For a couple of days now, Bitcoin (BTC) has been trading below $52,000 and the next target support level could be $40,000.

Resistance Levels: $54,000, $56,000 $58,000

Support Levels: $39,000, $37,500, $35,500

BTC/USD crashes for the fifth time in a week trading below the $46,000 in a market-wide sell-off.  The king coin remains below the 9-day and 21-day moving averages under increasing pressure from the downtrend. The coin is now losing 1.67% as the market heads toward the south while the pair is being affected by the current slowdown in the entire crypto market and has been making an attempt to recover since the past few days.

As of now, Bitcoin is aiming to fall again as the key support of $45,000 is becoming a threat to bears. There are quite a number of technical levels clustered above the current price which means that the coin may be vulnerable to further losses at least as long as it stays below critical $45,000. BTC/USD pair may drop to $39,500, $37,500, and $35,500 supports if the $43,500 support fails to hold.

In the opposite direction, if the critical support continues to provide support for the market, definitely traders can expect the Bitcoin price to come back to a resistance level of $50,000 before the market experience a rise far above the moving averages to reach the potential resistance levels at $54,000, $56,000, and $58,000 respectively. But as it is now, the Bitcoin price is down and there is a high chance for a break than a bounce. The RSI (14) moves below 50-level, a further drop may cause the Bitcoin price to fall more.

On the 4-hour chart, BTC/USD is moving inside a descending channel pattern. After falling to the $44,150 support level yesterday, the Bitcoin price later saw a quick price jump to the 9-day moving average, from where the bear resume pressure.

Now, the price is facing the $45,000 important support. Once this support breaks, the $41,000 and below may come into play while the resistance level is located at $52,000 and above. More so, the technical indicator RSI (14) moves below 40-level, which show more bearish momentum may likely play out.

At the same time, the dollar is once again weakening after a short-term bounce, and could help fuel the momentum to send Bitcoin to new records. Here’s a detailed look at why BTC could soon see a strong bounce.

Bitcoin has had an epic start to 2021 and a strong continuation of the bull trend that blossomed back in 2020 following Black Thursday. The direction has been only up since, with only a few bouts of corrections along the way.

The dollar trades inversely correlated to the leading cryptocurrency by market cap, and represents one half of the asset’s base trading pair (BTCUSD).

The dollar is the global reserve currency and has been particularly strained throughout the pandemic. Inflation related to growing money supply has weakened the dollar, but benefitted Bitcoin.

The dollar bounce appears to have been short-term profit-taking, or a reduction in risk, and is ready to turn back down. If that happens, it could be an added catalyst for the cryptocurrency to get back to its uptrend sooner than later.

A bullish divergence on Bitcoin 4H charts also points to at least a short-term recovery, if not a resumption of the prevailing and powerful uptrend.

The month of March has historically been the bloodiest month for Bitcoin, but big buyers continue to absorb the dwindling BTC supply available from institution-focused platforms like Coinbase Pro.

A deeper correction in Bitcoin isn’t necessarily bearish, as it could allow more institutions to buy in at lower prices, who will ultimately hold stronger than the weaker hands they’re buying from.

Considering the bullish divergence and continued weakness in the dollar, Bitcoin could be right back to its uptrend in no time at all, and a bounce could already be underway.

Feb. 12 (UPI) -- After Tesla announced it has invested $1.5 billion in bitcoin and expects to start accepting the cryptocurrency as a payment for its electric vehicles in the near future, the bitcoin price went soaring. It went from around $39,400 to an all-time high of over $48,000 in less than 24 hours.

Bitcoin price

The prospect of a blue-chip invasion into bitcoin has caused much excitement among cryptocurrency investors. But if Tesla does trigger such a gold rush, there will also be some unsettling consequences.

Volatility spillover

Tesla justified this material change in the way it manages its treasury reserves by stating that investing in bitcoin will "provide us with more flexibility to further diversify and maximize returns on our cash." Corporate treasurers have always used the money markets to invest surplus cash to eke out small yields, and it is harder than it used to be in the current long-term low-interest rate environment.

All the same, this is very different to standard money management. Bitcoin is a highly volatile asset that you would not typically associate with the cash reserves on the balance sheet of a listed company worth close to a trillion U.S. dollars. As recently as March, the price dipped below $4,000. Even in 2021, the price fell more than 30% before its most recent surge.

FOMO-ing at the mouth?

Such a rise would drive up the value of the bitcoin on corporate balance sheets to multiples of what it was at the time of investment. Tesla's 8% allocation may already have gone up to 12% of the value of its reserves, for instance. And if it follows through on a potential plan to keep any bitcoins it receives for electric cars instead of converting them into dollars, that percentage could rise all the faster.

The problem is the potential effect on company share prices. Tesla's share price rose 2% on the news of the bitcoin investment, though it has since fallen by 5%. But a longer term example is Canadian tech company Microstrategy. Its share price has ballooned tenfold in value in the past year on the back of a heavy investment into bitcoin, but is also down by almost a quarter in the days since the Tesla announcement.

Writ large, this could make stock markets far choppier in future -- and vulnerable to a nosedive when the bitcoin bull market ends. It would be easy to imagine that this could prompt a wider wave of selling as investors sought to cover their loss-making positions, which could be very dangerous for financial stability.

The regulators

The view from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will be extremely important, and it is difficult to predict the response of newly appointed head Gary Gensler, who is himself a crypto expert. We may see anything from a wait-and-see approach through to a ban on listed companies holding any bitcoin-like assets.

But I would expect that if the price of bitcoin continues toward $100,000, there may be a regulatory restriction on the reserve percentage that listed companies can hold in digital assets. This would be similar to the U.S. rule that companies cannot buy back more than 25% of the average daily volume of their own stock. Such a rule would force companies to sell bitcoin if a price increase meant their holdings broke the maximum level, creating a form of sell pressure that the crypto market has not seen before.

Gavin Brown is an associate professor in financial technology at the University of Liverpool.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, is going all out Dick Clark on us when it comes to bitcoin.

Yes, I’m talking about the great pitchman for Brylcreem who would say, “A little dab’ll do ya!”

If you’re not familiar with that reference, don’t worry…

The important thing is that BlackRock—the 800-pound gorilla of the asset management industry—is jumping into bitcoin. 

The potential impact to crypto is staggering. BlackRock has over $7 trillion in assets under management, which means it could send bitcoin prices skyrocketing if it starts buying in size.

And as I’ll explain, BlackRock is the latest addition to a growing list of institutions entering the crypto space. These companies have massive amounts of capital they need to invest… and crypto is a logical destination for their funds.

It’s an incredible situation with huge implications for the price of bitcoin and other crypto assets. The obvious question is: As more investment/institutional managers continue buying bitcoin, how much longer will the price of bitcoin remain under $100,000?

Rick Rieder, global fixed income chief investment officer (CIO) and portfolio manager for BlackRock, explained his thoughts to Joe Kernen during an interview on CNBC last week.

He said that although bitcoin is highly volatile, investors are looking for assets that could move higher in anticipation of higher inflation and higher debt levels. And in regards to bitcoin, he said that BlackRock has started to “dabble” in it.

Let’s take a moment to dig into Rieder’s statement. Inflation is obviously a major threat on the horizon. It’s a question of when—not if—it will happen. Governments around the world are printing trillions of dollars and directly injecting it into the economy (mostly by giving it to citizens). In fact, global central banks are buying $1.1 billion of financial assets every single hour. They’ve been spending at this rate since last March, when the coronavirus pandemic broke out.  

All this money printing means the supply of cash is soaring. 

And you don’t need to be an economist to know that when supply goes way up, the value of that thing goes down. That’s what’s happening with cash right now.

Put simply, investors value scarcity. 

That’s a major reason for bitcoin’s rising value. As you probably know, only 21 million bitcoins will ever be created. This limited supply helps it act as a “store of value” as governments around the world print more money. 

And it means asset managers like BlackRock could push bitcoin prices a lot higher as they enter the space. 

Rieder told CNBC that regulations are starting to allow institutions into the crypto space. And in recent years, a number of trusted platforms have been created, making it easier for individuals to buy/sell cryptos. This includes big exchanges like Coinbase, as well as payment processors like Square and PayPal.

While Rieder wouldn’t comment on a specific percentage… or clarify what “dabble” means, BlackRock’s massive size means it could send the price of bitcoin soaring. If BlackRock puts just 1% of its $7 trillion into bitcoin, we’re talking about $70 billion. That’s about 7% of the entire market cap of bitcoin (which is around $1 trillion). 

Keep in mind, BlackRock isn’t the first big institution to announce it’s entering the crypto space. I’ve written about a number of big players buying bitcoin recently, including insurance giant MassMutual and growth/tech companies like Microstrategy and Tesla. 

These companies are sitting on billions in cash. Even if a tiny amount of that cash flows into bitcoin, prices could easily double from current levels. This may sound crazy… since the bitcoin prices are up over 100% over the past two months. But the fact is, there’s a lot more money that’s not in crypto… yet. 

Cathie Wood, CEO of ARK Investment Management recently, said, “If all corporations in the United States were to put …10% of their cash into bitcoin, that alone would add $200,000 to the bitcoin price.” Keep in mind, she’s talking about bitcoin going up $200,000 from its current price around $47,000—a 400% increase. 

But you won’t need everyone participating to get to the $100,000 mark… just some more announcements from “big money” and more recklessness from world governments.

And there’s no bigger “tip of the cap” to cryptos than for the world’s biggest money manager to dabble in bitcoin.

What a time to be a crypto investor!

The optimistic predictions about the price of Bitcoin continue to pop up. Check out the latest one that Mike Novogratz released.

It’s been just reported that Mike Novogratz, CEO of crypto management firm Galaxy Digital, is revealing when he thinks Bitcoin will hit his target of $500,000.

According to the latest reports, in a discussion with Michael Saylor on the WORLD.NOW event hosted by MicroStrategy, Novogratz proposed that Bitcoin will continue to perform well, more so as a store-of-value asset rather than as a currency.

“I think we’ve hit a tipping point in this network effect I talked about, and my base case is: if I look at Bitcoin as a percentage of gold, I think Bitcoin is going to be digital gold. I know a lot of people disagree with me. They’ll think, ‘No, it going to be money. It’s going to be the blockchains of all blockchains,’ I just don’t think so. I think it’s got a beautiful lane as a store of value. It was perfectly designed as a store of value,” he said.

Novogratz sees Bitcoin as a store of value asset, and he said that he believes the king coin will continue to catch up to gold’s $10 trillion market capitalization as it prints gains of over 10x in as little as three years.

“I think of it as, ‘What percentage of market cap is gold?’ We’re about 6% of the gold market cap. My sense is by the end of the year we are easily 10%. So that gets you to Bitcoin $55,000-$60,000. I know as soon as we get to 10%, we’re going to say, ‘Well why 10? Why not 20?’ And when we get to 20%, we’re going to be 50%, and then we’re going to be 100%” he explained as quoted by the online publication the Daily Hodl.

At the moment of writing this article, BTC is trading in the green, and the king coin is priced at $48,486.12.

How’s this for a bombshell?

Bitcoin cryptocurrency (otherwise known as that roller coaster of an investment that started as a nerdy experiment, quickly became the currency of choice for underground criminals, then got threatened with government shutdown, somehow made a comeback, and along the way accidentally created thousands of unexpected millionaires and billionaires)…

Yeah, THAT bitcoin just received a $1.5 billion investment from Tesla. 

A large, real company investing in the space is a landmark moment in the era of cryptocurrencies. And it comes off the back of a flood of similar news about mainstream adoption:

In light of all that news, Bitcoin has exploded, to put it lightly.

Since November, bitcoin’s price has climbed about 250%, from around $14K to $47K. (By the time you read this, that stat will probably be outdated.)

Which begs the obvious question.

Are we in the most ‘roided up bubble in bitcoin history? Or is this the start of bitcoin’s moment in the mainstream?

Back to Tesla. So what’s going on here?

Well, as a publicly traded company, Tesla has to disclose everything it does through SEC filings.

On Monday, Tesla’s annual report got released to the wild. And page 23 includes this bombshell section:

We hold and may acquire digital assets that may be subject to volatile market prices, impairment and unique risks of loss.

In January 2021, we updated our investment policy to provide us with more flexibility to further diversify and maximize returns on our cash… Thereafter, we invested an aggregate $1.50 billion in bitcoin under this policy and may acquire and hold digital assets from time to time or long-term .“

Translation: We had a bunch of cash we didn’t know what to do with, so we figured why not throw billion into something with more potential?

(The other newsworthy item in their statement is that a few sentences later, they also announced plans to start accepting bitcoin as payment for their cars.)

Well, as a company, Tesla’s “net worth” is about $23 billion.

So Tesla investing $1.5 billion into bitcoin is similar to you or I allocating about 6% of our portfolio to bitcoin. That means Tesla is NOT “all in” on crypto, but 6% of your portfolio probably isn’t chump change to you, and neither is it for Tesla!

Of course, comparing Tesla to mere mortals like us isn’t exactly fair. Tesla also has some advantages not available to non-multi-billion-dollar global enterprises.

All of this was underscored by Elon Musk’s twitter account, which for the past few weeks has been posting tons of cryptocurrency memes:

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 11, 2021

Bitcoin jumped about 20% on the news, nearing an all time high of $50,000.

Since $50K is child’s play, the next logical question asked by crypto bulls was… can it hit $500K?

That’s what Cathie Wood thinks. 

She’s the CEO of the largest actively traded ETF in the stock market, and she recently made waves when she explained her beliefs that bitcoin’s price could rise to “somewhere in the $400,000 to $500,000 range.”

And before you pass her off as crypto kook, it’s worth reminding everyone that this is the same lady who was ridiculed for predicting $4,000 Tesla stock back when it was trading at $300 a share. Can she go two for two?

Her reasoning is that thus far, most institutional investors have only started small, with a one-half to 1% allocation in bitcoin.

If those institutions decided to bump their exposures up to 5%, a number she thinks is reasonable, it would push the price up tenfold.

Eric Peters, the CEO of another billion dollar asset management company, agrees with the $500,000 potential.

He says that nearly every single mega-huge institutional investor in the United States is currently considering whether to invest in bitcoin, if they haven’t already.

Of course, Mr. Peters might be a little biased. His firm holds “well over $1 billion in bitcoin.”

Then again, at least he’s putting his billions where his mouth is?

I first jumped into bitcoin back around May. At the time, it cost about $9,000 per coin, and I figured what the heck. I tossed about 1% percent of my wealth into it and strapped in for the ride. (I also invested a little less than 1% of my wealth into Ethereum, which I actually like more than bitcoin, but that’s another topic for another post)

Back then, I wrote that it was reasonable bitcoin could become a “digital gold” whose deflationary properties could serve as a great counterbalance to the rest of my portfolio.

And so far, it’s looking like that may happen. Say what you want about the challenges of bitcoin being accepted as a true form of payment, but so far, the one “use case” it’s proven to be is a store of value, similar to gold.

At the end of the day, there’s been endless doubters, market crashes, and wild drama, but here we are a decade later and it’s still preserving people’s wealth.

Which is why I don’t think its totally crazy that $500,000 bitcoin could become a thing. 

Consider this:

$500,000 bitcoin would push bitcoin’s market value to about $9 trillion dollars, about equal to the gold market.

And sure, that’s a bit like saying, “all you have to do is hit multiple championship winning three-point shots under immense pressure to be equal to Michael Jordan,” but the point is… it’s possible.

And bitcoin, along with its blockchain technology, actually has some properties that are even better than gold, which could help the currency make up the gap.

(Not to mention all the help from each of the government’s $1.9 trillion advertising campaigns for a limited supply currency free from government intervention. Oops, I meant to say their stimulus packages…)

The recent run up in prices has actually pushed crypto to about 5% of my total portfolio. (Not reported in my net worth updates, for security reasons and in the spirit of assuming these ultra-risky investments could go to zero.)

The more I read about the stuff, the more I’m convinced it’s legit. So I recently decided to add another 2% or so into various cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin.

I’m now sitting at about 7-8% of my total wealth in crypto, and I may gamble a little bit more to get closer to 10%.

Well, the first thing you should do is not take financial advice from a random unqualified guy on the internet.

The second thing you should do is consider where my advice is coming from. These days I’m 30-year-old with about $500,000 to my name. I’ve got zero debt, and compound interest all but ensures I’ll retire a multi-millionaire, bitcoin or not. Aside from my already consistent contributions (I save over $50K per year) the only other thing that’s really gonna move my needle is strategically taking more risk. This is a simple way for me to do that.

With all that in mind, the third thing you should do is make sure you’re investing in the correct order, including eliminating bad debt, taking full advantage of your retirement plans, and building up a healthy position in low cost index funds.

If you’ve ticked all those boxes and are a little bored with the usual options, in light of all the recent developments, I think it’s becoming totally reasonable to dabble in crypto. Then, immediately write those investments off entirely. 🙂

Get ready for a wild ride!

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For the past week, Bitcoin has been fluctuating between $44,000 and $48,000. Bitcoin bulls have retested the $48,000 resistance thrice but unable to push above it. Consequently, BTC price will slump to the $44,000 low, each time it faces rejection from the recent high. 

The bulls have the advantage to break the current resistance level. Assuming, the bulls break the resistance at $48,000, the bullish momentum will extend to the $50,000 high. Bitcoin will rally to the next psychological price level once it breaks the $50,000 high. Nevertheless, BTC’s price is still fluctuating between the $44,000 and $48,000 price levels. If the bears break the $44, 000 support level the king coin will resume a downtrend.

BTC price is still trading in the overbought region as it falls to level 68 of the Relative Strength Index period 14. As long as the bullish trend line remains unbroken, the cryptocurrency uptrend is said to be ongoing. The price is below the 40% Range of the daily stochastic. This indicates that the market has bearish momentum.          

Major Resistance Levels – $48,000 and $50,000

Major Support Levels – $40,000 and $38,000

Bitcoin price is fluctuating below the $48,000 resistance The Fibonacci tool has indicated an upward movement of the cryptocurrency. On February 9 uptrend; a retraced candle body tested the 61.8 % Fibonacci retracement level. The retracement indicates that BTC will rise to level 1.618 Fibonacci extensions. That is the high of level $55,103.80. The market will continue to rise if the bullish momentum is sustained.

Disclaimer. This analysis and forecast are the personal opinions of the author and not a recommendation to buy or sell cryptocurrency and should not be viewed as an endorsement by CoinIdol. Readers should do their own research before investing funds.

The cryptocurrency market could destabilise if Bitcoin’s anonymous creator is revealed.

While taking on a dip over the past week, the price of Bitcoin is still astronomically high compared to years prior, currently standing at more than $46,000 for one Bitcoin.

Thanks to growing investment and endorsement from the likes of Elon Musk, other companies and banks, the digital currency is slowly surging into online ubiquity. However, the market could be rattled if Bitcoin’s founder(s) is revealed.

Ahead of digital currency exchange firm Coinbase going public on the Nasdaq stock exchange, it filed documents to the Securities Exchange Commission citing the various risk factors, one of which concerned the source of Bitcoin.

The IPO filing explains, ‘Our business may be adversely affected if the markets for Bitcoin and Ethereum deteriorate or if their prices decline… [in the event of] the identification of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous person or persons who developed Bitcoin, or the transfer of Satoshi’s Bitcoins.’

It’s unclear who or where Nakamoto is. Some believe he’s a Japanese man in his 40s, some believe it’s a group of unknown individuals using the name as a guise.

However, Nakamoto is believed to have more than one million in Bitcoin, which would be valued at around $55 billion – that’s 5% of all Bitcoin in existence. In the event this mysterious creator is dead, those coins could be inaccessible. If he decided to transfer his stockpile, it could destabilise the entire cryptoeconomy, with the price likely to collapse.

Elsewhere in the document, the company reiterates the fragile nature of the market, writing, ‘Our operating results have and will significantly fluctuate due to the highly volatile nature of crypto.’

It adds, ‘All of our sources of revenue are dependent on crypto assets and the broader cryptoeconomy. Due to the highly volatile nature of the cryptoeconomy and the prices of crypto assets, our operating results have, and will continue to, fluctuate significantly from quarter to quarter in accordance with market sentiments and movements in the broader cryptoeconomy.’

Over the past year, Bitcoin has seen a 400% rise – however, some investors believe the heated interest may be causing a bubble that will burst in the future. Also, the complex means of accessing the currency, often via a digital wallet with a dense security key, have continually caused issues.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wrote, ‘When I first read the Bitcoin whitepaper back in 2010, I realised this computer science breakthrough might be the key to unlock this vision of the future.’

He added, ‘Cryptocurrency could provide the core tenets of economic freedom to anyone: property rights, sound money, free trade, and the ability to work how and where they want.’

If you have a story you want to tell, send it to UNILAD via [email protected]

After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BJTC-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He's now left his Scottish homelands and taken up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.

Coinbase Global, Inc.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could investigate Elon Musk over Tesla’s $1.5 billion bitcoin purchase, some legal experts have warned, including a former SEC enforcement officer. Given the timing of Tesla’s bitcoin purchase and Musk’s multiple tweets on the subject, some say that the SEC will look into the matter.

Regulators could probe Tesla CEO Elon Musk over his company’s bitcoin purchase, the Telegraph reported Tuesday. Last week, an SEC filing reveals that Tesla bought a substantial amount of bitcoin in January. “We invested an aggregate $1.50 billion in bitcoin … we expect to begin accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for our products in the near future,” the filing reads.

Doug Davison, a partner at Linklaters and a former branch chief of the SEC’s division of enforcement, explained:

It would not be surprising – given the focus on the chief executive’s tweets, bitcoin pricing and recent dramatic market moves – for the SEC to ask questions about the facts and circumstances here.

The Tesla and Spacex CEO has been tweeting about bitcoin and also dogecoin. On Jan. 29, he changed his Twitter profile to just say “#bitcoin” and then tweeted, “In retrospect, it was inevitable.” A few days later, he publicly endorsed bitcoin, stating that the cryptocurrency “is a good thing,” and that “bitcoin is really on the verge of getting broad acceptance by conventional finance people.” His Twitter profile no longer says #bitcoin.

Vitor Constâncio, who served as vice president of the European Central Bank (ECB) until May 2018, explained in a tweet: “It was not disclosed when Tesla had made this investment. In December, Musk said that Tesla could buy bitcoin, and this was followed by many statements that he supported bitcoin.” He added:

Bitcoin kept going up & Tesla investment has appreciated. The SEC will look into this.

Some believe that the SEC will not find anything of concern by investigating Musk. Among them is Thomas Gorman, a partner at the international law firm Dorsey Whitney and a former senior counsel at the SEC. He expects that the SEC staff looking into Musk’s comments on social media would find that they only reflect his personal beliefs.

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However, a number of people believe that Musk manipulated the BTC price in order to buy cheap coins. Among those who believe that the SEC has a cause for concern is NYU Stern School professor Nouriel Roubini, aka “Dr. Doom,” who has been a long-term bitcoin skeptic. He called Musk’s action a form of market manipulation, insisting that the SEC should investigate the Tesla CEO.

Musk has gotten into trouble with the SEC before. In 2018, the securities regulator charged the Tesla CEO with securities fraud related to a tweet about his electric car company. Musk and Tesla agreed to settle with the regulator and paid a $40 million fine. However, less than six months later, the SEC charged Musk over a different tweet that the agency claimed violated the previous settlement agreement.

Do you think the SEC will investigate Elon Musk over Tesla’s bitcoin buy? Let us know in the comments section below.

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