The market is rallying and so are many of the altcoins. Even though Monero is no longer among the major altcoins, it has been witnessing a similar rally as other altcoins. Over the past couple of days, XMR’s value has been surging and at the time of writing, the digital asset was being traded at $232.94.

Monero six-hour chart 

The above chart of Monero showed that the value of the cryptocurrency was surging higher almost every day over the past week. Monero cleared levels of resistances to reach a high value but was currently seen consolidating. The immediate support it currently has is at > value shows a steep rise over the past couple of days. This has put the digital asset in extremely bullish territory. The bullishness has been long extended in the market, however, the price has not yet corrected itself. Currently, as the consolidation continues, the price may witness a selling pressure which may push it under the support at $223.

The relative strength indicator showed that the digital asset has been largely overbought. It has remained in the overbought zone since 9 Feb and the sellers may take over the market if a price correction were to take place.

Meanwhile, the momentum appeared high as the awesome oscillator indicator showing strong, growing, green bars in the Monero market.

Crucial levels

Entry-level: $232.40 Stop-level: $247.38 Take Profit: $207.88 Risk to Reward: 1.64

Conclusion

Monero was currently undergoing a consolidation phase and its price may witness a correction in the coming days. The price may slip under $223 and the traders can take profit at $207. The next level of support for the digital asset was visible at $197.

Chainlink, Uniswap, Dogecoin Price Analysis: 14 February

Polkadot, Aave, SushiSwap Price Analysis: 14 February

Namrata is a full-time journalist at AMBCrypto covering the US and Indian market. A graduate in Mass communication, while majoring in Journalism, she writes mainly about regulations and its impact with a focus on technological advancements in the crypto space.

Grayscale, the world’s largest crypto asset manager, has accelerated its Ethereum accumulation as the firm purchased 52,730 ETH worth more than $93 million in the last 24 hours. The company’s Ethereum Trust now has more than 3.13 million ETH under management with a total value of over $5.5 billion.

According to the latest data published by crypto analytics firm, bybt.com, Grayscale accumulated a total of 111,182 Ethereum in the last 7 days after a significant jump in ETH price. As of writing, ETH is trading above $1,760 with a total market cap of $200 billion.

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The asset management firm recently published a report on Ethereum and pointed out the potential benefits of ETH 2.0.

Despite the recent accumulation of ETH, Bitcoin remained the largest holding of Grayscale. The company’s Bitcoin accumulation slowed down a little bit in recent days, but BTC still accounts for more than 80% of Grayscale’s total crypto assets under management. The firm purchased 170 Bitcoin worth more than $8 million in the last 24 hours. Overall, the firm has 650,360 Bitcoin under management with a total value of $30.5 billion. Grayscale is the world’s largest institutional holder of BTC. Additionally, the company has nearly 269,000 Bitcoin Cash with a total worth of $140 million along with 12.29 million Ethereum Classic valued at approximately $139 million.

The total value of Grayscale’s crypto assets under management crossed $37 billion yesterday after Bitcoin jumped above $48,500 for the first time. BTC currently has a market cap of more than $880 billion. The overall market cap of cryptocurrencies stands at around $1.43 trillion.

The Monero community has posted a proposal to add XMR as a payment option on the Tesla website.

After posting a CCS proposal on Feb. 9, the Monero community has raised 890 XMR ($155,000) in a move to add Monero as a payment option for a new Tesla alongside Bitcoin. 

As part of the proposal, the community will strive to get Musk’s attention during a 21-day period starting on Feb. 9. Should Tesla accept the initiative, the Monero community will select three charities to receive brand-new Teslas. The community promised to refund the contributors in case there is no response or engagement from Musk within the twenty-one days of a fully funded proposal.

The effort was supported by a total of just 11 contributors, according to the Monero website.

According to the proposal, Tesla fans could benefit from the XMR payment option due to its unique privacy features compared to public and traceable blockchains like Bitcoin (BTC) or Ether (ETH). The community suggested that some Tesla owners would be comfortable with making their expensive vehicle holdings more private.

“You wouldn’t want your server at a restaurant to know the entire balance in your wallet when you pay would you? Why should your purchase of a car broadcast to the world all of the information that is leaked in a Bitcoin transaction,” the proposal reads. "Plus, the effect of showing up to a party in a brand new Tesla is diminished somewhat if all your friends already knew the moment you bought it because they were able to see the transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain," the proposal stated.

Ethereum found support at $1700 and rose higher with $2000 as its target. Aave threatened to drop toward $480 in the coming days, and Monero shot past the $200 mark with $220 the next level of resistance for the bulls to test.

Ether broke out of an ascending triangle pattern a week ago. Its technical target for the breakout is $1950, but it has faced some stiff resistance at the $1800 mark. However, the indicators painted a bullish picture for ETH.

The RSI was above neutral 50 on the 4-hour chart, indicating that the uptrend was still in progress. In the short-term, the second successive rejection at $1800 meant ETH could drop back toward $1700 once more.

However, on longer timeframes, ETH continues to remain bullish.

On the 1-hour chart, AAVE threatened to drop beneath the support highlighted by the Supertrend indicator at $504. Over the past week, AAVE has found resistance near the $540 mark, and although it climbed past this level to touch $581, selling pressure forced the price lower.

Dropping below $500 will likely see AAVE move toward $480, and further bearish pressure could see a retracement down to $420 for AAVE.

The MACD formed a bearish divergence and crossed over beneath the zero line to give a sell signal.

Monero surged past $180 less than a day previously. It had already tested and been rejected from $180 in mid-January when a climb past the level was swiftly reversed and XMR forced to retrace to $130.

The recovery has been steady and genuine demand from buyers has been present, according to the OBV which showed an uptrend. The Awesome Oscillator also showed strong bullish momentum.

For XMR, the next level of significant resistance lies at $220. The breakout beyond $180 had strong trading volume, a sign of market conviction. It is likely that XMR will test $220 over the next few days.

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Having studied Chemical Engineering, Akashnath's focus is on the UK and Indian markets and especially crypto assets. He is devoted to technical analysis and is always on the lookout for investment opportunities.

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Monero was treading water around the $200-level, with the crypto likely to give way to a wave of selling pressure. Ontology fell under multiple levels of former support over the last few days and could break past one or two more. Finally, Synthetix saw a region of demand flipped to one of supply.

The RSI fell below 50 and tested it as resistance on the hourly chart after XMR’s bulls attempted to keep the price above $200. This could be an uphill battle, especially if Bitcoin continues to drop.

Over the next few days, $220 and $180 are the levels to watch out for. Climbing above $220 would imply that a recovery has begun for XMR, while dropping below its previous local low of $180 would see XMR shed value further.

The Stochastic RSI was recovering from oversold territory over the past few hours. The trading volume rose as the price fell, pointing to the fact that strong bearish market sentiment was still in play.

The Directional Movement Index showed a strong bearish trend was in progress as the ADX (yellow) rose above 20 alongside the -DI (pink). The Awesome Oscillator also underlined southbound market momentum.

The next levels of interest for ONT were the $0.75 and the $0.68-support levels. A sign of some strength from the bears, such as a double top, would be required before any coin can be considered to be on the road to recovery.

On the hourly chart, the fractals were used to give some further importance to the points that formed the descending channel’s boundaries. As can be seen, SNX closed a trading session under the channel and rose to retest the $18-region as one of supply, formerly demand.

Having confirmed this dip, the market’s bears forced the price lower. The next levels of support for SNX lay at $16 and $14, both representing drops of 10% and 21% from where the price was trading, at the time of writing.

The MACD noted strong bearish momentum, as did the 8-period and 20-period exponential moving averages (blue and white respectively).

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Having studied Chemical Engineering, Akashnath's focus is on the UK and Indian markets and especially crypto assets. He is devoted to technical analysis and is always on the lookout for investment opportunities.

Tron, Synthetix, Crypto.com Coin Price Analysis: 25 February

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The institutional company is known for the heavy Bitcoin buys, and now, it seems that the institution is shifting some attention towards ETH. The asset management company has influenced some changes in the crypto space with its heavy waves of purchases. Last year, Grayscale bought assets multiple times that year, with millions worth of cryptocurrency coming in as its trading volume.

This information shows that the management company handles a bulk of the volumes coming into the digital assets industry. Now, with its new Ethereum purchase, that act could cause a price surge, which has occurred numerous times before. The asset management company currently has over 3 million Ethereum in its portfolio with its new purchase.

The current institutional demand for the altcoin could have necessitated the institution’s new movement. Many investors are shifting focus from Bitcoin alone and getting interested in the world’s second digital asset, Ethereum. ETH’s outstanding performance late last year and early this year shows that it can stand the test of time, even against the king coin.

The crypto management company bought the 52,730 ETH for over $93 million within a day. The company has made heavier buys in the past, but other forces could have driven its multi-million buy. The company’s ETH is holding now worth over $5 billion with a total of 3.13 ETH under management.

Sources got the recent Grayscale purchases from bybt.com, a data company that specializes in crypto-related issues. The firm shared that Grayscale bought more than 100,000 ETH in the past week due to the digital asset’s continuous rise. Interestingly, ETH is currently worth over $1,700 and has around $200 billion in market cap, showing a large shift from last year’s cap.

The new price gains caused the hefty market cap, and experts suspect that the digital asset would still see more gains. The world’s largest crypto asset manager also bought over 30,000 LTC alongside its Ethereum purchase. It’s safe to note that the firm’s Litecoin asset is worth over $250 million under management.

Grayscale is a continuously evolving company that now has interests in altcoins, especially those showing continuous gains like Ethereum and Litecoin. Litecoin’s performance in the past weeks has impressed numerous investors due to its price jump by almost 20% within those days. Although Ethereum remains the largest altcoin, LTC is not doing badly as it now has $12 billion as its market cap with the new price surge.

Grayscale has been talking about Ethereum 2.0 in the past few days, and this could show that the firm believes that the new platform’s launch would jump the crypto’s price. Since February began, the Ethereum network has some scalability and transaction fee issues linked to the heavy DeFi projects within the network that has worsened its traffic and skyrocketed the gas fee.

The asset company’s largest asset is Bitcoin, even with its continuous accumulation of other digital assets. Sources explained that the company is yet to make any new BTC buys, but the premium coin accounts for over 70% of its crypto assets.

Apple Pay and Google Pay crypto purchases are available to both the users of Mercuryo and its business partners.

Mercuryo , a leading global cryptocurrency payment provider, adds Apple Pay and Google Pay support for digital asset transactions. Fiat to crypto “rails”, available via Mercuryo’s flagship widget product, allows anyone with a smartphone device to purchase crypto with fiat currency using a wide range of payment methods. In addition to Mercuryo’s direct consumer base, Apple Pay and Google Pay support will also be available on partner cryptocurrency wallets and exchanges – such as Trust Wallet, Trezor, and CoinPayments – that have integrated the company’s widget.

The crypto industry is growing rapidly, reaching a total market capitalization of over $1 trillion in 2021. With the mission to make cryptocurrencies more accessible for everyone globally, the fintech company Mercuryo offers a seamless fiat-to-crypto payment gateway to consumer and business clients. Featuring two flagship products, a digital asset wallet, and a widget, Mercuryo has been serving over 600,000 users and 200 cryptocurrency partners, including prominent enterprises like Binance, Bybit, Bitfinex, Trust Wallet, and Bithumb. Since its launch, Mercuryo has quickly become one of the leading crypto payment gateway providers globally, realizing a 20-fold increase in volume in the past six months alone.

Mecuryo’s cryptocurrency widget can be easily integrated into the partners’ applications and website platforms, such as digital asset exchange and wallet services. In addition to flawless integration, the widget provides global coverage, allowing users to purchase crypto with various payment methods and currency pairs in any country.

With a focus on simplicity, the Mercuryo cryptocurrency widget features a user-friendly design with multi-language support and a 24/7 live customer support service. The service’s straightforward nature allows users to purchase and sell digital assets without any in-depth knowledge of the crypto world. For that reason, Mercuryo’s partners can use the company’s widget to achieve high conversion rates while offering their customers exposure to multiple digital currencies.

Neither consumers nor businesses have to worry about their funds’ safety as the company operates a fully regulated and compliant service that features state-of-the-art security. With guaranteed protection against chargebacks and continuous transaction monitoring, Mercuryo provides a completely ready-made and secure service to businesses in any country in the world. As a one-stop solution, Mercuryo takes care of everything for its partners, including compliance, liquidity, payments, and fraud management.

Not only does Mercuryo offer some of the lowest commissions on the market for buying cryptocurrency, the company’s widget can also be integrated into any platform and customized by business partners in order to suit the preferences of their customers.

Mercuryo also features a simplified KYC procedure for users to confirm their identities in a few minutes when making their first transactions.

“Aside from our direct customer base, all our partners that have integrated the Mercuryo widget have access to Google Pay and Apple Pay to offer a new, smooth way to purchase cryptocurrency for their users. Many of our business partners, such as Trust Wallet, Trezor, and Coinpayments, already feature the service, and we are always looking to strike new partnerships with promising companies,” Petr Kozyakov, Mecuryo’s co-founder and CBDO, stated.

By adding support for Apple Pay and Google Pay, Mercuryo allows its customers to buy digital assets with fiat currency in a swift and simple manner, without the need to add their card details. The entire process will only take users a couple of minutes at most.

Disclaimer: This article is a paid post and must not be considered as news/advice.

Litecoin, Algorand, DigiByte Price Analysis: 12 February

Polkadot Price Analysis: 11 February

Having studied Chemical Engineering, Akashnath's focus is on the UK and Indian markets and especially crypto assets. He is devoted to technical analysis and is always on the lookout for investment opportunities.

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase facilitated the $1.5 billion purchase of Bitcoin (BTC) by Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA), the Block reported Wednesday.

What Happened: The purchase for the Elon Musk-led company was executed in the first week of February over the course of several days, as per the Block.

The order was reportedly routed to several over-the-counter trading desk in the same way Coinbase conducted the purchase for MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ: MSTR). 

Coinbase’s prime brokerage arm has more than five Fortune 500 companies as clients, a source told the Block.

Why It Matters: Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is being valued at nearly $77 billion as it prepares to go public, which is greater than Intercontinental Exchange Inc (NYSE: ICE), the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, CoinDesk reported.

The exchange’s heady valuation comes at a time when BTC hit an all-time high of above $52,000 on Wednesday.

The valuation is based on the trading in Coinbase’s privately held shares on the Nasdaq Private Market at $303 a piece, people familiar with the matter told CoinDesk.

See also: How to Buy Bitcoin (BTC)

“The first week it was 200 bucks a share, the second week it was $301 a share, and the third week it was $303 a share. So you can kind of see price discovery happening,” as per the publication’s source.

At the time Coinbase announced its IPO plans in December, the company was valued at $8 billion based on a 2018 funding round. 

The cryptocurrency exchange is running an anonymous order book ahead of its direct listing, the date for which is not yet known, noted CoinDesk. 

Nearly 254 million shares in the cryptocurrency exchange will be outstanding and available to trade as and when the company goes public, people familiar with the IPO told CoinDesk.

Price Action: Tesla shares closed nearly 0.2% higher at $798.15 on Wednesday and fell 0.56% in the after-hours session. BTC traded 6.12% higher at $52,225.99.

Click here to check out Benzinga’s EV Hub for the latest electric vehicles news.

Payment services provider Square (NYSE: SQ) posted a 52% year-over-year increase in Q4 2020 gross profit of $804 million and up from $794 million in Q3 2020. Total net revenue for the quarter was $3.16 billion, up 141% year-over-year, versus analysts' consensus of $3.11 billion.

Transaction-based revenue was $929 million in the fourth quarter of 2020, up 12% year over year, and transaction-based gross profit was $394 million, up 26% year over year. Subscription- and services-based revenue was $449 million in the fourth quarter of 2020, up 60% year over year.

Operating expenses were $759 million in the fourth quarter of 2020, up 49% year over year, and non-GAAP operating expenses were $622 million, up 51% year over year.

The company's mobile payment service, Cash App, powered the rise with a 162% year-over-year increase to $377 million in gross profit, while the Seller ecosystem generated gross profit of $427 million, up 13% year-over-year. Cash App had more than 36 million monthly customers active, a 50% increase year-over-year.

Square announced its earnings results after the market closed on Tuesday. Almost overshadowing the strong earnings was the announcement that it has purchased approximately 3,318 bitcoins at a cost of $170 million. The company previously had purchased $50 million in bitcoin. The total of approximately $220 million represents roughly 5% of Square's total cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities on hand as of Dec. 31, 2020, the company said.

The reason for the purchase is that Square "believes that cryptocurrency is an instrument of economic empowerment, providing a way for individuals to participate in a global monetary system and secure their own financial future. The investment is part of Square's ongoing commitment to bitcoin, and the company plans to assess its aggregate investment in bitcoin relative to its other investments on an ongoing basis," the company said.

Square reported $185 million in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) in Q4, up 57% year-over-year. Net income climbed from $37 million in Q3 to $294 million in Q4, supported by $274 million related to equity investments, including a $255 million gain related to the sale of its Caviar business to DoorDash (NYSE: DASH).

For the full year, Square reported gross profit of $2.73 billion, a 45% increase over 2019. Cash App generated $1.23 billion in gross profit, up 168%, and Seller generated $1.51 billion, up 8%. Total net revenue for 2020 was $9.5 billion, an increase of 101% from 2019. For the full year of 2020, subscription- and services-based revenue was $1.54 billion, up 49% year over year, and subscription- and services-based gross profit was $1.32 billion, up 65% year over year.

For the full year of 2020, operating expenses were $2.75 billion, up 48% year over year, and non-GAAP operating expenses were $2.27 billion, up 53% year over year. Adjusted earnings per share was 84 cents.

"We see compelling opportunities to increase our investments across our Cash App and Seller ecosystems," Square said in a note to shareholders. "In 2021, we are focusing our investments on customer acquisition and product innovation. We have achieved attractive returns on our sales and marketing investments as customers have turned to our ecosystems to help them in dynamic environments, and we intend on continuing to expand and strengthen our product offerings."

Within the Cash App network, Square reported a 50% increase in peer-to-peer transactions sent per customer compared to 2019, with more than 80 million customers now having used Cash App at some point. Gross profit per monthly transacting active customer reached $41 in Q4, up approximately 70% year-over-year.

"These network effects have complemented our paid marketing campaigns, allowing us to maintain a low acquisition cost of fewer than $5 in 2020 for a new transacting active customer," Square said.

Square also noted that its Cash Boost rewards program members spent twice as much as other Cash App card members.

Square first invested in bitcoin to provide customers more ways to transact on its platform. In 2020, the company said more than 3 million customers purchased or sold bitcoin on the Cash App, and in January 2021, more than 1 million customers purchased bitcoin for the first time.

Bitcoin revenue increased to $1.76 billion, from $177.6 million a year ago.

Square has continued to build out its Seller ecosystem, and in particular its Seller gross payment volume. GPV represents the total dollar amount of all card payments processed by sellers using Square. In Q4, GPV from omnichannel and online sellers rose to more than half of total Seller GPV, up from one-third just two years ago.

Square offers an interactive kitchen display system that combines all orders — regardless of how they were placed — into a single display, and a QR code self-serve ordering system to help restaurants, for instance, improve their GPV. It also saw an increase in its Square Invoices service, which generated $100 million in gross profit in 2020.

Midmarket businesses also grew in Q4, with gross profit from these businesses increasing 27% year-over-year in Q4. Midmarket businesses used an average of approximately 2.5 Square products each.

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Cryptocurrency ATMs have been in the United States since 2013. But Blue Ridge Bank, based in Charlottesville, Virginia, appears to be the first U.S.-based community bank to let users obtain and redeem bitcoin from their ATMs. 

Blue Ridge Bank offered crypto ATM services after noticing the high demand for bitcoin. “We try to be forward-looking with what we are doing and anticipate our customers' needs — both present and future customers," Blue Ridge Banks CEO Brian Plum told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. 

To offer crypto services, which started last week, Blue Ridge partnered with BluePoint ATM Solutions, a national ATM operator based in Woodstock, Virginia and Boston-based Bitcoin ATM software firm LibertyX. 

Users must have the LibertyX phone app and digital wallet in order to purchase Bitcoin from Blue Ridge. But anyone — not just Blue Ridge Bank customers — can obtain Bitcoin from the bank’s machines. According to the Times-Dispatch, the service allows customers to redeem bitcoin for U.S. dollars as well.

Bitcoinist | Feb 12, 2021 | 09:00

Apple Pay and Google Pay cryptocurrency purchases are available to both the users of Mercuryo and its business partners.

Mercuryo , a leading global cryptocurrency payment provider, adds Apple Pay and Google Pay support for digital asset transactions. Fiat to crypto “rails”, available via Mercuryo’s flagship widget product, allows anyone with a smartphone device to purchase crypto with fiat currency using a wide range of payment methods. In addition to Mercuryo’s direct consumer base, Apple Pay and Google Pay support will also be available on partner cryptocurrency wallets and exchanges – such as Trust Wallet, Trezor, and CoinPayments – that have integrated the company’s widget.

The crypto industry is growing rapidly, reaching a total market capitalization of over $1 trillion in 2021. With the mission to make cryptocurrencies more accessible for everyone globally, the fintech company Mercuryo offers a seamless fiat-to-crypto payment gateway to consumer and business clients. Featuring two flagship products, a digital asset wallet, and a widget, Mercuryo has been serving over 600,000 users and 200 cryptocurrency partners, including prominent enterprises like Binance, Bybit, Bitfinex, Trust Wallet, and Bithumb. Since its launch, Mercuryo has quickly become one of the leading crypto payment gateway providers globally, realizing a 20-fold increase in volume in the past six months alone.

Mecuryo’s cryptocurrency widget can be easily integrated into the partners’ applications and website platforms, such as digital asset exchange and wallet services. In addition to flawless integration, the widget provides global coverage, allowing users to purchase crypto with various payment methods and currency pairs in any country.

With a focus on simplicity, the Mercuryo cryptocurrency widget features a user-friendly design with multi-language support and a 24/7 live customer support service. The service’s straightforward nature allows users to purchase and sell digital assets without any in-depth knowledge of the crypto world. For that reason, Mercuryo’s partners can use the company’s widget to achieve high conversion rates while offering their customers exposure to multiple digital currencies.

Neither consumers nor businesses have to worry about their funds’ safety as the company operates a fully regulated and compliant service that features state-of-the-art security. With guaranteed protection against chargebacks and continuous transaction monitoring, Mercuryo provides a completely ready-made and secure service to businesses in any country in the world. As a one-stop solution, Mercuryo takes care of everything for its partners, including compliance, liquidity, payments, and fraud management.

Not only does Mercuryo offer some of the lowest commissions on the market for buying cryptocurrency, the company’s widget can also be integrated into any platform and customized by business partners in order to suit the preferences of their customers.

Mercuryo also features a simplified KYC procedure for users to confirm their identities in a few minutes when making their first transactions.

“Aside from our direct customer base, all our partners that have integrated the Mercuryo widget have access to Google Pay and Apple Pay to offer a new, smooth way to purchase cryptocurrency for their users. Many of our business partners, such as Trust Wallet, Trezor, and Coinpayments, already feature the service, and we are always looking to strike new partnerships with promising companies,” Petr Kozyakov, Mecuryo’s co-founder and CBDO, stated.

By adding support for Apple Pay and Google Pay, Mercuryo allows its customers to buy digital assets with fiat currency in a swift and simple manner, without the need to add their card details. The entire process will only take users a couple of minutes at most.

Disclaimer: The information presented here does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest. The statements, views, and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author/company and do not represent those of Bitcoinist. We strongly advise our readers to DYOR before investing in any cryptocurrency, blockchain project, or ICO, particularly those that guarantee profits. Furthermore, Bitcoinist does not guarantee or imply that the cryptocurrencies or projects published are legal in any specific reader’s location. It is the reader’s responsibility to know the laws regarding cryptocurrencies and ICOs in his or her country.

Gene Klein, an American singer and entrepreneur, professionally known as Gene Simmons, has some hours ago revealed his recent investment in the Cardano (ADA), the 6th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

According to Simmons, popularly known for being the frontman of the band known as “Kiss”, he just purchased $300,000 worth of Cardano (ADA), adding that he intentionally took the decision because he believes that the price of the cryptocurrency will continue to rise.

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Gene Simmons tweeted, “I just bought $300,000 of CARDANO (ADA). I’m not a Financial Analyst and I’m not telling U to buy or not to buy. Simply letting U know what I am doing and what I believe in. Why? Because I believe it’s going up..and it’s always up to you to research & decide.”

— Gene Simmons (@genesimmons) February 19, 2021

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Gene Simmons is accustomed to stating reasons for adding any digital asset to his portfolio.

In the case of adding ADA, the popular singer pointed out that the digital currency is currently cheap compared to Bitcoin (BTC) that currently trades above $50,000.

He thinks everyone should be able to afford the cryptocurrency at its current prices.

Gene Simmons noted:

“Why did I buy Cardano (ADA)? Well, for one thing, it’s affordable to almost everyone. It’s pennies compared to my other holdings like Bitcoin, which is over $50,000 a single coin. I believe everyone should be able to afford cryptocurrency. And here is one I believe in.”

Before his latest investment in Cardano (ADA), Gene Simmons had invested in a number of altcoins such as Dogecoin (DOGE), Ripple’s XRP, among others. But his most significant profit came from his investment in Ethereum (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

Read Also: UK Independent Features Cardano’s Claim of Being 4 Million Times More Energy Efficient than Bitcoin

According to the singer, he purchased $300,000 worth of ETH four months ago via Gemini exchange, which indicates that his investment in the leading digital currency has returned over 4x of his initial investment, considering the current prices of ETH.

The singer probably expects the same scenario to play out in the case of Cardano (ADA) since the digital token is still at the early stage of its outstanding performance.

According to a new report, Tesla made more money purchasing BTC in one day than it did selling cars in the past quarter as we read further in the latest Bitcoin news today.

The car manufacturer profited from the latest $1.5 billion BTC purchase in one day than it actually did by selling cars in the past quarter in 2020. With the huge position purchasing, BTC’s price increased 23 percent and Tesla made about $365 million dollars in one day. After Tesla announced it will take a $1.5 billion position in BTC, the cryptocurrency market went crazy and the world’s biggest cryptocurrency increased by $10,000 in a few hours and dragged the rest of the market with it.

While the entire industry was ecstatic about the huge market gains, it was Tesla that turned the most profit on the investment. The company saw the value of the investment increase by more than 23% in one day and given the fact that the position was worth $1.5 billion, the profit came down to $356 million. While this could not seem like a very significant number, it’s more than the company made selling its cars for the entire fourth quarter in 2020.

According to CNN, the company reported that its Q4 2020 net income adjusted at $270 million so the number was short of the $780 million net income that was estimated by Wall Street that erased a few percent of the TSLA valuation. The low net income surprised analysts with the company posting quarterly revenue of $10.7 billion marking a 46 percent increase from the past year. The adjusted income was up by 6700 percent from the profits the company posted in 2019 when it marked the first year that Tesla turned a profit.

As reported previously, Tesla’s investment has just put Bitcoin’s market cap en route to $1TN while many found the prediction made by Plan B in his bullish paper “Modeling Bitcoin Value with Scarcity” back in 2019 for the same level, crazy. Following the latest developments, this prediction seems to be closer than ever. Plan B noted that certain precious metals like gold have maintained their monetary role because of their costliness and the limited supply rate and he applied the same argument to BTC which is now more valuable as a programmed algorithm that reduces the supply by half every four years to mint 21 million units.

DC Forecasts is a leader in many crypto news categories, striving for the highest journalistic standards and abiding by a strict set of editorial policies. If you are interested to offer your expertise or contribute to our news website, feel free to contact us at [email protected]

Source: urchasing-btc-than-by-selling-cars/

Popular Crypto Analyst Predicts XRP’s Price Will Surge to Outperform Bitcoin

Bitcoin News Roundup for Feb. 12, 2021

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By Dmitriy Gurkovskiy, Chief Analyst at RoboForex

Disclaimer

Any predictions contained herein are based on the author’s particular opinion. This analysis shall not be treated as trading advice. RoboForex shall not be held liable for the results of the trades arising from relying upon trading recommendations and reviews contained herein.

Source: inlink (LINK) has launched a major upgrade for its oracle network, dubbed Off-Chain Reporting, or OCR. The upgrade was announced on Wednesday, though the implementation has been live for some time already.

OCR changes how data across multiple sources is joined together by the oracle network. Previously, the process of aggregating different readings of the same desired input, for example a token’s price, was done on-chain. Chainlink nodes would submit their individual readings of the data, which would be verified by a smart contract on Ethereum and other blockchains. This approach, while guaranteeing reliability of the data, was inefficient in terms of gas costs, as each node would need to spend resources to publish the data.

The new architecture replaces on-chain aggregation with an off-chain consensus round. The aggregated data is then passed on to the blockchain, where a smart contract verifies that a quorum of nodes agreed on this version of the data.

Sergey Nazarov, founder of Chainlink, told Cointelegraph that the team has been working on the protocol since 2017. “We’ve started to put the best minds behind [it] over the last year and a half and have done substantial multiple audits on it,” he added.

The most immediate effect of the upgrade is reduced gas costs and load on the Ethereum network. According to the team, the upgrade will result in a tenfold increase in the amount of real-world data that could be available on the blockchain. As Nazarov explained, this increase is “partially related” to the gas limitations of the Ethereum blockchain:

“I think the nuance here is that we want to do this in a scalable way, basically, and we want to do it in a scalable way that works for Ethereum and various other chains. What this means is that, in times of congestion, the system should be able to continue to deliver these amounts of data because when you architect a system like this, you don’t architect for the best case.”

Chainlink nodes thus could have chosen to publish more data with the previous system, though the gas costs would have made that significantly difficult. “Our system needs to be able to function even in extreme situations, which so far it has been, better than all other oracles,” continued Nazarov. “So that’s the standard we need to meet. And if we suddenly increase 10x the amount of data on the current system — yeah, it could work in some good conditions and it would be costly, and it would actually raise everybody’s costs, which is not something we believe in.”

But beyond the immediate effects, Nazarov believes that this upgrade will have more important effects in the future. “Really what you’re seeing here now is the Chainlink network growing into something that is going to do more and more off-chain computation.”

While that does not mean Chainlink will transition to building rollups and layer two solutions, Nazarov said there are three distinct services that the Chainlink network will soon provide. This includes verifiable randomness, a feature that has already been launched and that allows DApps to have a trusted source of random numbers, which could be particularly useful for gambling platforms and prediction markets. The other services, enabled by OCR, include keeper functions and fair sequencing, both solutions to very practical problems affecting DeFi.

Keepers are a type of maintainers necessary in smart contract environments. For example, some contracts require conducting periodic actions, which are normally triggered by the team or someone in the community — formalizing this behavior is what projects like Keep3r or Fetch.ai are trying to do.

Fair sequencing is a proposed service that aims to fix front-running and miner extractable value in DeFi. The issue arises when a blockchain operator can freely rearrange transactions to theirs or someone else’s benefit. For example, when they see a multi-million swap about to be confirmed on Uniswap, they can quickly place their transaction to benefit from a better price.

The OCR system enables more freedom in how computations are performed on the Chainlink network, enabling new kinds of services centered around computing data instead of publishing it. Nazarov said that these ideas come from very practical needs that are unaddressed in the current market. “We generally do not want to build the pieces of the stack that we do not have to build,” he said. “We want to be the maximally positive-enabling force for smart contracts, closing all the gaps in the stack that aren’t closed.”

Source: reducing-gas-costs-tenfold

Daniel Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, has revealed he believes in the short term Tesla’s share price is directly going to be linked to the price of bitcoin, after the electric car marker’s $1.5 billion bitcoin bet. According to CNBC, Ives wrote that as Tesla is “diving into the deep end of the pool […]

Daniel Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, has revealed he believes in the short term Tesla’s share price is directly going to be linked to the price of bitcoin, after the electric car marker’s $1.5 billion bitcoin bet.

According to CNBC, Ives wrote that as Tesla is “diving into the deep end of the pool on bitcoin,” its CEO Elon Musk runs “the risk that this side show can overshadow the fundamental EV (electric vehicle) vision in the near term for investors.” Ives added:

Musk is now tied to the bitcoin story in the eyes of the Street and although Tesla made a billion paper profit in its first month owning the digital gold, it comes with added risk, as seen this week.

Despite his concerns, the analyst believes buying bitcoin was a “smart move at the right time” for Tesla. As reported, the analyst has estimated Tesla made a $1 billion profit on its $1.5 billion bitcoin bet thanks to the rising value of the flagship cryptocurrency.

Ives added that on the downside, the firm is “playing with firecrackers and risks and volatility are added” to its story. Both Tesla and BTC saw their prices crash earlier this week, with Tesla’s stock price dropping from over $780 late last week to a $652 low before recovering.

Similarly, bitcoin dropped from over $58,000 to a $45,600 low before it started recovering. The cryptocurrency is now trading at $50,800 and is seemingly still climbing. BTC dropped after U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned against cryptocurrency, saying bitcoin is an “extremely inefficient way of conducting transactions.”

Despite Tesla’s focus on bitcoin and its price being tied to the cryptocurrency, Wedbush is still bullish on Tesla, believing it will “hit a one trillion market cap over the coming months” through the growth of its electric vehicle business, and not through its bitcoin investment.

While bitcoin is “overshadowing the broader Tesla growth story for 2021,” Ives noted he believes the trend will soon pass and investors will focus on Tesla’s electric vehicle business.

Featured image via Pixabay.

Despite some expected near-term volatility, Tesla’s exploration of the crypto realm will likely help the industry scale up to new heights.

In the wake of this development, it has also come to light that the above-stated surge was, in large part, driven by whales who took Tesla’s announcement to be a buy signal. In this regard, as per data available on Binance, whales have been dabbling in “unusually large BTC buy volumes.”

Analysts believe that anytime a major publicly listed company makes its way into the digital asset space, a frenzy begins that creates positive market sentiment around BTC. For example, Filbfilb, a pseudonymous Bitcoin trader, stated that as things stand, an increasing number of companies will now be forced by their shareholders to provide them with some level of crypto exposure.

According to Hunter Merghart, head of United States operations for cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp, told Cointelegraph that while Square paved the way for everyone, Tesla adopting Bitcoin on its balance sheets will be viewed as a watershed moment for the industry, adding:

“The risk in further adoption from both retail and institutions is gone. This will eventually lead to further positive price action, as it does take time for new retail and institutional players to onboard and fund accounts.”

A similar sentiment is shared by Sam Tabar, former managing director for Bank of America Merrill Lynch and co-founder of Fluidity — the firm behind P2P trading platform AirSwap — who believes that this is the moment the crypto industry has been waiting for — i.e., receiving an institutional stamp of approval for Bitcoin from an S&P 500 company.

Also, taking a dig at the naysayers, Tabar highlighted to Cointelegraph that just a few years ago, people would scoff at Bitcoin and crypto in general as being a tool for drug dealers and other miscreants. “Then they would claim that Bitcoin takes too much electricity, but if you compare BTC electricity use versus all the electricity that is used in traditional finance, you’d be quite surprised,” he added.

Lastly, Ben Zhou, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Bybit, told Cointelegraph that Tesla embracing Bitcoin has reduced carrier risk calculations for corporate treasurers and that he now foresees a small but sustained trickle of corporate adoption, including that of multinationals, the cumulation of which will eventually serve a backstop against significant volatility.

In addition, he also believes that as Bitcoin continues to gain acceptance in the eyes of institutions and corporations, the crypto community may become more incentivized than ever before to drive innovation within this nascent space. For example, Merghart believes that in the near future there will see more multinationals exploring Bitcoin and eventually even other crypto assets through borrowing/lending or faster cross-border payments through stablecoins.

Stephen Stonberg, chief operating officer for Bittrex Global exchange, told Cointelegraph that he believes that the announcement has and will continue to raise awareness for Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market in general, adding:

“Other U.S. multinationals might well consider diversification of their asset base through other digital currencies that haven’t seen the same appreciation in value as Bitcoin has in the last few months. For too long, investors have confronted negative-yielding bonds and overvalued equities. Now, digital assets provide a real opportunity to diversify.”

The same outlook is shared by Paolo Ardoino, chief technical officer for digital asset trading platform Bitfinex, who told Cointelegraph that Tesla’s announcement may very well bring “cryptocurrency to a new level” and that there may be “no going back” for the industry from here on out. He continued: “I expect Bitcoin to be added to the balance sheet of many corporations as its quality as a form of digital gold becomes only more relevant.”

Lastly, another company whose name has come up recently in regard to Bitcoin is Apple, especially as the multinational is uniquely positioned as a leader within the domain of consumer technology. Kris Marszalek, CEO of digital currency payments platform Crypto.com, told Cointelegraph that if Apple Pay were to extend its support to crypto, the move would be extremely bullish for the firm.

Furthermore, even Marc Benioff, CEO of American cloud-based software company Salesforce, recently tweeted out a cryptic message that read, “Trust is the currency of the realm,” leading many to speculate that the $200-billion company with almost $10 billion in cash may also be considering or has already invested in Bitcoin.

On the subject of diversification, Marszalek opined: “Our world today is one of zero interest rates and endless debasement of fiat currencies. In order to keep up, institutions will have to look towards alternative stores of value, of which Bitcoin is one of the best.”

As the crypto market continues to experience an unparalleled amount of positive traction in recent months, there are also many players from the traditional finance sector who believe that Tesla’s move is just a one-off phenomenon and that people should not expect many other big-name players to follow in the company’s footsteps.

For example, strategists for investment bank JPMorgan Chase, led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, believe that Tesla’s $1.5-billion Bitcoin purchase will not necessarily trigger similar investments, with Panigirtzoglou claiming that BTC’s volatility will still continue to keep mainstream corporate treasurers away from crypto.

Similarly, perennial gold backer Peter Schiff also highlighted the fact that Tesla’s new investment policy allows for the purchase of gold bullion and gold exchange-traded funds, even going as far as suggesting that the company is already offloading its BTC investment as the market responds to the news by pumping its value up.

Lastly, Matvey Voytov, chief marketing officer at Waves Enterprise — an enterprise-grade blockchain platform — told Cointelegraph that it is quite unlikely that other enterprises will blindly follow Tesla, saying: “I expect that most big companies will wait, as there are still solid entry barriers in most countries regarding crypto legislations.” He also believes that investors would prefer to take a safe route to invest since “many corporate finance leaders remember being burned in 2008 by higher-yielding choices.”

Even though the crypto market continues to face daily volatility swings, from a macro perspective, it’s worth remembering the fact that over the course of the last nine months, central banks all over the world have continued to print their local currencies, leading to the unprecedented dilution of most fiat assets.

Related: Coincidence? Company stocks rise after they buy Bitcoin as a reserve

Stonberg elucidated that such high levels of quantitative easing “might well lead to multinationals hedging on harder assets, such as limited supply digital assets, gold and silver as a hedge.”

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To say that the last week was interesting in the cryptocurrency market would be a massive understatement. Bitcoin almost reached $50K, Ethereum shot past $1800, BNB peaked at around $150 – these are just some of the highlights.

Starting off, a few days ago, Bitcoin received perhaps what might be considered as its major endorsement in the recent years – Tesla revealed a bitcoin buy worth $1.5 billion in January. That’s right – one of the world’s largest public companies allocated around 15% of its net cash into Bitcoin.

Needless to say, this sent the primary cryptocurrency for the skies as its price surged from around $39,000 to $48,000 in a day. After what many considered to be a healthy correction and a dip below $44K, Bitcoin charted a fresh all-time high, which currently sits at exactly $49,000.00 on Bitstamp. At this point, it seems like a matter of time before it’s breached.

Altcoins had a huge week as well. Ethereum is currently trading well above $1,800, and it’s also painting fresh highs daily. The DeFi market is popping with the total value locked in various DeFi protocols topping $40 billion.

It’s also worth noting that Binance Smart Chain (BSC) is also catching up to speed with some projects standing on the top of interest meters, such as PancakeSwap – a Uniswap alternative for BSC, which has already surpassed SushiSwap in terms of total market capitalization.

In any case, the week was particularly positive in terms of developments. The oldest bank in the US, BNY Mellon, announced that it would custody Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for its institutional clients. Another leading payment processor, Mastercard, joined the likes of Visa and said that it would potentially integrate cryptocurrencies in its network of merchants.

All in all, the past seven days were thrilling, and it remains very interesting to see what will happen next.

Market Cap: $1468B | 24H Vol: 201B | BTC Dominance: 60.3%

BTC: $47,673 (+26.71%) | ETH: $1,847 (+8.47%) | XRP: $0.571 (+32.15%)

Tesla Bought $1.5 Billion of Bitcoin – BTC Skyrockets to New ATH. Tesla, one of the world’s largest companies, spearheaded by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has bought $1.5 billion of BTC in January. This became clear in an SEC filing filed a few days ago where the company also revealed that it may begin accepting bitcoins for its products.

Oldest American Bank BNY Mellon to Custody Bitcoin for Its Institutional Clients. The oldest bank in the United States, BNY Mellon, announced that it will custody Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on behalf of its institutional clients. BNY Mellon becomes the latest bank to do so as the demand for BTC by institutions is increasing.

Mastercard to Support Select Crypto Assets Directly on its Network in 2021. One of the world’s leading payment processing companies, Mastercard, revealed that it will integrate cryptocurrencies directly into its merchants’ network in 2021. This comes shortly after the largest company in the field, Visa, announced the same thing.

Bitcoin Institutional Demand Accelerates in 2021 Says Grayscale CEO. According to the CEO of the world’s largest cryptocurrency asset manager, Grayscale, institutional interest in Bitcoin is accelerating in 2021. He also said that the narrative has shifted from “why” to “why not” when it comes to investing in BTC.

Ethereum 2.0 Staking Hits Milestone 3M ETH Worth $5.4 Billion. The total amount of ETH staked on the Ethereum 2.0 blockchain has now topped three million. There are over 84,000 active validators and almost 9000 pending as the chain seems to be progressing quite impressively.

Gamer Shells Out $1.5 Million For Virtual Estate, Sets New NFT Sale Record. The frenzy around non-fungible tokens continues with full force. In a staggering sale, someone has paid over $1.5 million for virtual real estate. The user purchased 9 Genesis plots of virtual land on the blockchain-powered gaming platform.

This week we have a chart analysis of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Cardano, and Binance Coin – click here for the full price analysis.

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