Crypto analyst and trader Ben Armstrong is unveiling the date he believes the Bitcoin bull cycle will come to an end.
Armstrong, known in the industry as BitBoy Crypto, tells his 635,000 subscribers that while Bitcoin is not done with its mega bull run yet, BTC holders should be prepared for its finale, because when the king coin crashes, it will drop fast.
“It has happened to countless people in 2018… I watched my portfolio grow only to be absolutely destroyed. Why? Because I didn’t understand the market psychology at that time. I didn’t understand that when you’re at your most excited point, that’s when it crashes. At that moment where you don’t want to sell the most, that’s when it’s the smart move to get out.”
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While the high-profile analyst concedes that it is impossible to know exactly when Bitcoin will top out this cycle, he does reveal that he believes it will happen during a specific two-week period.
“The most parabolic rally in the crypto cycle comes at the very end of the last month. But here’s the thing – I know when that is.
I know exactly when the Bitcoin bull run will end and while, yes, I couldn’t possibly nail it exactly on the day, we should know the date when it should end. It may end a week or two before or after, but a two-week period near the end of September is exactly when you should be looking to exit.”
Armstrong says that he derived his prediction from The Golden Bull Cycle Ratio, which is a chart created by TradingShot, a group that produces data on TradingView.
The chart relies on the Bitcoin bull cycles of the past to predict how long future bull cycles will last.
“As you can see, in the previous two cycles there was exactly a 51-49% ratio in the weekly candles between the two distinct parts of the bull run.
51% of the bull run lasts from the bottom of the market to the Bitcoin halving that occurs every 210,000 blocks produced. Then 49% of the bull run lasts from the halving date to the very top of the market.
When you work those dates out, it is 504 days from May 11th, the day of the 2020 halving… That gives you the date of September 28th.”
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While there is of course no guarantee that history will repeat itself, Armstrong points out that this cycle looks eerily similar to that of 2017, meaning that Bitcoin’s true parabolic rally has yet to begin.
“But when you overlay the current bull run to the last one we are matching it almost tit for tat…
We’ve not gone parabolic yet so there’s no reason to believe that anything different than the normal will happen.”
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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any loses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.
Crypto Twitter caught wind of the project yesterday and in a matter of hours, all the cat collectibles were gone.
While most of thecryptocommunity had its attention turned to Bitcoin as ithit dizzying highsof $60,000, one bit of crypto news meowed quietly under the radar: one of the oldest sets of digital collectibles ever contracted on the Ethereumblockchain has been rediscovered and snapped up by feverish crypto hoarders in a matter of hours.
Virtually nobody had heard of MoonCats until yesterday, when Twitter user @ETHoard tweeted that they “started digging around and came across #MoonCatRescue.”
While maybe not as eye pleasing as the recent #CryptoCats discovery, after that rush happened I started digging around and came across #MoonCatRescue. Inspired by Cryptopunks as well, and actually predates CryptoCats. /1
— ETHoard (@ETHoard) March 12, 2021
According toEtherscan, the abandoned MoonCatRescue project dates back toAugust 9 2017, which according to EThoarder makes it the second oldest NFT onEthereumafterCryptoPunks, just one behind fellow furballsCryptoKitties.
In the world of crypto-collectibles, factors like historical significance and scarcity affect the desirability of anNFT. With a maximum cap of 25,600 discoverable pixelated cat NFTs, MoonCats easily fulfilled both criteria for a potential NFT goldmine.
NFTs: A brief overview
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are just like any limited edition collectible, such as trading cards or fine art. Only they’re digital: thanks to the Ethereumblockchain’sadvanced one-way cryptography, NFTs are verifiably scarce and provably unique. This lets peopleexchangedigital one-of-a-kind items much like swapping baseball cards or fine watches.
People have been going crazy for NFTs lately. This week, NFT artist Beeple managed to sell a digital artworkfor $69.3 million. With NFT collectibles often commanding six or seven-digit figures in online marketplaces, more people are beginning to come on board with the technology, stockpiling NFTs in the hope that they’ll accumulate value in the future.
Lost cat: found.
Since the front-end interface of MoonCatRescue.com had long been defunct, dedicated NFT fans had to manually interact with the contract using Etherscan to rescue the cats. It didn’t take long before detailed instructions were circulating on Twitter.
The only cost for rescuing a MoonCat was that of the ETHtransactionfee to mine it. Sure enough, in only four hours, MoonCats shot to second place on the list of accounts with the highest transaction fees on the Ethereum network that day, raising over $600,000 ingasfees alone.
Number 2 on the list of most transaction fees on the $ETH network currently is the #MoonCats contract.
People just collectively paid almost $600k in 3 hours to adopt digital kittens. What a time to be alive. pic.twitter.com/0HTNYGUoCr
— Jeroen (@J_vanDuijn) March 12, 2021
In order to make the MoonCats sellable on marketplaces like OpenSea, token rescuers need to wrap their NFTs, for a fee of about $200. A relatively nominal fee in light of the fact that some MoonCats are already being resoldfor almost $40k.
According to MoonCatRescue’swebsite, the project was developed by a duo called Ponderware, whose Twitter account, like their MoonCat website, showed no sign of life since 2017. Though today, after every last MoonCat was rescued, Ponderware broke their four years silence with a tweet: “Attempting to re-establish contact with the moonbase. Stay Tuned.”
Attempting to re-establish contact with the moonbase. Stay Tuned.
— ponderware (@ponderware) March 13, 2021
Evidently, there’s still a whole lot of undiscovered booty in Ethereum’s blockchain, which makes it fertile for further excavation. The runaway success of MoonCats sends an unequivocal message to the crypto community:
Coming every Saturday,Hodler’s Digestwill help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.
Top Stories This Week
Beeple NFT auction closes at record-setting $69.3 million
There’s plenty to discuss in the crypto markets, but this week, nonfungible tokens have stolen the limelight… for multiple reasons.
Digital artist Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple, has made history after his latest piece — “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” — sold for a whopping $69.3 million following an auction at Christie’s.
Only two other living artists, Jeff Koons and David Hockney, have created more expensive works… and as you might expect, this is the priciest NFT ever sold.
It’s a pretty special one at that. “Everydays” consists of 5,000 unique images, produced every day for 13-and-a-half years.The collage shows Beeple’s evolution as an artist and his shift to becoming a political cartoonist.
Beeple isn’t the only one laughing all the way to the crypto exchange.A group of crypto investors known as “Burnt Banksy” has made a tidy profit after a daring stunt involving one of the graffiti artist’s creations.
They bought a real-life Banksy painting for$100,000last month. “Morons” satirizes the art industry and depicts a bustling auction for a framed canvas, adorned with the words: “I can’t believe you morons buy this shit.”
Last week, they set the painting on fire during a Twitter livestream in Brooklyn… and turned it into an NFT instead.Now, it’s sold on the NFT marketplace OpenSea for 228 ETH… worth over$400,000at the time of writing.
Other big sales this week included a former DC Comics artist who made$1.85 millionin four days by sellingWonder Woman NFTs.But not everyone has a price.A collectorturned downa staggering$1 millionfor an NBA Top Shot moment they originally bought for$100,000.
“Breaking new ground is never easy” — Kings of Leon’s NFT sale takes in $2 million
Kings of Leon have reportedly made a cool$2 millionthrough sales of their tokenized album — with$600,000going to a fund that’s designed to support live music crews affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
Alas, the event hasn’t been without teething problems.Many of the band’s fans are complete newcomers to crypto and NFTs — and it can be a steep learning curve. This prompted Kings of Leon to extend their sale to March 20.
The NFTs have been released in collaboration with YellowHeart, a blockchain-based ticketing platform that is handling the auction on NFT marketplace OpenSea.
Six golden tickets have been released — giving fans front row seats for life, their own driver to gigs, and the chance to enjoy meet-and-greets with the band.One of the golden tickets fetched a whopping89 ETH.
In other music news, the Russian punk feminist group Pussy Riothas revealedit is releasing four NFTs for its latest single to support a shelter for victims of domestic violence.
Bitcoin hits new record highs after agonizing two-week wait
What a difference a year makes. Twelve months ago, Bitcoiners were licking their wounds after a devastating flash crash that took it below$4,000. Fast forward to now, and BTC has now set a new all-time high above$59,000.
It took a couple of weeks to reach this milestone, with BTC falling below $45,000 along the way.But the bounceback indicates that bullish momentum remains unshaken. What remains to be seen is whether this spike is the product of weekend volatility, or the start of something bigger.
Of course, there are reasons to be cautious.ExoAlpha’s David Lifchitz said this week that, despite Bitcoin’s price being in a long-term uptrend, there are some reasons for a more bearish outlook for the short term.
Tax season in the U.S. could prompt investors to sell off their holdings.It’s also March, traditionally a bearish month for the crypto sector.
Solution to scale Ethereum ‘100X’ is imminent and will get us through until Eth2, Vitalik says
With DeFi protocols flocking to rival blockchains — with Binance Smart Chain a big beneficiary of this exodus — Ethereum needs to take swift action to boost capacity and clamp down on sky-high transaction fees.
Eth2 remains some time away yet, but Vitalik Buterin has revealed that a temporary fix may be just around the corner: rollups.
Speaking onThe Tim Ferriss Showpodcast, he said Optimism’s layer-two solution could help Ethereum scale by a factor of 100.And by the time any additional capacity is needed, sharding “will have already been ready for a long time by then,” Buterin added.
Rollups process and store transaction data on a designated sidechain before bundling batches of transactions together onto Ethereum’s mainnet.This helps mitigate the blockchain’s scaling woes, where fierce competition for bandwidth on the Ethereum mainnet has resulted in exorbitant fees.
Optimism’s solution is set to launch in about a month, and the rollups are expected to be embraced by industry leaders in DeFi, with rumors suggesting the feature will be heavily utilized by V3 of Uniswap.
Winners and Losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at$60,539, Ether at$1,936and XRP at$0.44. The total market cap is at$1.8 trillion.
Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week areChiliz,Theta FuelandAnkr. The top three altcoin losers of the week areNEM,FantomandVoyager Token.
For more info on crypto prices, make sure to readCointelegraph’s market analysis.
Most Memorable Quotations
“Gold’s ability to hedge against inflation has been somewhat exaggerated. While it is a reasonable store of value over the very long-term — think centuries — it is less reliable across most investment horizons.”
Russ Koesterich, BlackRock portfolio manager
“The fact that Oracle hasn’t bought ‘yet’ is very bullish and signalling how early it still is.”
Jeff Booth, entrepreneur
“Tesla in Rear View, About $80,000 Bitcoin Eyes Amazon Market Cap — Once Bitcoin’s back-and-fill process around the $1 trillion market cap is complete, we see internet pioneer Amazon.com as a potential next threshold.”
Mike McGlone, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst
“Let’s Make History together with the first ever NFT for REAL ESTATE!”
Ivan Malpica, investor
“You’d have over $10,000 if you bought #bitcoin with your stimulus check.”
@BitcoinStimulus
“DOGE does certainly already have a use case as a niche currency with avid fans, and adoption can certainly grow from here. But for it to genuinely be considered ‘future money,’ the narrative of DOGE as a meme coin will have to erode.”
Kadan Stadelmann, Komodo chief technology officer
“Last year, @Ripple and I sued @YouTube for failing to enforce its own policies by allowing fake accounts (impersonating my/Ripple’s verified accounts) to conduct XRP giveaway scams. We’ve now come to a resolution to work together to prevent, detect and take down these scams.”
Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple CEO
“Rollups are coming very soon. We’re fully confident that by the time that we need any more scaling of that, sharding will have already been ready for a long time by then.”
Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum co-founder
“Gold will always have a place in jewelry and coin collections, but most indicators point to an accelerating pace of Bitcoin replacing the metal as a store of value in investor portfolios.”
Mike McGlone, Bloomberg senior commodity strategist
“It’s so cool to see women and girls in the cryptocurrency space. It’s important for us to have empowered financial futures.”
Lily Knight, three-year-old Bitcoin educator
“If blockchain designs and infrastructure get done at the enterprise level and there aren’t enough women, there won’t be anything created by female thinking patterns. This is the biggest issue we face today.”
Efi Pylarinou, blockchain and fintech adviser
“Even if you dislike Bitcoin, you should still buy it just in case it pans out.”
Dan Held, Kraken
Prediction of the Week
Mark Cuban sees $1 written in DOGE’s tea leaves
Just three days after the Dallas Mavericks started accepting Dogecoin for merchandise, the basketball team’s billionaire owner, Mark Cuban, was exceedingly bullish.
TheShark Tankstar is predicting that DOGE’s price will eventually hit $1… meaning Elon Musk isn’t the only megarich entrepreneur who’s in love with the joke coin.
Last weekend, he said customers had used more than 20,000 DOGE in transactions with the Dallas Mavericks, making it “the largest Dogecoin merchant in the world.”
The Mavericks were one of the first NBA franchises to recognize crypto as a form of payment for tickets and merchandise, having started accepting Bitcoin through wallet company BitPay two years ago.
Fans can also pay for gear and souvenirs with Bitcoin Cash, USD Coin, Gemini Dollar, Paxos Standard and Binance USD.
FUD of the Week
OpenSea collector “pulls the rug” on NFTs to highlight arbitrary value
Returning to NFTs now, and some are expressing fears that the market is overheated — and engaging in daring stunts to prove their point.
A crypto artist known as “Neitherconfirm” listed 26 NFTs for sale on OpenSea, featuring people and animal faces in a stained glass style.But things took an unexpected turn on Tuesday when they changed the images associated with each token into photos of literal carpets.
Neitherconfirm said no one was hurt by the move, explaining: “All discussions about the value of NFTs are meaningless as long as the token is not inseparable from the artwork itself.What is the meaning of creating an unforgeable token on a highly secured network if somebody can alter, relink or destroy your possession?As long as the value of your artwork is reliable on a central service you do not own anything.”
Peter Schiff’s son moves 100% of his portfolio into Bitcoin
We’ve known for a long time that Peter Schiff is a crypto skeptic and a gold bug.But this week, his son made a powerful statement that shows he couldn’t agree less with his father.
Spencer Schiff seems to have decided to move his portfolio investments into Bitcoin, with his dad expressing concern after he went all in. Peter wrote:“If my own son is this brainwashed imagine how vulnerable most kids are. He’s HODLing to infinity or bust.”
Snarky comments came in thick and fast, with Morgan Creek Digital co-founder Anthony Pompliano replying:“At least someone in your family is growing their wealth this year.”
Schiff went on to suggest that he needs to disinherit his son:“Otherwise he will squander my hard earned wealth on more Bitcoin.”
His criticisms of BTC have often proven to be well off the mark. Indeed, in 2019, he confidently declared that the world’s biggest cryptocurrency would never hit$50,000.
Ripple ends YouTube lawsuit over XRP giveaway scams, says CEO
As the SEC lawsuit over the sale of XRP tokens rumbles on, Ripple is dialing down its legal action elsewhere.This week, the company announced that it has ended its lawsuit against YouTube for the video-sharing site’s alleged complicity in a spate of XRP giveaway scams.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse had taken YouTube to task for “failing to enforce its own policies by allowing fake accounts to conduct XRP giveaway scams” — fraudulent profiles that often impersonated his official page or other verified Ripple channels.Both sides have now reached a resolution that will see them work together to “prevent, detect and take down these scams.”
On Twitter, he added: “Social platforms are starting to acknowledge their role in allowing crypto scams to persist and recognize the need to be part of the solution.”In other developments, Ripple and Moneygram haveofficially terminatedtheir partnership, but both companies expressed hope that they’ll get to work together again in the future.
Best Cointelegraph Features
Too little, too late? Ethereum losing DeFi ground to rival blockchains
Decentralized exchanges explore alternatives as Ethereum continues to be overloaded. Is this the beginning of the end for the blockchain?
Black Thursday anniversary: Can crypto markets see another huge crash?
The market may witness flash crashes in the near term, and another March 12 drop is not completely off the map.
True or false? A single NFT can power a European household for 1.5 months
NFTs are coming under scrutiny as more attention is drawn to the carbon footprint of PoW blockchains.
Morgan Creek Digital founder Anthony Pompliano says Bitcoin is the apex predator of the financial markets as he notes that investors are racing into it as a safe-haven asset.
In an interview with CNBC, Pompliano says that for companies managing big treasuries, Bitcoin is the best possible asset for generating sizable growth.
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“Listen, Bitcoin is the apex predator of financial markets. You’ve got digital sound money that’s grown at a compound annual growth rate of 200% for a decade. And if you’re sitting there and you manage a treasury, you’ve got cash on your balance sheet, you tell me where else you’re going to put it where you can get that type of growth. 200% compound annual growth rate for a decade, there’s nowhere else they can put it. We’re printing an unprecedented amount of money, and so they’re looking for a safe haven, and Bitcoin is that apex predator that everyone is concluding is the answer.”
Addressing the claim that Bitcoin is manipulated, the Bitcoin bull says that the stock market is actually a prime example of a manipulated market, highlighting the Federal Reserve’s tendency to stimulate it every time it runs out of steam.
“We have a Federal Reserve and elected officials who have outlawed bear markets. If you’re in the stock market and the market starts to correct, they step in and just pump liquidity into the market. This is insane. If you want to talk about a manipulated market, let’s talk about the stock market… We can’t have markets that aren’t allowed to correct. What we’re watching is investors are racing to find an asset where they can go that is an unmanipulated, transparent, programmatic asset. And Bitcoin serves that purpose.”
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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any loses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.
We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and we throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes!
This week, our 6 Questions go to Harumi Urata-Thompson, chief financial officer and chief investment officer of Celsius
Harumi Urata-Thompson is the chief financial officer and chief investment officer of Celsius. Additionally, she is the founder of Hut Consulting and the former chief operating officer for the CFA Society New York, for which she completed a successful turnaround during her tenure. Urata-Thompson held multiple senior-level positions at Thomson Reuters and worked at Morgan Stanley and CitiGroup in investment banking. Her expertise is leading and advising organizations on taking innovative paths to achieve strategic, operational and marketing success. Among her busy work schedule, Harumi manages to find to speak on various topics of interest, including blockchain technology, cryptocurrency, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, Big Data, outer space, among others.
1 — When you tell people you’re in the blockchain industry, how do they react?
I get contrasting responses from two different groups of people. If they are already involved with blockchain in one way or another and especially if they already know the company I work for, I get “that’s so cool!” every time. From the other group, and unfortunately more people are in this group, I either get a blank look, get a question of “what is Bitcoin good for?” or worse yet, “oh, and you support the criminals.” Regarding the first group, I agree with them — I wake up excited every day still. For the second group, this can be addressed with education. Financial literacy, which includes cryptocurrency, is a big part of me; I am a career financial services professional and a CFA charter holder. I like sharing my knowledge and experience, so regardless of the venue, I am asked to come to present. I always enjoy doing that.
2 — What do you think will be the biggest trend in blockchain for the next 12 months?
I am not sure if I can call this the “biggest trend” or even “trend” for that matter, and it certainly will not be limited to the next 12 months, but questioning the use case of blockchain, as we are past the initial excitement of “what is blockchain.” That or billions of dollars raised from ICOs came and went is definitely something that we absolutely have to take a hard look at as we move forward.
I have been involved in the startup and product management world for a while now, and there is always one question I have to ask myself:Whose problem am I (you) solving? The applicability of blockchain technology is endless. This is just an enabler, and it was developed into different needs of multiple industries. I do not believe that we have heard the “it is definitively adopted by the masses” statement yet. So, whose problem should we solve that provides us the mass adoption path? I like to address this question from the angle of if I were to invest in a blockchain-based business in the next 12 months, what I might look for in the solution. First, let’s think through some of the problems that are blocking us from making these technology-based solutions to become mainstream. Regulations uncertainty. This is really a thing and without any bias, if I am investing in one business, I will try to see if I can find a solution that doesn’t have to deal with as many regulations or on the side of being able to influence or work with the regulators to avoid this issue. Performance. It is not what it can be yet, and it probably will take a while, so I likely avoid solutions that require extremely fast transactions or requirements to settle millions of transactions at once. Blockchain not being the face of the solution. Unless we can find a way to use blockchain “Intel Inside” way, I will not pick a solution whose marketing point #1 is “we are a blockchain company.” When I combine these thoughts together, and again, if I am investing in only one business at the moment, then I would pick a solution that solves a government — i.e., regulator side — issue where we actually do have a known problem that can be solved by leveraging blockchain nature, such as immutability, transparency and security. How about we solve the problem where the government must send out massive checks like stimulus checks, social benefits, tax credit, so on? I would investigate this kind of solution provider business. I do not believe that it is a coincidence that we have begun to focus on central bank digital currency recently, and a lot of talk in the blockchain fintech [industries] is around this topic.
3 — What’s the unlikeliest-to-happen thing on your bucket list?
“500 places to see before you die” kind of has become a thing. For me, the more places I go, the more places I add to the list, and I think my list might be 5,000, if not 50,000. I can take one or two vacations per year maybe? I try to “knock out” multiple places each time I go away, but my ever-expanding list makes it a bit of a challenge to make the “visit every place I want to go to” bucket list a very challenging one. But I always accept the challenge, and my glass is always half full, so I am sure I have not given up on the idea yet!
4 — What is the single most innovative use case for blockchain you’ve ever seen? It may not be the one likeliest to succeed!
Diamond supply chain. For expensive goods like diamonds (or this can be leveraged into other gems, vintage wines or artwork by famous artists from centuries ago), putting the origin and authenticity is extremely tough, and diamond in particular, which even gem amateurs like myself do think about where the “blood diamond” might be circulating in the economy although I personally have no way of figuring it out on my own. This opaque supply chain, amongst other things, of course, has prohibited diamonds from becoming a major commodity in the financial services industry or having more derivatives beyond becoming someone’s necklace or ring. For the industry whose last innovation was to claim “a diamond is forever” (and thus your love should be, too, if you engage with it), I think this was an amazing innovation to adopt this technology to connect the whole supply chain from mining all the way to retail by creating a thumbprint of diamonds and a record and put that into the blockchain. While I have no strong opinion why the commodities market developed the way it did, there is no reason there is a market for palladium, weather, or but not for diamond. Gems are hard to have a solid price? None of these do. The regulators and financial professionals did not want to create a product out of conflicted products? Blockchain can now solve that. Although the use might be limited to jewelry, there is a fair amount of demand for this gem. While mass adoption of this technology remains to be seen, this is an interesting development I’d love to address as we progress forward.
5 —What do your parents/significant other/friends/kids tell you off for? Feel free to offer more than one answer.
I like working and I like getting things done. This means there are times when I might be “disregarding” some of the needs in life, and probably my significant other gets the worst end of that. He is the most patient on the planet, but at some point, he starts coming around trying to take away my laptop and things — as I write this, I have put down dinner food on the table and still writing this!
6 —What’s the silliest conspiracy theory out there… and which one makes you pause for a moment?
The earth is flat! If the science is not by my side telling me otherwise, it does feel flat, it looks flat it smells flat, so why not??? The one that makes me pause is things like Area 51. Do we really have something completely covered up in this society?
According to a report yesterday from the Miami Herald, cryptocurrency exchange FTX is preparing to finalize a deal to sponsor the home of National Basketball Association team the Miami Heat — a move that will grant the exchange exclusive naming rights for the 19,600 arena.
“Miami-Dade County is getting closer to signing a cryptocurrency company to replace American Airlines as the naming-rights sponsor of the Miami Heat’s downtown arena, according to several sources — a deal that would deliver the NBA its first venue tied to bitcoin and other electronic currencies,” reads the report.
The Herald also noted that “Internet breadcrumbs” point to FTX preparing for the move, with the registration of the “ftxarena.com” Internet domain, as well as purchasing FTXarena social media handles.
Reports from 2019 indicate that the county was in the market for a new sponsor, and hoped to rename the arena by 2020. American Airlines previously paid $2 million a year to sponsor the arena.
The move seems to be a part of a larger strategy aimed at popularizing cryptocurrencies and DeFi from SBF businesses and investments.
In this case, the move to acquire a popular arena’s naming rights might be the product of Blockfolio co-founder Edward Moncada. In Cointelegraph’s Top 100 series, Moncada’s profile (he clocked in at #17) made note of his interest in how crypto intersects with various elements of popular culture, including sports:
“Now that he’s integral to marketing at FTX, and given Moncada’s passion for branding and mass communication, Cointelegraph would not be surprised to see major initiatives to bring awareness of both FTX and Blockfolio to a much wider, non-crypto-native audience. Moncada has commented extensively on demographic synergies between sports, music and crypto on occasion, and Cointelegraph will pay attention to see if there is further outreach in these sectors.”
The most basic Bitcoin (BTC) options contracts involve buying a call which gives the holder the opportunity to acquire the asset at a fixed price on a set date. For this privilege, the buyer simply pays an upfront fee, known as a premium, to the contract seller.
Although this is a great way to use leverage while avoiding the liquidation risk that comes from trading futures contracts, it comes at a cost. The options premium will rise during volatile markets, causing the trade to require even further price appreciation to generate a reasonable profit, so the premium is a metric investors must keep a close eye on.
Bitcoin’s daily volatility currently stands at 5.4%, which is far higher than S&P 500’s 1.7%. This creates opportunities for arbitrage desks, which will gladly hold Bitcoins in custody and sell a call option to capture this premium.
Let’s look at a hypothetical trade to what role the premium plays in the scenario.
The odds of this trade are calculated according to the Black & Scholes model and Deribit exchange presents this information as ‘delta’. In short, these are the percent-based odds for each strike.
March 26 BTC call options pricing. Source: Deribit.com
According to the chart above, the $54,000 strike for March 26 has a 48% chance of occurring according to the options pricing model, which sounds reasonable. On the other hand, the $58,000 call option has an implied probability of 37%.
With roughly 20 days left until the March 2021 expiry, the odds of Bitcoin price closing the month above $60,000 seem likely given today’s price action. Considering this call option is trading for BTC 0.0548 each, it costs $2,790 when Bitcoin was trading at $50,900.
In order for this call option to become profitable, BTC price needs to be at $60,800. Had this buyer opted for a conservative 3x leverage futures position, Bitcoin price at $60,800 would have yielded a $1,485 gain.
Option markets are a great way to leverage, but investors must set aside time to carefully analyze returns ahead of buying bullish calls.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of theauthorand do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.
Amidst volatile markets, Bitcoin is gaining recognition as a new financial asset. With a growing number of public companies acquiring Bitcoin, and speculation on who will join the ranks of Square and Tesla next, we take a step back to understand how cryptocurrencies have emerged as a custody solution for corporations – and is this trend likely to grow?
Bitcoin is gaining more and more mainstream acceptance every year. In less than two months, the leading cryptocurrency went from a $350-billion market in December, to passing the $1-trillion market cap by February following a 2020 rally to all-time highs. Beyond new institutional money coming in, there are many factors fueling Bitcoin’s growth.
Despite some regulator efforts to undermine the potential of Bitcoin, corporations have come to accept that at least Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, is sufficiently safe. And with good reason, since according to the 2021 Crypto Crime Report of blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis, the proportion of cryptocurrency-related crime fell significantly last year.
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Until recently, corporations have been wary of Bitcoin, because it operates in a different way from traditional financial markets. Many still can’t come to terms with Bitcoin’s decentralized nature, but many have come to accept it as a working solution.
Consider the number of people involved in the Bitcoin economy. Just the volume of electricity consumed for Bitcoin mining is comparable to electricity consumption in a mid-sized European country. The same goes for the number of wallets, ranging from 60 to 100 million according to recent estimates by Coinbase and Blockchain.com. Having reached for the first time this year $1 trillion in market value, Bitcoin is now reaching the ranks of a huge decentralized corporation, comparable to US tech giants Apple ($2.05T), Microsoft ($1.79T) or Tesla ($671.5B).
At this point, buying Bitcoin is not unlike buying Microsoft shares. Certainly, Bitcoin isn’t as popular as Microsoft shares just yet, but as it is maturing into a store of value, it’s becoming attractive to large corporations and institutions worldwide.
According to recent JPMorgan research, 58% of investors say Bitcoin is here to stay and 22% say their firms are likely to trade or invest in crypto. And this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Major companies are buying this asset – true, a volatile one – but Tesla shares, for instance, are just about as volatile as Bitcoin. Overall, the volatility of the stock market is just about the same as that of crypto markets.
Bitcoin is already used as a hedging tool against a possible decline in the stock market. If the stock market collapses, which is a scenario that can’t be ruled out due to an excessive amount of US dollars in circulation, assets like gold or Bitcoin could provide some security. And there are clear indicators that Bitcoin is used more and more widely with companies like Apple Pay, PayPal and Mastercard bringing Bitcoin to their networks. Also, Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF) have launched in Canada, and regulators are deliberating launching them in the United States as well.
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At this point, mostly corporations led by innovators such as Elon Musk are investing in crypto, but more traditional companies are likely to follow in their footsteps as crypto continues to gain wider acceptance. Many investors view Bitcoin as a volatile, but also rapidly growing, regular financial asset. And moving forward, Bitcoin is likely to become a part of more investors’ portfolios, just like any other stock out there.
Sasha Ivanov is the founder of Waves.
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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any loses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.
Korean banks are conflicted on whether to extend alliances with local cryptocurrency exchanges amid the strict financial regulations.
Financial Information Act Implementation
For the time being, three Korean commercial lenders – Shinhan, NongHyup, and K bank – have formed partnershipswith major crypto exchanges. It will enable exchanges to handle transactions in a stable manner, as their customers can trade digital currencies via real-name bank accounts provided by the associated banks.
Major lenders — like KB, Hana, and Woori — still continue to be cautious about signing crypto partnerships in the run-up to a so-called special act on financial information.
The Actaims to ensure that financial transactions, for example, foreign-exchange transactions, contribute to the prevention of criminal acts and the establishment of a healthy and open financial system, provide for reporting, and the use of the specific details needed to control money laundering and terrorism finance. Exchanges cannot function unless they protect their users’ real-name bank accounts, the Act emphasizes. It shall enter into force in September, after a six-month grace period.
But thebanks’ riskof suddenly shifting their position on such alliances is still slim because of Bitcoin’s new craze, industry officials claim.
The industry source reported that the creditors are careful about implementing the Act since banks may face harder sanctions if their associated exchanges raise any security concerns. According to the Financial Services Commission, after “taking an individual decision,” banks will issue real-name trading accounts to see if their potential partner trading is sufficiently reliable concerning protection.
Crypto Regulation Enforcement
A couple of years ago,KB and Woori, and some government lenders released local exchange accounts in real names but, following the tough cryptocurrency regulations imposed by the financial authorities in 2018, chose not to extend the deal. Under the guidelines on money laundering, banks must take more responsibility for potential cyber-attacks and other financial incidents if exposed to their associated exchanges.
The lenders will wait and see in the next few months before they can resume their trade relationships.
Another source of the bank industry has mentioned that banks will extend their user base in and abroad through partnerships with the exchanges. However, the lenders who have suspended relationships would not adjust their practices at this stage because they fear that they will lose more if their affiliates are swayed in a financial disaster at a time when authorities are reiterating their willingness to tighten regulations and oversight following banks engaged in a debacle with hedge funds last year.
The proposed crypto income tax rule in South Korea is also delayed. To push implementationuntil January 2022, the National Assembly of South Korea demanded a pause in the crypto tax law.
On March 12, Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy, announced that the company had accumulated another 362 bitcoin, worth $15 million, adding to its huge treasury of BTC. At this point, Saylor and MicroStrategy have demonstrated to the market that they feel the dollar price relative to bitcoin is irrelevant — they will accumulate bitcoin at any price.
The strategy behind this feverish accumulation is quite simple, really. Saylor has articulated that he believes the best way forward for the company is not to do anything else other than focus on its strengths: selling business intelligence software, taking its profit and storing value… just not in dollars.
In an interview late last year, CNBC host Melissa Lee asked Saylor the question “Are you a software company or a bitcoin hedge fund?” Saylor responded decisively.
“We do have a software company generating cash, but if we simply swept the cash into fiat currency and allowed it to debase at 15 percent per year, we’d be losing as much on the balance sheet as we generated from the P&L, so that didn’t make sense,” he responded. “[Bitcoin] looks like it’s emerging as the primary treasury reserve asset for people that are looking for some way to avoid the great monetary inflation.”
Despite holding over 90,000 BTC, MicroStrategy continues to buy in $10 million to $15 million dollar clips. Since the start of this month alone the company announced purchases of 328 BTC for $15 million on March 1, 205 BTC for $10 million on March 5 and, most recently, 362 BTC for $15 million on March 12.
When one of the world’s largest publicly-known bitcoin holders continues to accumulate as much of the world’s only absolutely scarce monetary asset as possible, it begs the question:
