Millionaire Bitcoin addresses go parabolic as BTC price crosses $20K

Early BTC miners with the foresight to hodl have now become millionaires.

Image courtesy of CoinTelegraph

            DEC 17, 2020

Bitcoin’s (BTC) parabolic run has turned early miners into millionaires at a pace rarely seen before. Data from Glassnode shows that the number of Bitcoin addresses holding at least $1 million has skyrocketed to 66,540 this week — an increase of 150%.

The rise of millionaire wallets is attributable to early miners retaining their Bitcoin over the years, culminating with the asset's latest surge above $20,000.

As Glassnode tweeted on Thursday:

“$BTC crossing $20k has turned all early miner addresses (50 BTC block rewards, unspent or lost) into millionaire addresses.”

The tweet was accompanied by a chart showing the number of millionaire addresses at or near record highs, with the last major peak coinciding with Bitcoin's late-2017 top:

The number of BTC addresses holding at least $1 million by Glassnode (Click image for larger view)

Bitcoin’s rally intensified on Thursday, zipping through $23,000 with very little resistance. On-chain data suggests another parabolic move could be imminent as BTC enters a new phase of price discovery. At current values, Bitcoin has a total market capitalization of nearly $430 billion.

While early Bitcoin miners benefited from larger block rewards, they were operating in a market that was highly speculative and much more volatile than today. Today’s miners receive only 6.25 BTC per block but have greater assurances that their efforts will be rewarded as Bitcoin evolves from an obscure, esoteric concept to a mainstream digital asset.

As Cointelegraph recently reported, cryptocurrency mining has evolved from a small endeavor to an industrial business as more entities look to capitalize on Bitcoin’s network infrastructure. Institutional inflows have made mining the digital asset more appealing than ever before.

Currently, miners produce roughly 900 BTC per day — a quantity that is being quickly consumed by institutions and businesses, many of which are recent adopters.

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Original article posted on the CoinTelegraph.com site, by Sam Bourgi.

Article re-posted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

The Coinbase IPO is coming, according to SEC filing

Coinbase has sent draft registration to the SEC, leaving a future IPO in the commission's court.

Image courtesy of CoinTelegraph

            DEC 17, 2020

One of crypto's most-anticipated initial public offerings is one step closer.

On Thursday, Coinbase announced that the firm had sent its draft registration for a public offering to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company wrote that:

"The Form S-1 is expected to become effective after the SEC completes its review process, subject to market and other conditions."

Per its last valuation, Coinbase was worth $8 billion, but that was in 2018. As it stands, the firm is one of the biggest names in crypto and has a reputation for working well with U.S. regulators, two factors that have long put Coinbase as one of the frontrunners in the race for crypto's major IPOs.

However, the S-1 in question is confidential for the time being, so information is limited to Coinbase's very brief announcement of the matter. Strangely, Bitcoin's price has, as of 21:20 UTC, slipped by over $600 since the announcement broke just over two hours ago.

Likely, this is not a problem for Coinbase, which sporadic service during times of major price action.

Though the draft is still awaiting the SEC's review, Coinbase has been eyeing an IPO for some time. Indeed, the whole crypto industry has been waiting for shares in any of the major exchanges to see public trading, but the rigors of SEC registration and the rich ecosystem of private investment have stalled that process. ASIC manufacturer Canaan Creative is maybe the most noteworthy crypto-centric firm to trade publicly, but its shares have seen lackluster performance since its IPO just over a year ago.

As of publication time, Coinbase had not responded to Cointelegraph's request for comment.

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Original article posted on the CoinTelegraph.com site, by Kollen Post.

Article re-posted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Bitcoin Can Potentially Unseat Google, Declares Pundit Following Global Outage

By Olivia Brooke – December 16, 2020

At 12:00 pm UTC on Monday, Google users experienced a shut down as the company’s services were inaccessible for a short period of time. Although at 12:30 pm UTC the services were back up. This still did little to suppress the massive impact that the 30 minutes service outage had caused globally. Users all over the world were quick to take to social media platforms like Twitter to express their inability to access YouTube, Gmail, Google web, Google Docs, and other related services.

Crypto-Twitter Weighs in

Crypto-Twitter was as usual not left out of the bunch as commentators and Crypto-Twitter personalities had a thing or two to say about the event, while others made noteworthy comparisons about both Google and Bitcoin. Meme lovers came in with the jokes, as usual, making slight jest of the service consumers, while others noted that Bitcoin’s decentralized nature could perfectly fix this problem.

One of the most notable takes was from CNBC’S Ran Neuner whose tweet hammered on the relevance of Bitcoin as a disruptive technology with the potential to easily unseat Google as it can already replicate most of Google’s existing services. The decentralized state of Bitcoin is also a plus in terms of reliability and transparency. Neuner noted that in terms of advancement, Bitcoin still seats in the first place despite Google lying on a market capitalization that holds an $844 billion value greater than Bitcoin’s current market cap.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s price was also not spared during the time of the shutdown, some commentators noted. According to the observers, prices took a decline and later made a correction immediately the glitch was fixed. But some Bitcoiners disputed this claim and attributed the fluctuation in price to regular market volatility.

Centralized Platforms may still have a major impact on Bitcoin

Regardless of what the case was, this could be an important reminder of the external effects that outages from centralized organizations like Google can have on decentralized assets like Bitcoin.

Like it or not, centralized tech platforms still possess a generous amount of control over Crypto-accessibility. Platforms like YouTube and Google search engine still play a significant role in accessing content, information, and applications centered around cryptocurrencies. In a situation that global users cannot access these platforms, the prices and overall value of crypto-assets like Bitcoin may actually suffer.

Although this reinforces the need for the decentralization that Blockchain brings to the web, competing against big dogs like Google will consume a good number of time and resources. Nonetheless, the future presents a generous room for an attempt.

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DISCLAIMER

The views expressed in the article are wholly those of the author and do not represent those of, nor should they be attributed to, ZyCrypto. This article is not meant to give financial advice. Please carry out your own research before investing in any of the various cryptocurrencies available.

The original article written by Olivia Brooke and posted on ZyCrypto.com.

Article reposted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Bitcoin Price Finally Climbs Above $20,000 For The First Time Ever

By Erie Maxwell – December 16, 2020

Bitcoin price is currently trading at $20,600 after a massive breakout above $20,000 for the first time in its history. The digital asset has peaked at $20,800 on Binance which suffered significant outages, mostly on its mobile application.

The flagship cryptocurrency is trading at $20,650 at the time of writing in what seems to be a healthy breakout during the past two hours. Bitcoin is now in the ‘price discovery’ zone facing no resistance above.

BTCUSDT Chart Via TradingView (Click image for larger view)

Most analysts remain bullish on the digital asset which has reached a market capitalization of $383 billion for the first time ever and has increased its dominance to 64.2% again. Several major cryptocurrencies have followed suit with XRP jumping above $0.50 again and Ethereum touching $620.

The total market capitalization of the cryptocurrency industry jumped by $20 billion within 1 hour reaching a two-year high at $598 billion.

Bitcoin Technicals Remain Heavily Bullish

When it comes to the majority of technical indicators, it seems that they still show investors should buy the digital asset. On the daily time-frame, the consensus is a ‘strong buy’ which can be seen across practically all time-frames.

(Click image for larger view)

The trading volume of Bitcoin and the entire market has spiked significantly in the past two hours, indicating that the breakout has a lot of strength. The next potential price targets for Bitcoin would be psychological levels located at $21,000, $22,000, etc.

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DISCLAIMER

The views expressed in the article are wholly those of the author and do not represent those of, nor should they be attributed to, ZyCrypto. This article is not meant to give financial advice. Please carry out your own research before investing in any of the various cryptocurrencies available.

The original article written by Erie Maxwell and posted on ZyCrypto.com.

Article reposted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Sygnum Becomes World's First Bank To Tokenize Its Shares On DLT

By RTTNews Staff Writer | Published: 12/15/2020 9:12 AM ET

Swiss cryptocurrency bank Sygnum has successfully tokenized its shares, becoming the world's first bank to issue its shares on a distributed ledger. It is using a proprietary, institutional-grade tokenization platform called Desygnate to issues digital representations of shares and associated legal rights and obligations on blockchain.

The blockchain-powered Desygnate platform has been designed to be fully compatible with the new Swiss distributed ledger technology (DLT) law, which comes into force from February 2021.

The tokenization of its own shares lays the foundation for Sygnum's future public offering, which includes a potential dual listing across Switzerland and Singapore in partnership with SIX Digital Exchange (SDX).

Following the tokenization, Sygnum's share registry will continuously and automatically update itself whenever capital increases or share transfers occur, allowing the bank to manage primary and secondary market transactions in a fully digital manner.

This also eliminates the need for buyers to inform Sygnum to manually update its shareholder registry, and does away with lengthy cash settlement processes, thus minimizing counterparty risk.

Further, it eliminates the administrative burden of written form requirements for the transfer of shares between buyers and sellers, facilitating faster and more efficient secondary market transactions.

Sygnum will also leverage the smart contract capabilities of its tokenized shares to enable the full potential of stakeholder relationships.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

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Article written by an RTT News Staff Writer, and posted on the RTT News.com website.

Article reposted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Rich Dad Poor Dad author explains why Bitcoin will see $50,000 next year

Robert Kiyosaki, the best-selling author of “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” says Bitcoin is heading to $50,000 in 2021.

Image courtesy of CoinTelegraph

            DEC 15, 2020

The Bitcoin (BTC) price is heading to $50,000 in 2021, says the best-selling author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki.

Kiyosaki pinpointed that a “wall of institutional money” is coming to Bitcoin in 2021, which could push the price up further.

Why is Kiyosaki talking about institutional interest in Bitcoin?

Kiyosaki, who is also a real estate mogul and an investor in precious metals, has historically liked various stores of value including silver.

Based on the institutional inflow into Bitcoin, Kiyosaki noted that BTC below $20,000 is ideal, as $50,000 is the next target. He said:

“Glad I bought Bitcoin. Next stop $50k. Wall of institutional money coming 2021. Buy below $20k. If you missed Bitcoin, buy silver. Silver set to move due to AOC’s Green New Deal. America in trouble. Future bright for gold silver Bitcoin and entrepreneurs.”

If Bitcoin hits $50,000, its market cap would reach $928 billion, which is around 10.3% of gold’s market cap compared with the current 2.9%.

Bitcoin is in a favorable position to rally in the upcoming months because of its low correlation with the stock market.

Traditional safe-haven assets, like gold, often pull back when U.S. equities rally. In the case of BTC, it has shown a relatively low correlation with U.S. stocks. Hence, Bitcoin has seen sharp uptrends even when equities increase in value.

Bitcoin correlation vs. Gold, S&P500. Source: Digital Assets Data (Click image for larger view)

For instance, over the past 24 hours, Bitcoin price has increased by around 4.5%, recording a 6.5% gain at the day’s peak.

BTC rallied in tandem with gold, while the Asian markets slumped and U.S. stocks slightly retreated. Holger Zschaepitz, a market analyst at Welt, said:

“Asian stock retreated w/European and US Futures after a mixed Wall St session, amid caution over econ risks from virus-related curbs and ongoing US fiscal stimulus talks. Bonds gain w/US 10y yields [are less than] 0.9%. Dollar steady w/Euro at $1.2153. Gold rises to $1839. #Bitcoin at $19.1k.”

The lack of correlation between Bitcoin and U.S. stocks likely comes from two factors. First, when risk-on assets increase, BTC benefits from an overall rise in investor appetite.

Second, stocks have increased in recent months due to unprecedented central bank liquidity injections. Relaxed financial conditions benefit Bitcoin because investors move to hedge against inflation.

CME and Grayscale trading activity continue to surge

The CME Bitcoin futures market’s open interest is hovering at $1.07 billion, just behind OKEx and Binance Futures.

The data shows that institutional demand for Bitcoin is high to the point where institution-focused platforms are surpassing major retail exchanges in open interest and trading volume.

Grayscale has also surpassed $13 billion in assets under management on Dec. 15, indicating a large increase in institutional inflow into Bitcoin.

Institutions appear to be rapidly accumulating Bitcoin following the high-profile publicized investments from the likes of MicroStrategy, Square and MassMutual. Consequently, as Cointelegraph reported, this has led to aggressive dip-buying in both the futures and options markets.

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Original article posted on the CoinTelegraph.com site, by Joseph Young.

Article re-posted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Bitcoin price tipped to consolidate before continuing bull run in 2021

The Bitcoin price could stagnate until early 2021, various on-chain indicators show, as investors could take profit.

Image courtesy of CoinTelegraph

            DEC 15, 2020

The Bitcoin price (BTC) reached the $19,400 mark in the past 24 hours, which has served as a critical resistance level since the start of December. However, on-chain indicators show that the dominant cryptocurrency could stagnate or consolidate until early 2021. Although BTC is nearing its all-time high at around $20,000, there are compelling reasons to expect more sideways action.

On-chain analysts primarily explore two indicators to gauge the sentiment of an ongoing rally: the Spent Output Profit Ratio, or SOPR, and Long-Term Holder MVRV. The SOPR indicator shows whether short-term holders are selling at a profit or a loss. If SOPR increases, it means investors are selling at a profit, which typically means there is room for a minor correction. But if the SOPR decreases, it means retail investors are likely getting shaken out, and a trend reversal to the upside is likely.

The Long-Term Holder MVRV is an indicator that looks at whether Bitcoin is overvalued or undervalued. The MVRV divides the price at which investors are buying Bitcoin by the current market cap. It allows the indicator to gauge whether investors accumulate BTC at an abnormally high price, making the rally overheated. A rally becomes unsustainable if MVRV goes above 20.

SOPR and MVRV in action

Bitcoin is currently in an ideal position, where the SOPR indicator is signaling the likelihood of a further profit-taking pullback, while the MVRV is indicating a long-term rally. This trend is positive for BTC, since it shows that the overall uptrend would likely be intact even if a short-term correction or consolidation phases occur.

Willy Woo, an on-chain analyst and the creator of Woobull.com, said the SOPR has room to reset. Based on historical cycles, Woo noted that it could take until January to happen. Hence, at least in the near term, Bitcoin’s probability of consolidating or stagnating for a longer period remains high. While this does not mean that BTC would see a significant correction, it could result in lower volatility and a more cautious near-term price trend. Woo explained:

“Once SOPR starts declining, profit taking begets profit taking. We wait until all investors in profit who are going to sell to complete their sell off, when this happens, coins moving no longer carry profit, SOPR goes to 1.0, and we can move forward. ETA January perhaps.”

One positive factor that could offset a potential SOPR-induced sell-off in the short to medium term is the Long-Term Holder MVRV. Glassnode analysts explained that the MVRV is far from the danger zone, which previously marked local tops. For example, when Bitcoin hit an all-time high in December 2017, the Long-Term Holder MVRV surpassed 20. In contrast, this metric is currently at around 3.

(Click image for larger view)

Both SOPR and MVRV suggest that Bitcoin is still in the early phase of its bull cycle. SOPR is substantially lower than where it was during the 2017 peak, similar to MVRV. It goes in line with the narrative of a post-halving cycle, where Bitcoin tends to peak 12 to 15 months after a block reward halving occurs. If a similar cycle as the last halving in mid-2016 repeats, BTC could peak in mid-2021.

Glassnode analysts explained that the MVRV ratio is currently extremely bullish, adding: “When LTH-MVRV reaches the red zone (above 20), this generally indicates a global top. But as we can see in the chart below, Bitcoin’s LTH-MVRV is still very far from the red zone.”

(Click image for larger view)

If $20,000 breaks, a bigger rally could start

However, Bitcoin breaking past $20,000 is a possibility in the near term. There are mixed opinions about what comes next after BTC cleanly breaches its record high. Some believe there could be a blow-off top in the $20,000 to $21,000 range as euphoria peaks. Others say that retail interest in Bitcoin could begin.

There are two main reasons why the mainstream interest in Bitcoin would rise after BTC reaches a new all-time high. First, many retail investors lost large sums of capital in 2017 by buying near $20,000. As such, the all-time high remains a roadblock for many investors. Secondly, there is no historical ceiling for BTC above $20,000, so the price discovery period will likely begin.

A pseudonymous technical analyst known as “Crypto Monk” said a break of $20,000 presents the “max pain scenario”: “All those people who could have jumped in below $10k but decided to pass by targeting crazy low prices are now hoping for a massive pullback to get a second chance.”

Eric Thies, a cryptocurrency trader, told Cointelegraph that he expects Bitcoin to break $20,000. Thies said Bitcoin would likely see a newfound rally in January 2021 that would continue the ongoing uptrend after some consolidation:

“I’d expect with recent news of bank interest and continued retail growth, Bitcoin will soon be in the $20,000 zones and beyond. It’s no doubt we see continuation of this uptrend and birth of a new bull run. The best option for entries may come now in the $19,000 range or if we happen to break down from here, the entries will be quick to fill in $15,000 during these consolidation efforts. In January 2021 we will see new highs for Bitcoin.”

Alongside the historical significance of Bitcoin surpassing $20,000, on-chain data suggests that the number of BTC holders is generally increasing. On Dec. 10, the number of Bitcoin addresses with a balance reached 33.22 million, according to researchers at IntoTheBlock. This is a record high, and it suggests that the retail interest in BTC is increasing.

Atop the strong on-chain fundamental factors buoying the ongoing rally, the institutional demand for Bitcoin continues to increase. On Dec. 15, Barry Silbert, the CEO of Grayscale, said the firm achieved $13 billion in assets under management. This is indicative of increasing institutional appetite for an exchange-traded fund alternative among accredited investors in the United States.

The sustained institutional demand for Bitcoin has been crucial for the recent uptrend because it has made traders cautious in net-shorting BTC. The Bitcoin price was at risk of major corrections several times in the past week, most notably, the threat of a larger pullback to the $16,000 macro support area when the price fell under $18,000.

Yet, traders seem reluctant to short Bitcoin due to the unpredictability of institutions accumulating BTC. A pseudonymous trader known as “Bitcoin Jack” said that he doesn’t want to bet against the billionaires, adding: “A cash position is the moderate approach between downside risk mitigation and getting blown up to the up-/downside. Reality is that I don’t know what will happen from here. Big cash flows are entering Bitcoin.”

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Original article posted on the CoinTelegraph.com site, by Joseph Young.

Article re-posted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Hire Santa Claus And Pay With Bitcoin This Year

By RTTNews Staff Writer | Published: 12/14/2020 9:31 AM ET

This year you can hire Santa Claus and pay for the services in Bitcoin. Santa Claus is an international figure and often visits throughout the world during Christmas time. HireSanta is claimed to be the gold standard for Santa Claus staffing.

HireSanta is also claimed to be the first Santa Claus staffing agency that is accepting Bitcoin for their large or small services. The company says these men are traditional holiday and Christmas entertainers that are serious about their appearance and presentation.

Santa Claus is generally hired at high-end malls, restaurants and Christmas parties. It helps brands associate themselves with Christmas and drive traffic, both online and in the real world. HireSanta.com is the Internet's best place to hire great Santa Claus entertainers around the world.

Hire Santa has some of the best real professional Santa Clauses in the world such as the Dallas Real Beard Santa, Los Angeles Real Beard Santa, Houston Real Beard Santa, Atlanta Real Beard Santa, Chicago Real Beard Santa, Miami Real Beard Santa, NYC Real Beard Santa and Nationwide Real Beard Santa.

According to the company, Santa Claus had instructed HireSanta to start accepting Bitcoin to reserve Santa's Friends. HireSanta can accept Bitcoin as payment for Santa Claus services directly to their Coinbase account or through Paypal, depending on how the customer stores their Bitcoin.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

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Article written by an RTT News Staff Writer, and posted on the RTT News.com website.

Article reposted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Nexus Mutual Boss Loses $8 Million Worth of Cryptos To Cyber Attack

By Jide Idowu – December 14, 2020

Hugh Karp, the founder of popular decentralized insurance protocol, Nexus Mutual has reportedly lost over $8 million worth of cryptos to an attack. The platform’s official Twitter handle announced this on Monday, December 14, 2020, saying that Mr. Karp was tricked into approving the transaction after the attacker gained access to his computer. Mr. Karp also said that the company’s pool of funds and systems are safe.

Another $8 Million Lost To Spoof Attack

As more scam activities continue to rock the crypto ecosystem, Nexus Mutual boss Hugh Karp seems to be the latest person hit by many of these attacks.

On Monday, the company, Nexus Mutual, revealed what happened to its boss. It was said that the attack on Karp was on his address and was orchestrated by a member of the mutual.

Tokens lost were reported to be 370,000 NXM (Nexus Mutual Tokens), approximately $8.25 million in fiat value. Some of the stolen tokens have also been exchanged on the decentralized exchange platform, 1inch.Exchange.

Ongoing Investigations

Details on investigations so far revealed that the attacker gained remote access to Hugh’s computer, modified the MetaMask extension, and tricked him into approving a transaction to the attacker’s own address from his hardware wallet.

It was also revealed that the attacker had previously completed KYC 11 days back, switching membership to a new address on Friday, December 3.

Confirming the event, Mr. Karp said;

“Then when I was performing an unrelated transaction, MetaMask popped up with a spoof transaction, and I subsequently approved it, thinking it was the transaction I was intending to conduct. Instead, it was transferring NXM to their wallet.”

He furthered by saying that no one else was affected by the attack; not even his private keys were compromised. He referred to the attack as a “very nice trick” and “definitely next-level stuff.”

Through his Twitter handle, Hugh Karp had compelled the crypto thief to refund his funds, warning that he’ll have trouble cashing out all those funds. He promised to give the attacker a $300K bounty reward if he heeds to his demands.

One Too Many Attacks

This may seem like another scam attack technique, attacks of this nature where fund owners are tricked into parting away their funds aren’t new in the crypto ecosystem.

This isn’t limited to person-to-person attack. There are also cases of Twitter scams and fake Defi protocols carting away with millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrencies from unsuspecting members of the crypto community. In regards to this, a crypto whale warns of growing DeFi scams, as reported by ZyCrypto.

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DISCLAIMER

The views expressed in the article are wholly those of the author and do not represent those of, nor should they be attributed to, ZyCrypto. This article is not meant to give financial advice. Please carry out your own research before investing in any of the various cryptocurrencies available.

The original article written by Jide Idowu and posted on ZyCrypto.com.

Article reposted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe