crypto expert

Former Bitcoin (BTC) bear Joe Kernen has predicted that the coin could hit $55,000 by May 2020, the date of Bitcoin’s next halving.  The Squawk Box co-host appears to have undergone a full conversion to Bitcoin maximalism, surprising his show guest  Fairlead Strategies managing partner Katie Stockton on July 29 with his forecast that the coin could well see a 500%+ price surge by the time of its next halving.  Bitcoin’s planned halving in May 2020 will mean that mining rewards will be reduced by half from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC  an event that will drastically reduce the coin’s supply.  Kernen predicted that the increased scarcity will catalyze greater demand, arguing that such classical market principles still apply to crypto-assets  just as they do to scarce precious metals such as gold and silver.  Analysts consider halving as bullish price factor The hypothesis that Bitcoin’s halving will be a major factor in driving the asset’s price ap...

Blockchain payment network Ripple signed an open letter to United States regulators on July 28 ahead of fresh hearings on cryptocurrency regulation this week.  In the wake of mixed feelings from Congress on both Facebook’s Libra digital currency and crypto more broadly, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse appealed to Washington to be lenient in its future approach.  The letter, which follows other recent concerns from Garlinghouse, begins: “Many in the blockchain and digital currency industry are responsible actors.  We are responsible to U.S. and international law. We are responsible to serving the greater good.” Ripple is the company behind the altcoin of the same name, XRP, used as a native token for its payment network and associated projects.  The network has seen interest from banks around the world, most of which are keen on cutting costs of international transactions in particular.  The company and its executives have meanwhile often found themselves at...

Bitcoin, ETH, XRP, and LTC prices, will be on a roller coaster for a long time.  Traders and investors will make and lose fortunes in record time, betting on them.  In the end, say some analysts, these cryptocurrencies will either die on their own, or be killed by the ‘establishment’  big governments and big banks around the world that defend sovereign currencies. Take the case for Bitcoin. The “people’s currency” holds a great promise: to become the first true global currency, free of the control of central banks that print money and big banks that generate credit.  But to do that, Bitcoin must gain the trust of the “general public. “ This means it must be adopted as a medium of exchange, standard of value, and store of value, replacing national currencies.That isn’t easy, given the many obstacles Bitcoin has to overcome.  Like lack of awareness, familiarity, and stability, etc.  And that makes some experts bearish about the future of Bitcoin. ...

The Litecoin halving is just a few days away. Even with this bullish catalyst on the horizon, the No.  4 cryptocurrency appears to be struggling against bitcoin.  Litecoin (LTC/BTC) has posted four consecutive red candles on the monthly chart against bitcoin. The slump saw the coin’s value drop from the 2019 high of 1,893,900 satoshis in April down to lows of 797,600 satoshis this month. That’s plunge of over 57 percent in three months.  The good news is that the end of the correction might be in sight.  Litecoin is printing multiple bullish signals against bitcoin. If our analysis is correct, the LTC/BTC market could skyrocket by over 60 percent in the next few months as the market ends wave two. Rudimentary Elliott Wave Analysis Reveals That Litecoin May Have Ended Wave Two of Its Bull Run  While everyone’s busy predicting what bitcoin’s next move will be, Litecoin made a series of moves showing the correction has finally come to its end.  A...

If you’ve been interested in cryptocurrency and blockchain for anything more than a week, you’ll almost certainly know about Vitalik Buterin’s Ethereum $ETH.  But if you don’t here’s a quick recap on what Ethereum is. Ethereum’s creators wanted to build a platform that would allow users all over the world to write decentralized applications, and use the Ethereum blockchain as what it calls a “world computer.”  Ethereum made smart contracts a common part of the blockchain conversation. Smart contracts are programming tools that let developers write self-executing scripts that run on the Ethereum blockchain.  When these scripts are executed, the computing nodes are compensated for their work in Ethereum’s native token, Ether.  With every passing month, the Ethereum community looks forward to ETH 2.0, a series of updates and improvements designed to make the platform faster and more reliable.  ETH 2.0 won’t be implemented overnight. In fact, it’s a series o...

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his administration appear to be leveraging tax revenue and cryptocurrencies as part of a broader effort to evade economic sanctions, an investigation by Spanish newspaper ABC has found.  As detailed in a story published Monday, the newspaper asserts it uncovered a scheme by which Maduro and his associates were using a digital wallet app to turn tax revenue from domestic airports into bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that were then transferred to exchanges in Hong Kong, Hungary, Russia and China.  There, the funds were converted and sent back to Venezuela, according to the report. The effort is the latest example of how the ban on Maduro’s government from using US bank accounts and from participating in the open international market has forced it to look at cryptocurrencies as a way to obtain dollars.  The newspaper alleges that the tax revenue in question came from the Maiquetia International Airport (IAIM) located near Ca...

If you are involved in any activity related to selling or buying a cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, NEO, DASH, others), you will have to face the penal action and may land up in jail as every action related to a cryptocurrency will now be termed a crime in India.  You may be slapped with a fine in millions of rupees under the law that the government is likely to introduce.  The Inter-Ministerial Committee formed by the government has recommended the same in its report, which was handed over to the Finance Ministry on Monday.  50 million traders active in crypto trade by 2018 According to the government report, till February, 2018, there were as many as 5 million traders in the crypto trade and there were 24 active exchanges in the country.  Surprisingly, these traders did a business of one billion rupees a day, using about 1500 bitcoins.  In order to formulate strategies on issues like cryptourrency, virtual and digital currencies, the gove...

Ripple (XRP) adds 4.3 percent The Mexican exchange, Bitso, has a license from Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC) Bitso is the first exchange from Latin America to comply with the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC) regulations.  While at it, the citation of Ripple in a patent by Bank of America is bullish for XRP.  At the time of writing, it is up 4.3 percent from last week’s close.  Ripple Price Analysis Fundamentals The debate on whether or not Bitcoin is a tool for money laundering and funding terrorism is dominating headlines.  Ripple is aiming to distance itself from such discourse.  The financial technology company is offering a suite of products that intends to appeal directly to big-name financial institutions.  So, banks make use of some of Ripple’s financial solutions. However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that it might take years for Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse’s vision to be actualized. Ripple’s drive in...

Ethereum Price Analysis Fundamentals  Blockchain is an emerging, multifaceted sub-sector. As a conflation of different fields, it is both inspiring and exciting meaning related startups will almost always attract capital.  Of the many platforms promising high throughput and scalability, Ethereum remains a top choice for good reasons.  Like Bitcoin, Ethereum was the first platform in the smart contracting arena. Listed in different exchanges, ETH is desirable.  Even though there are bumps in the short-term as developers negotiate their way around building a scalable network, the future is irrefutably bright.  Case in point the different enhancement through code changes drawing scarcity and hard forks that promise to cement Ethereum in its rightful place.  Perhaps in preparation for the future, Set Labs, an investment platform in San Francisco is launching a cryptocurrency trading robot that will take advantage of volatility to benefit investors. T...

In a world where the global crypto community continues to face a growing number of regulatory hurdles with each passing day, the term “virgin Bitcoin” is starting to become more common among digital currency enthusiasts. However, it is of utmost importance to clarify what this term actually means and the significance it carries.  According to Dave Jevans, the CEO of CipherTrace, virgin Bitcoins are essentially BTC tokens that do not have a transaction (TX) record associated with them.  As a result of this, coins lack a defined attribution history, making them extremely useful for money launderers as well as other miscreants looking to mask the source of their illegally procured funds. Not only that, even the recipient typically has no traditional means of verifying the origin of the funds in question since virgin btc cannot be linked with any wallet or other cold storage entity.  Also, the Bitcoin blockchain serves as a decentralized ledger that allows anyone to fo...

The crypto markets are once again back on the rise with litecoin (LTC) leading the way in the top 10 cryptocurrencies at CoinMarketCap. The price of bitcoin (BTC) jumped by more than $1,000 in the expanse of 30 minutes yesterday, with the rest of the market following suit, rising between 5-20 percent, while Litecoin (LTC) outperformed all other top 10 crypto by market capitalization. LTC is up 13 percent over a 24-hour period and is currently changing hands just above the $100 resistance at $100.72. For now, the broader markets are flashing green, a welcome sight for the bulls who managed to stem the bleeding across the board with BTC defending a key area above $9,000 at 11:00 UTC yesterday morning. As a result names such as EOS, Binance Coin (BNB), Ether (ETH) and bitcoin SV (BSV) are up between 7-12 percent respectively. Litecoin has been most involved with the rebound rally and is leading the pack by an extra 1.02 percentage points. As can be seen in the hourly chart ...

The market capitalization shrunk extensively from $291 billion on Monday to $260billion on Tuesday.  Bitcoin targets $10,000 in the short-term after recovery from $9,000.  The crypto bulls are waking up once again after the battering they received from the bears yesterday. The market capitalization shrunk extensively from $291 on Monday to $260 on Tuesday.  As cryptos across the board reverse the trend that has prevailed in the last couple of days, the market cap is also growing gradually.  Bitcoin market update The largest cryptocurrency explored the levels close to $9,000 following the butchering of $10,500 and $10,000 key support levels.  The expected support at $9,500 did little to stop the losses as the price dipped further towards $9,000. At the moment, BTC/USD is trading at $9,758 after adding 3.57% to the value ton Wednesday afternoon (GMT) session.  The target for the buyers in the short-term is to push Bitcoin above $10,000. A move...

PayPal has launched its mobile payments app Xoom across Europe to provide faster and cheaper international transfers.  It hopes the new offering with make it cheaper than traditional payment services and more convenient than sending crypto.  Xoom will let residents of 32 European countries send money to people in more than 130 countries worldwide but if those recipients fall outside the 30-odd countries they can’t send money back.  Xoom has partnered with major banks and other finance firms to facilitate the money transfers, with customers able to transfer up to £8,800 pounds ($11,029) per transaction.  The mobile payments app offers next-day money transfers at fees lower than its main payments platform PayPal.  According to the website, transfers on Xoom cost around $4 in Europe and $9 to countries further afield. Everything we know about who’s using Ripple’s most XRP-intensive product This brings PayPal in line with international money remittance ser...

Cyber security pioneer John McAfee has doubled down on his prediction that bitcoin will hit $1 million by the end of 2020, despite the cryptocurrency losing $3,000 from its value over the last week.  The controversial tech figure claimed in 2017 that bitcoin would reach $500,000 within three years, pledging, "if not, I will eat my  on national television".  At the time, bitcoin was worth around $2,000 and by the end of 2017 was valued at close to $20,000. A price crash in 2018 was not enough to deter him and as bitcoin began to rise again earlier this year, he tweeted that it was "mathematically impossible" for bitcoin to be worth less than $1m by the end of 2020. Over the last seven days bitcoin has fallen in price by more than 17 per cent to around $10,500 but remains well up from its price at the start of the year, when it was trading at around $3,500. In response to the latest losses, Mr McAfee tweeted: "Bitcoin is at the mid 10's and people...

American football team the Miami Dolphins have teamed up with the Litecoin Foundation to accept cryptocurrency payments.  Announced by the Litecoin Foundation on Thursday, the partnership will kick off on Sept.  5 the start of the 2019 NFL season  and sees the Dolphins accept litecoin as their “official cryptocurrency.”  In effect, that means that fans at home games at the Hard Rock Stadium will be able to pay with litecoin and bitcoin when buying tickets for the Dolphin’s 50/50 raffle, which gives half of proceeds to the Miami Dolphins Foundation and its charitable causes.  The crypto payments will be made possible by a third partner in the deal, Aliant Payments.  Charlie Lee, litecoin creator and managing director of the Litecoin Foundation, said: “This collaboration propels Litecoin in front of an audience of millions of people around the world at a time where adoption of cryptocurrencies continues to gain momentum and the ecosystem is able to s...

Donald Trump saying he is not a fan of Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrency is “yuge” for the industry, commentators were suggesting after new tweets on July 12.  In the hours after the United States’ president delivered his lackluster appraisal of crypto, the Bitcoin price stayed stable, only to then begin growing to hit 1% gains Friday.  Negative or not, for proponents, the event marked a psychological milestone for Bitcoin, as Trump had previously held off from mentioning it in public.  The fact that he felt the need to bash Bitcoin publicly feeds the narrative that it is both independent of global powers and unable to be crushed by them, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong stated, leading the responses.  “Achievement unlocked! I dreamt about a sitting U.S.  president needing to respond to growing cryptocurrency usage years ago.  ‘First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.’ We just made it to step 3 y'all,” he tweete...