Your Cryptocurrency Newsletter for December 08, 2020

If you are interested in cryptocurrencies, this newsletter is for you. [img]  [Learn more about RevenueStripe...](   [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( [img]( [FeedBinary Newsletter]( [The Possibilities Ethereum Offers and How it Works]( Following the Reserve Bank of India’s judgment lifting the ban on cryptocurrency payments, they have gained traction in India. We explain some key concepts in a series of explainers by talking to experts. We start with what is ethereum and how it works. Ethereum (the cryptocurrency itself is technically called ether) trades at ₹44,970 ($610) at present, almost five times its value at the start of this year at ₹9,625. However, it is still a long way off from its peak of ₹88,125 that it reached on 12 January 2018. Ethereum has a market cap of around $70 billion compared to bitcoin’s $360 billion. What is ethereum? It is a software platform that runs on a decentralized network, which allows specialized applications to run in unique ways. Ethereum is like the bitcoin software, but it does things differently. Bitcoin can move value from one place to another. Ethereum can move value from one place to another based on conditions.The three important concepts to know about ethereum are smart contracts, decentralization, and privacy. Smart contracts: The question ethereum’s inventor, 19-year-old Vitalik Buterin, asked in 2013 was basically this: what if you could put conditions on the payments being made on the blockchain? Ethereum stores these “if and then” contracts on its blockchain, an immutable ledger. The contracts execute automatically once the “if”part has been completed. For example, if my taxi has brought me to my destination, credit the driver’s account.These are called smart contracts. A smart contract doesn’t require a third party like a bank, notary, or government official to verify it. Instead a cryptographic code is attached to the contract verifying that this is the one true version of the contract, agreed upon by the two parties. Instead of being stored on a central database, smart contracts are stored in multiple copies on a large global network of computers. For a criminal hacker to change the contract, they would have to simultaneously change thousands of computers, which is nearly impossible.Decentralization: This stops hackers from changing smart contracts on the ethereum blockchain as there is no single weakness to attack.Decentralized applications or dapps offer new possibilities for gaming, the creation of virtual worlds, marketplaces for digital art and other assets such as decentralized finance. Enthusiasts say we are only beginning to understand their potential. Privacy: Companies like Facebook and Google keep your information on their servers where other companies and even criminals could access them. With a dapp on ethereum, you can put limits on what the smart contract can do with your information and take it back when it’s done. Ether: The value of ether reflects the energy put in to mine blocks and verify transactions. Beyond that, the value of ether is tied to the value which people place in the ethereum network itself. The more powerful and valuable things the network can do, the more valuable ether becomes.From 1 December 2020, ethereum has started its transition to Ethereum 2.0, a blockchain system that can process more transactions at lower cost and with less consumption of electricity. [Read Full News]( The post [The Possibilities Ethereum Offers and How it Works]( first appeared on [Feed Binary](. [Read Full Story]( ------------------ You Might Like     [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( ------------------ [Blockstack Says Its Cryptocurrency Can Soon Start Trading in US]( A US law firm claims that Stacks (STX) won’t be a security when the blockchain launches next month.The Stacks token (STX) will no longer constitute a security when the Stacks 2.0 blockchain launches next month, claims Blockstack PBC, the company that has for over a year has held off listing its token on major exchanges until it was certain that the US Securities and Exchange Commission wouldn’t sue it for securities violations. Blockstack PBC today published a legal memorandum in which its independent counsel, US law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, argued that the mainnet launch of the Stacks 2.0 blockchain, set for 14 Jan, 2021, means that there’s no way the US Securities and Exchange Commission can consider STX a security. A non-security status would mean that US cryptocurrency exchanges, such as Coinbase and Kraken, could list the token and that US citizens could trade it. Of course, the memorandum is but a legal argument—it’s not recognized by the SEC. Nor does it mean that US cryptocurrency exchanges consider the memorandum sufficient proof of STX’s non-security status to list the token.A representative for Binance.US said it was “big news” but declined to comment on whether the exchange would list the token. Decrypt has reached out to Coinbase, Kraken and Gemini and will update this article with any responses. “I’ll leave it to the exchanges to make their own decisions and announcements,” Muneeb Ali, CEO of Blockstack PBC, told Decrypt. Blockstack has always argued that the Stacks token is a utility token—one that is genuinely useful and is not traded for purely speculative purposes—a common defense that crypto companies use when arguing that a coin is not a security. Yet many companies who claim that their token is a utility token have been sued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which argues that the companies, such as Block.one, Telegram and Kik, played a hands-on role in determining the value of the token—and thus their token constitutes a security. (Almost all of the companies settled with the SEC). So, Blockstack always treated the Stacks token as a security under US law, just to be extra careful. It was the first company to issue its token through an SEC-qualified token sale; the sale, which took place in 2019, raised $23 million. Since then, Blockstack has filed extensive reports with the SEC; upon the launch of Stacks 2.0, Blockstack will file an exit report with the SEC, indicating that it no longer has to file securities reports for its token. This independent legal analysis will help too, said Ali. With the launch of Stacks 2.0, Blockstack claims that the STX token will definitely no longer be a security since the upgrade decentralizes control over the token—this means that Blockstack will play a less hands-on role in the development of the network. Of course, most of the cryptocurrency companies sued by the SEC claimed that; Telegram claimed that, and the SEC case made it return $1.7 billion of investors money. Ali argued that the reporting will keep the SEC on its side. After the launch, Blockstack will rebrand itself to HIRO, will not run a node and will only develop tools atop the Blockstack network. It’s night and day,” he said of the differences between Blockstack’s ICO and others that collapsed at the behest of the SEC. [Read Full News]( The post [Blockstack Says Its Cryptocurrency Can Soon Start Trading in US]( first appeared on [Feed Binary](. [Read Full Story]( ------------------ You Might Like     [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( ------------------ [Will the Bitcoin Price Rally Last This Time?]( The recent rally in Bitcoin price (BTCUSD) has left investors with an important question: Will the rally last? The quicksilver nature of cryptocurrency markets makes it difficult to answer that question with clarity. Bitcoin’s 2017 rally transmuted into a prolonged slump less than a year later. While analysts and commentators have stepped up with optimistic predictions, it is far from certain whether Bitcoin price will continue to increase. The risky underpinnings of cryptocurrency markets will appeal to traders and investors in 2021, according to analysts from Bloomberg. “A risk-off decline like the 1Q could return Bitcoin towards the $10,000 support level in 2021, but we believe the path of least resistance remains higher,” the analysts wrote. In simple words, investors will continue to embrace the risk and price volatility inherent in Bitcoin investing in 2021. A Trillion Dollar Target? Bloomberg analysts have predicted a price target of $50,000 for Bitcoin, implying a $1 trillion market cap for the cryptocurrency. They cite increased demand for the cryptocurrency, mainstream adoption and interest, and diminished supply as Bitcoin reaches its 21 million supply target as reasons for their estimated price. BTIG analyst Julian Emanuel has estimated a similar figure for the cryptocurrency’s price next year. But his reasoning is different. Emanuel compared Bitcoin’s price to the Nasdaq 100 (NDX), a market cap-weighted index consisting of 103 non-financial companies at Nasdaq. The index reached a peak valuation during the dotcom bubble and crashed soon after before beginning another gradual ascent. It took NDX 14 years to rise above its parabolic ‘blowoff top,’ then six years to rise a further 150%. Bitcoin appears poised to exceed the 2017 parabolic ‘blowoff top’ in a mere three years. Should Bitcoin’s speed of ascent keep pace with the past three years and the degree of the rally approximate that of NDX, $50,000 per Bitcoin is a reasonable year-end 2021 price target,” Emanuel wrote. A New Future or a False Rally Redux? Momentum can be a powerful price propellant. The actions of a single investor can induce others, who don’t know much or any better, to follow them into a trade.The price target predictions for Bitcoin bring back memories of 2017, when equally ambitious (and in some cases outlandish) predictions were made for Bitcoin’s future. Back then, the cryptocurrency’s astronomical prices fell as quickly as they had risen, leaving a trail of disappointed investors and shuttered investment firms. But the conditions were different. Asian investors and retail traders were reported to have driven Bitcoin’s previous price increase. They quickly moved in and out of trades, booked profits, and abandoned crypto markets not soon afterward. This move sucked out much-needed liquidity from crypto markets and crashed asset prices. According to crypto-forensics firm Chainalysis, American investors driving the rally the rally this time around. Institutional firms and hedge funds, interested in parking their funds for the long term, are also beginning to pour funds into the asset class. In the long term, such liquidity should help propel future price increases because it strengthens the market and tamps down the intense volatility that has characterized crypto markets. If history is any indication, the COVID-19 pandemic may have also proven to be a turning point for cryptocurrency markets. Prominent economic historian Niall Ferguson told online publication Barron’s that pandemics are accelerators of financial history.We’ve seen that in just the same way that the use of coins as money was accelerated by the Black Death. Payments in kind were yielding to a cash economy in Europe, and this was accelerated in the 1340s,” Ferguson said, adding that the COVID-19 pandemic has hastened the acceptance of Bitcoin as a “quasi-digital gold” among investors. Caution Is Key The glib utterances of analysts and Bitcoin proponents are not without their flaws, however. For example, Bloomberg analysts say that one of the reasons for Bitcoin’s attraction lies in its lack of correlation to mainstream markets. But the recent whipsaw of crypto market movement has occurred in tandem with those of mainstream markets, which reached a record high the same time as Bitcoin surpassed its 2017 peak. It is important to remember that trading volumes and liquidity for cryptocurrency markets are a fraction of those for mainstream markets. There are fewer players, less transparency, and minimal regulation. And so, all price targets and analysis fall within the realm of conjectures and can change with a single large trade. [Read Full News]( The post [Will the Bitcoin Price Rally Last This Time?]( first appeared on [Feed Binary](. [Read Full Story]( ------------------ You Might Like     [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( ------------------ ------------------ Connect with TheFeedBinary on Facebook and Twitter [fb](  [tw]( ------------------ You received this email because you operate or create content for a website/service and based on your website it seemed like this could be important information to you and your users. FeedBinary daily newsletter is managed by [Postbox Consultancy Services Pvt. Ltd.]( C-4/5, IBD Emporia, Kolar Road, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, INDIA, 462042 Want to change how you receive these emails? [Update your preferences]( or [Unsubscribe](