Reply With Quote
Thats cool with me.
Number of crypto hedge funds surges amid bitcoin volatility
LONDON (Reuters) - Hedge funds focused on trading cryptocurrencies have struggled to eke out returns this year amid a sharp sell-off in the highly volatile market, in spite of a flood of new funds setting up to deploy investor cash.
The number of crypto hedge funds more than doubled in the four months to Feb. 15, data from fintech research house Autonomous NEXT showed on Thursday.
The research firm recorded a record high of 226 global hedge funds with such a strategy, up from 110 global hedge funds as of Oct. 18.
That itself was up from 55 funds at Aug. 29 and just 37 at the start of 2017.
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-h...-idUSKCN1FZ189
Thats cool with me.
46% of Last Year’s ICOs Have Failed Already
most dubious ICOs don’t exit scam:
they slowly tiptoe away, like a sneak thief rather than a smash-and-grab robber.
Having completed an extensive study into last year’s crowdsales, news.Bitcoin.com can report that 46% of them are effectively dead already – despite raising over $104 million.
The number of ICOs that are still a going concern is actually even lower. An additional 113 ICOs can be classified as “semi-failed”,
This means that 59% of last year’s crowdsales are either confirmed failures or failures-in-the-making.
https://news.bitcoin.com/46-last-yea...ailed-already/
Days Since A Cryptocurrency Exchange Has Lost More Than $100 Million:
13
http://dayssinceacryptocurrencyexcha...00million.com/
The culture of crypto mining is changing: here’s how
https://thenextweb.com/contributors/...All+Stories%29
Hey, you know he's right. The US government couldn't do a damn thing about--
when did clinton invest in bitcoin?
THE NSA WORKED TO “TRACK DOWN” BITCOIN USERS, SNOWDEN DO ENTS REVEAL
Governments, with a vested interest in controlling how money moves, would, some of bitcoin’s fierce advocates believed, naturally try and thwart the coming techno-libertarian financial order.
It turns out the conspiracy theorists were onto something.
Classified do ents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden show that the National Security Agency indeed worked urgently to target bitcoin users around the world — and wielded at least one mysterious source of information to “help track down senders and receivers of Bitcoins,” according to a top-secret passage in an internal NSA report dating to March 2013.
The data source appears to have leveraged the NSA’s ability to harvest and analyze raw, global internet traffic while also exploiting an unnamed software program that purported to offer anonymity to users, according to other do ents.
Although the agency was interested in surveilling some competing cryptocurrencies, “Bitcoin is #1 priority,” a March 15, 2013 internal NSA report stated.
The do ents indicate that “tracking down” bitcoin users went well beyond closely examining bitcoin’s public transaction ledger, known as the Blockchain, where users are typically referred to through anonymous identifiers;
the tracking may also have involved gathering intimate details of these users’ computers.
The NSA collected some bitcoin users’ password information, internet activity, and a type of unique device identification number known as a MAC address, a March 29, 2013 NSA memo suggested.
In the same do ent, analysts also discussed tracking internet users’ internet addresses, network ports, and timestamps to identify “BITCOIN Targets.”
The agency appears to have wanted even more data:
The March 29 memo raised the question of whether the data source validated its users, and
suggested that the agency retained bitcoin information in a file named “Provider user full.csv.”
It also suggested powerful search capabilities against bitcoin targets,
hinting that the NSA may have been using its XKeyScore searching system,
where the bitcoin information and wide range of other NSA data was cataloged, to enhance its information on bitcoin users.
An NSA reference do ent indicated that the data source provided “user data such as billing information and Internet Protocol addresses.”
With this sort of information in hand, putting a name to a given bitcoin user would be easy.
https://theintercept.com/2018/03/20/...uments-reveal/
‘Gut-Wrenching’ Bitcoin Price Decline Driven by Futures Traders: Fundstrat
Fundstrat founder Tom Lee stated that the bitcoin price tends to decline leading into futures expiration dates, suggesting that these products are a major driver of bitcoin’s movements.
“Bitcoin sees dramatic price changes around CBOE futures expirations.
This was something flagged by Justin Saslaw at Raptor Group.
We compiled some of the data and this indeed seems to be true,” Lee wrote, according to CNBC. “Overall, bitcoin has fallen 18 percent in the 10 days prior to CBOE contract expiration.”
“A broader observation is there is significant volatility around these expirations,”
added Lee, a former managing director at JPMorgan. “And on average, the price recovered by day six [following expiration].”
the firm is joining a growing number of voices who have connected futures to the recent market downturn.
Prior to their launch, many investors and analysts believed that bitcoin futures would legitimize cryptocurrency in the eyes of ins utional investors. Instead,
ins utions have remained on the sidelines, and an increasing number of researchers have said that these products have — to date — weighed heavily on the market.
As CCN reported, a recent research report published by the US Federal Reserve suggested that the launch of bitcoin futures triggered the start of the present bear market,
largely because it gave bears their first real opportunity (on a regulated US exchange, anyway) to short the bitcoin price.
However, others allege that the decline has been a natural correction in response to su ious market activity during last year’s bull run.
Recently, researchers at the University of Texas released a 66-page report suggesting that
Tether’s dollar-pegged USDT token may have been used to artificially inflate the bitcoin price on several exchanges.
https://www.ccn.com/gut-wrenching-bi...ers-fundstrat/
Cryptocurrency Theft Skyrockets in First Half of 2018
In the first six months of 2018, nearly as much cryptocurrency was stolen as was snatched in all of 2017. More than $750 million in cryptocurrency value has been stolen so far this year.
The criminals who are mounting these attacks on cryptocurrency exchanges are the same thieves who two years or so ago targeted financial ins utions with phishing, ransomware and other malware attacks.
According to a new report from security firm CipherTrace, what the cryptocurrency attacks lack is a basic understanding of operational security. The attackers can mount extremely competent attacks against the exchanges because they know cryptocurrencies inside and out.
CipherTrace CEO Dave Jevans explained to Dark Reading:CipherTrace estimates that between 100 and 200 gambling websites that accept cryptocurrencies are also used to launder crypto money. Just drop the crypto funds into your account, play a few hands, then empty the account. Pretty simple.
It’s clear these people really understand cryptocurrency and crypto assets really, really well.
What they don’t understand is old-school operational security … they’re just not sophisticated that way.
Legacy folks, they definitely have better operational security.
They’re better at how they interface with it, how they distribute malicious code, how they manage user handles on different forums.
The U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) that $1.5 billion have been stolen in the past two years in hack attacks on crypto exchanges. FinCEN’s associate director told CipherTrace, “We have seen virtual currency exploited to support billions of dollars in what we would consider su ious activity.”
https://247wallst.com/technology-3/2...F7+Wall+St.%29
====================
Over 800 cryptocurrencies are now dead as bitcoin is 70 percent off its record high
- Over 800 cryptocurrencies are now dead and worth less than one cent.
- New digital tokens are created through initial coin offerings but some of these projects have been scams and many have not materialized into real products.
- Bitcoin has fallen roughly 70 percent since its record high near $20,000 last year, adding to bearish sentiment around cryptocurrencies.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/02/over...-pressure.html
Not to worry, if (as RG thinks) there's a crash, bit coin will take off again.
WTF?
Would a buy bid at 6K be good?
I don't trust the FEC voters. In banksters back pockets.
I would never say when to buy an investment/speculation - that's up to you. I will say that it seems to me that people seem to have a mental barrier at nice even numbers at say your 6K. It'll get close and bounce back (I don't understand the psychological underpinings) but once it breaks through the barrier, it keeps going (in either direction). At least, that's been my observation fwiw. So if I have a target in mind, I usually put it a little above (when buying) or a little below (when selling).
Blockchain is the next big thing in IT
Berkeley Computer Scientist gives his opinion.
This guy is not stupid. Nick Weaver
start at 3 minutes
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xCHab0dNnj4
Buy at 6160?
I say yes.
Bitcoin has a bright future behind it:
https://www.seattletimes.com/busines...on-hard-times/
https://www.inc.com/linkedin/vivek-w...ek-wadhwa.htmlBeyond its usability for crime, bitcoin has major design flaws.
Bitcoins are created (or "mined") at predetermined and gradually decreasing rates, with a total limit of 21 million issuable coins. The rate of increase in available bitcoins is not keeping pace with the number of people keen to buy them, so the price of a bitcoin keeps increasing. Because its price increases, both its "miners," whose computers do complex calculations to earn the currency, and those who buy bitcoins from others feel reluctant to use them as currency by spending them. Instead, they sit on their coins while they wait for the price to rise further. With bitcoin supply constrained and increasingly falling short of demand, instead of functioning as a currency, bitcoin is a speculative empty asset.
Then, there are problems with the technology itself.
First, anyone who has access to a bitcoin password (or private key) has the authority to spend the bitcoins it unlocks; loss of the password means loss of all of the associated bitcoins, with no recourse. Second, linear growth in the chain of blocks that make up bitcoin is resulting in exponential growth in the computation necessary to process and verify transactions: Transactions that used to take 10 minutes now take hours. Third, with bitcoin transaction fees hovering above $25, a $5 payment now costs $30. This obviously is not a workable digital currency.
What is most worrisome for the planet is the energy expenditure that verifying transactions now requires. The bitcoin network is reportedly consuming energy at an annual rate of 32TWh -- about as much as the entire nation of Denmark. Each transaction consumes 250kWh, enough energy to power an average Western home for nine days. China has become the dominant bitcoin-mining nation, with its provinces providing ultra-cheap energy to miners.
Good luck, y'all!
Tether, you had one job...
one of the best articles I've seen so far:
https://hackernoon.com/ten-years-in-...in-ee98c180100[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.84)]The government-backed banking system provides FDIC guarantees, reversibility of ACH, iden y verification, audit standards, and an investigation system when things go wrong. Bitcoin, by design, has none of these things. I saw a remarkable message thread by someone whose bitcoin account got drained because their email had been hacked and their password was stolen. They were stunned to have no recourse! And this is widespread — in 2014, the then-#1 bitcoin trader, Mt. Gox, also lost $400m of investor money due to security failures. The subsequent #1 bitcoin trader, Bitfinex, also shut down after a loss of customer funds. Imagine the world if more banks had been drained of customer funds than not. Bitcoin is what banking looked like in the middle ages — “here’s your libertarian paradise, have a nice day.”[/COLOR]
Well duh we know bitcoin has no guarantees and its very risky.
Still its a great investment tbqh for diversification purposes as well as making $ on the side
Of course idiots are going to get hacked and lose their passwordstough luck tbqh
I would not put my life savings into bitcoin. Nobody should. And if re s do and lose it all
its on them
Odds are it will boom again. It still has a loyal following and a long stagnant period is a decent time to invest. As soon as it gets some upward movement the loyal following will enter full hype mode. They'll be saying Bitcoin going to 50k and on the way up it'll hit all the news cycles. Which will get all the normal people on the "get rich quick" Bitcoin train. Or it's next move could be bust. Because that is also the eventual likelihood. But there are probably more high swings in the future.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
