Kategorie: Bitcoin News

Bitcoin broke above key resistance levels to touch highs last seen in February, with the uptick buoyed by various macro factors.

Bitcoin has gained 10% this past week, climbing to its highest price level since it 24 February when it briefly traded above $45,000.

On Friday, the Bitcoin (BTC-USD) pair rallied over 4% in intraday gains to reach highs just above the $45k price point. The pair has since retreated but remains well-bid above $44,700 at the time of writing.

Do Kwon’s $3 billion BTC plan gives bulls legs

The leading cryptocurrency’s upside follows weeks of ranged trading, with relief rallied over the past month tempered by risk-off sentiment triggered around the Russia-Ukraine war and the impact of rising inflation on equities.

But according to GlobalBlock analyst Marcus Sotiriou, upside sentiment this week got legs from the hype around fresh accumulation by Terra Labs founder and CEO Do Kwon.

Kwon, who recently placed two bets worth $11 million on Terra (LUNA)’s price being higher than $90 by March next year, has unveiled a “$3 billion Bitcoin accumulation plan,”

do kwon: announces plans to acquire $3 billion dollars worth of #bitcoin in the immediate term

bitcoin magazine: 🦗🦗🦗

— udiverse🔺 (@udiWertheimer) March 19, 2022

Sotiriou points to Do Kwon and Terra’s Bitcoin reserve purchases as key to the buying pressure for BTC and Ethereum (ETH), which surged above $3,100 for the first time in weeks.

‘PetroBitcoin’ sentiment helps BTC climb to $45k

This week’s big jump above recent resistance and testing of $45,000 was also aided on Thursday by sentiment around Russia’s announcement that it would accept Bitcoin from ‘friendly’ countries for its oil and gas. These countries would also pay in their local currencies like the yuan or Turkish lira.

“Besides the bullish narrative behind Bitcoin being used as a stablecoin reserve asset, there are now talks of a Petro Bitcoin instead of a Petro Dollar,” Sotiriou noted in emailed comments.

He says this has probably added a fresh narrative to BTC’s price movement. Russia’s flip towards Bitcoin for oil and gas exports is an indication of the cryptocurrency’s ‘ideological malleability.’ It’s not just about Russia, but a broader promotion of the fact that crypto is “unstoppable.”

The big question, in Sotiriou’s view, is whether PetroBitcoin is poised to replace PetroDollar. Can nations begin pricing oil in Bitcoin and not the US dollar?

Bitcoin was up by more than 30% since the sell-off to lows of $33,000 soon after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

BlackRock and Exxon news

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said on Thursday that the asset manager, the world’s largest with over $10 trillion in AUM, was considering crypto services for its clients. According to Fink, demand for crypto opportunities has increased among its clients, something he said the investment giant was looking at.

Elsewhere, Texas-based gas giant Exxon is mining Bitcoin using excess gas in a move that is set to see around “18 million cubic feet of gas” utilised to mine BTC every month. The gas, which would otherwise be flared off, is thus helping with environmentally-friendly mining.

Exxon’s Bitcoin mining operation is bullish for the cryptocurrency, Sotiriou said in a comment. He believes this is likely to bring on board many institutional investors, with Bitcoin’s market capitalisation of $845 “seems so undervalued to many.”

The post Bitcoin touches $45k amid ‘PetroBitcoin’ sentiment appeared first on Coin Journal.

Exxon Mobil Corporation is conducting a pilot program using the surplus natural gas from North Dakota oil wells that would otherwise be burned off to power cryptocurrency mining operations. Sources familiar with the program say that the oil giant intends to replicate the project in four other sites across the globe.

As part of the pilot program, Exxon signed an agreement with Crusoe Energy Systems Inc. to use gas from a Bakken Shale Basin oil well to power mobile generators used to run Bitcoin mining servers on-site.

The pilot program was launched in January 2021 and by July the same year had already used up to 18 million cubic feet of natural gas that would have otherwise been burned off because of the lack of enough pipelines to transport the gas.

Expanding the pilot program

Exxon is now considering undertaking similar pilot programs in Alaska, Argentina’s Vaca Muerta shale field, Qua Iboe Terminal in Nigeria, Germany, and Guyana.

One of the people privy to the information in an interview with Bloomberg said:

“We continuously evaluate emerging technologies aimed at reducing flaring volumes across our operations,” and Exxon expects to meet the World Bank’s call to end routine flaring by 2030, spokeswoman Sarah Nordin said in an email. She declined to comment on “rumors and speculations regarding the pilot project.”

Exxon’s push comes amid the increasing push to have oil and gas producers reduce their carbon footprint to help in the fight against climate change. One of the ways of reducing the carbon footprint is by reducing the amount of natural gas they burn on site.

At the same time, there is a rash by crypto miners to use the cheap gas from oil wells to power their mining operations instead of going for power from the national grids. Although when using the gas to power crypto mining still involves burning the gas and releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the energy is at least put to use compared to just burning the gas for nothing.

Last month ConocoPhilips acknowledged supplying a Bitcoin mining firm with natural gas from the Bakken shale basin in North Dakota. Shale oil produces a lot of excess gas which is mostly burned off.

The post Oil giant Exxon to expand its gas to power crypto mining pilot program to four countries appeared first on Coin Journal.

Spot trading has become one of the most common ways to buy and sell crypto. Although spot trading has its risks, it has low barriers of entry and is open to literally everyone. But you need to be very careful when choosing assets for spot trading. Here are some attributes to consider:

• Cryptos for spot trading must have very high trading volumes

• You also want highly volatile assets that swing fast.

• The assets must also be available in all major centralized exchanges.

With that said, if you are thinking of dipping your toes into the world of crypto spot trading, these are some of the best coins to consider:

Bitcoin (BTC)

Bitcoin (BTC) is the biggest crypto and one of the most recognizable in the world. If you are going to spot trade, then BTC will need to be part of that calculus. The most important thing about BTC is the large daily trade volume.

This means that there is enough liquidity in the market to ensure orders to buy or sell are filled with minimum or no slippage. BTC is also spot traded in the biggest exchanges in the world and is accessible to everyone.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) was created to provide the foundations over which payment systems can be developed in the decentralized economy. It’s related to Bitcoin in a way, but it is an asset of its own. However, just like BTC, BCH has large trade volumes each day. There is also a huge market cap to deal with so chances of making returns are high.

Shiba Inu (SHIB)

Meme coins have always been great for short-term speculative trading, and there is no better meme coin out there than Shiba Inu (SHIB). The token is prone to a lot of daily volatility and trade volume as well. SHIB can also be purchased from a lot of exchanges.

The post Crypto spot trading: The Best coins to consider in it appeared first on Coin Journal.

Goldman’s over-the-counter crypto transaction was facilitated by Michael Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital Holdings.

Goldman Sachs is said to have completed its first over-the-counter crypto derivatives trade, the first major US bank to dive into the growing crypto options market.

The development came to light on Monday and saw the bank make the maiden OTC crypto trade featuring a type of BTC derivative that settles in cash.

According to a report by CNBC, Goldman teamed up with Galaxy Digital to successfully execute the non-deliverable Bitcoin option. 

SkyBridge Capital’s Anthony Scaramucci pointed out that Galaxy Digital also helped it handle its first OTC crypto trade.

Our first was with ⁦@GalaxyDigitalHQ⁩ too ⁦@novogratz⁩

Goldman announces milestone with first over-the-counter crypto trade with Galaxy @CNBCtoo https://t.co/Fd8uyC1vRs

— Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) March 21, 2022

Crypto has matured as an asset class

This is not the first time Goldman Sachs, which already allows its clients access to non-deliverable forwards and exchange-traded options. 

However, the OTC trade is the ‚first big move‘ to highlight the increased interest in crypto investment products from institutional investors. It also comes as traditional finance continues to show a flip in sentiment towards digital assets.

Goldman’s Max Minton, the bank’s head of digital assets for Asia Pacific, said in a statement that the trade is an indicator that crypto as an asset class is mature. And he noted that the OTC trade marks an important milestone for the bank’s overall plans around digital assets, which he revealed to revolve around the crypto options market.

Galaxy co-President Damien Vanderwilt noted that Goldman’s Bitcoin crypto OTC trade marks the first step in major bank’s involvement, with clients set to benefit from more “direct, customisable exposures to the crypto market.”

Bitcoin and other crypto-assets continue to see greater interest after initial apathy from mainstream investors, including legacy financial institutions. 

Today, several major banks, hedge funds, endowments, family offices and sovereign wealth funds have crypto as a slice of their portfolios.

The post Goldman Sachs executes first over-the-counter crypto trade appeared first on Coin Journal.

As another week comes to a close in this eventful macroeconomic climate, let’s take a look at how the world of cryptocurrency looks, before we all take a breath over the weekend.

Key Points

• Bitcoin net outflows from exchanges breach $1 billion for the week
• Tuesday sees highest daily outflows in ETH since October
• Moderate uptick in new and active addresses for Bitcoin

Bitcoin

Net Flows

Data via IntoTheBlock

A nice milestone for Bitcoin this week, as net outflows from exchanges breached the billion dollar mark, as displayed on above graph. One of the go-to indicators of sentiment, a net outflow from exchanges typically means accumulation, while a net inflow signals selling pressure.

Volatility

Price-wise, we “closed” last Friday at $39,200, while currently we sit at $40,700. Looking at volatility, the 30-day annualised standard deviation remained relatively stable at circa 63%. This is shown on the below graph, but if we want to translate these numbers to simple English, we can simply say that this week Bitcoin was … chill. As the world seems to be falling down around it, Bitcoin has been actually been quite well behaved. Who would have thought?

Data via IntoTheBlock

Addresses

Some moderate uptick here too, with an 11% increase in new addresses since last week. Active addresses were relatively stable (up 3%) and there was a fall of 2% in zero-balance addresses. All pointing, again, to a steady but unspectacular week for Bitcoin. If only all the weeks were like this – this must be what it feels like to hold stocks, right? Maybe next week we will get some more movement, helping to make this piece a little more entertaining! 

Data via IntoTheBlock

Ethereum

Let’s see if we can poke around with Ethereum a little and uncover any trends.

Net Flows

There was nice net volume here too, with close to a billion dollars flowing out of exchanges over the last week. This was buoyed mainly by Wednesday, which saw $448 million in net outflows. For context, in dollar terms that’s the 24th largest daily outflow volume ever – and the second largest this year. 

Data via IntoTheBlock

Precedent

The largest of 2022, you may be wondering, was January 4th. Known as “Blue Monday”, they say it’s the most depressing day of the year – the return to work after the holidays. Apparently, people settled down to their computers to withdraw their crypto gifts into their cold wallets this year. Unfortunately, Ethereum plunged 21% in the next four days – so let’s hope that’s not a signal of what’s to come here.

I’m not really sure what exactly caused such a spike this Tuesday, given the lack of activity elsewhere. Maybe, just maybe, it’s plain old coincidence, huh? Or maybe somebody was afraid they would be tempted to redeem their ETH to buy a load of Guinness ahead of St Patrick’s Day. I don’t know.

Denominated in ETH terms, however, it marks the largest daily withdrawal since last October, at close to 180,000 ETH. In Ocotober, Ethereum did the opposite to January– ramping 14% in just over a week. Although it’s important to note that at 750,000 ETH, the withdrawal last October was over 4X what we saw on Tuesday. The graph below highlights the size of this move compared to last October, as well as the price action (black line). So be careful with your conclusions.  

Data via IntoTheBlock

Closing Thoughts

So, a somewhat notable tidbit to close the week from Ethereum then. Bitcoin behaved, while the crypto markets largely followed. A nice week without too much volatility. If only they were all like this, I reckon my heart rate would be significantly lower. Then again, wouldn’t life be less fun?

Still, next time we get those ugly red candle days, I’ll look upon weeks like this with green-eyed envy. In crypto, it could always be worse. Happy Weekend !

 

The post Could this on-chain metric catapult Ethereum’s price? appeared first on Coin Journal.