In this article we take a look at important Crypto dates and events happening in this month.
The events include Hard Forks, Partnerships, Announcements, Rebranding, Exchange Listings, Releases, Token Swaps, Important Airdrops, Conferences and more.
Binance Australia is hosting a Christmas campaign to celebrate the festive season, announcing the 12 Day Advent Calendar giveaway with exciting prizes up for grabs – including an iPhone 12 Pro and more!
Welcome to the second edition of our crypto news in review. It has been a very bullish market in the last two weeks with the usual volatility, and things appearing to speed up in the crypto markets. Themes in this past week have been crypto adoption, more growth in crypto infrastructure, lots of bitcoin high numbers predicted by pundits & analysts, and some Alt coins starting to moon.
Australia’s Stories of the week
Adoption of crypto continues in Australia
Felicity reported that an Australian online pet shop, Pet Parlour now accepts payment using the following crypto (Bitcoin, Bitcoin cash, Dai, Ethereum and Litecoin). And in a similar theme Cryptonews reported more Australian restaurants accepting crypto as a form of payment, last month.
CoinDesk reported that West Coast Aquaculture (WCA), a company based in Australia, recently announced the completion of its initial public offering (IPO), which was mostly conducted using digital currency. The majority of the funding (about 89 percent) was conducted using the US dollar-backed stable coin, Tether (USDT). So, the company basically raised about AU$4.4 million (USD 3.2 million) using cryptocurrency.
“A billion-dollar Australian investment management firm has gotten into bitcoin, citing that the cryptocurrency is superior to gold. Australian investment management company Pendal Group has started investing in bitcoin through futures contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, AFR publication reported Monday.” see Bitcoin news, and was quoted as saying that many of their clients are asking how to get access to bitcoin and what to do in the crypto space;
Implementation of crypto infrastructure continues at a rapid pace in Australia:
Novatti, an Australian fintech company, has expanded and improved its payments network across 179 countries — by partnering with UnionPay, a global card payment company, wrote Jose Oramas.
Crypto news also reported the launching of crypto payment solutions recently by the Australian Fintech Raleypayl and the European digital platform Azimo.
Paypal is still in the headlines with it and Cashapp reportedly buying a majority of the newly mined bitcoin last month, causing scarcity bitcoin, reported by Ibiam Wayas on Tuesday.
Bitcoin has also been in the news a lot with many different people in the finance sector reporting big bitcoin moves are coming in 2021, here are a few snapshots
Coinsdesk recently reported that “Hong Fang is the CEO at OKCoin, a U.S. licensed, fiat-focused cryptocurrency exchange headquartered in San Francisco” said “I think BTC is likely to hit $100,000 in the next 12 months. Significant upside has yet to play out for bitcoin”, and added that there is a reasonable path for the price of bitcoin to reach over $500,000 in the next decade”.
Todd Gordon, founder of TradingAnalysis.com, has argued that the next price target for the flagship cryptocurrency bitcoin is about $74,000 based on the Elliott Wave theory. The adoption by Paypal and other publicly traded companies gave him the impetus to share his view, reported by the CryptoGlobe.
And then there is this! “Speaking on the The Pomp Podcast with host Anthony Pompliano, macro investor Dan Tapiero believed that roughly $15 trillion in wealth could flow into Bitcoin and gold over the next ten years” via AMBCrypto.
Important Crypto Dates
A select list of recent and upcoming important crypto events
There has been much talk about Ethereum 2.0 and they just recently reached their target of about 525,000 Ethereum needed to be staked by the 24 November, for developers to launch the proof of stake on 1 December, reported Bitcoin news. To participate, “32 Ethereum is what is needed to become a validator and earn a stake on the Ethereum chain. At the current exchange rate of $608 per ether, it costs close to $20k per staking validator.”
If you cannot afford 32 Eth, and perhaps have as little as 0.5 Eth, then you can still participate via the Ankr platform Stkr.io; see CryptoTiker on how to stake Ethereum 2.0 on Ankr.
Lastly, for Digibyte fans, AntumID announced in twitter that in December 2020, 11 million Belgians can log in to the government without an e-ID thanks to MyDigiPassword Platform! Powered by the DigiBytecoin and supported by the DGB Foundation.
Crypto Musings
Alt season: will we see something the likes of the November 2017 Alt season in the near future?
For the newbies, Alt season is a time period in which many of the alternative coins rise parabolically or exponentially in a short period of time. Back in late 2017 and early 2018, some Alts rose by a factor greater than 10 times, i.e. a rate of return of 1000% in a few weeks which is spectacular. Not all Alt coins had such huge gains but many did double and triple in a few days or less and this was almost a daily occurrence, and hence the term Alt season was coined.
In recent weeks, some key Alts such as XRP, XLM, and Horizen have risen over 100% (CryptoTicker) and other key Alts such as Cardano, Zillaqa and Vechain all performing well with approximately 40% gains within a week’s time frame. Naturally, people are wondering is this the start of Alt season? And of course, analysts have been speculating with charts if it may happen, e.g. see article in BTCmanager.
If speculation is not enough to stir your curiosity then Verge may, “Verge XVG – Cryptocurrency is widely known as the “King Altcoin of 2017 Bullrun”, gave massive gains in that Altcoins season and, today XVG pumped +65% in a single day.” reported Crypto Trading News.
One of the products of Alt season, is many people did not sell as they expected the cryptos to keep going up and up, which did not occur as history tells. XRP is a classic example of this “bag holder” phenomena, in which people buy at the top due to FOMO (Fear of missing out) and then get stuck holding “bags of a crypto” for years until the price exceeds what they bought it for. So whilst Alt season is anticipated with the promise of big profits, there is also many risks that come with it.
Interestingly, the Daily Hodl reports on a poll of XRP bag holders and what their intended sell prices are:
“XRPs most ardent supporters, often referred to as the XRP army, are revealing when they plan to sell their holdings..” A poll was conducted on Twitter and investors have plans to sell at different points between $1 and $10, with a majority ie 63% saying they plan to sell above $10.
Thought of the week: “Alt Season: what thoughts, feelings and perspectives are arising inside you relating to a possible upcoming Alt season , realistic and unrealistic?”
Welcome to our Weekly Crypto News Review, each week we aim to bring you up to speed on all the recent news and events about Bitcoin, crypto and blockchain from Australia.
Australia‘s Stories of the Week
Binance Australia launches AUD deposits and Masterclass
Last week Binance Australia launched AUD deposits on their App. And they also launched Masterclass: Free Online Crypto Trading Course. Great to see Binance expanding into Australia and making crypto trading easier for us.
Australian Exchanges are Expanding Their Digital Assets
Swyftx is another growing Australian cryptocurrency exchange and has recently added 54 new cryptocurrencies to its platform, for further details.
Blockchain Technology Now Supported By Aussie Politicians On Both Sides
Encouraging news that both sides of the Australian Government support blockchain. Cory Bernardi – who has served as senator from 2006 to 2020 – stated his support for cryptocurrency after becoming more acquainted with the concept over the years.
Whilst its great news that PayPal is now supporting Cryptocurrencies in the USA, but there are some limitations:
A limited number of cryptocurrencies (namely, Bitcoin, Litecoin, Bitcoin cash and Ethereum) available.
You cannot transfer those cryptos to your own external wallet. Don’t forget: “not your keys”, “not your cryptos”.
You cannot use the crypto currencies to pay for goods and services.
You cannot send the crypto currencies to family and friends.
Paypal crypto fees vary based on the amount you buy/sell. For $1-25 USD the fee is 0.50 USD. Nice to see they are keeping their fees high.
The weekly limit on purchases per week has been increased to $20,000 USD.
Currently this is only available to USA only but PayPal plans to release it to other countries in the first half of 2021, so we will keep you posted when it will be available in Australia.
Banks Moving In, Bitcoin Better Than Gold?
The SEC has announced that banks may act as custodians for Bitcoin and crypto assets in the US.
Singapore’s Largest Bank is planning to launch its own Crypto Exchange however the launch date is not provided because they are still seeking regulatory approval.
The Bitcoin cash fork went live, dropping over 5% in the first 24 hours with Coinbase announcing a temporary pause in deposits and withdrawals of BCH on their platform.
Uniswap’s liquidity dips 44% as UNI farming ended with users reportedly rushing back to Sushiswap after UNI rewards end.
For XRP holders, there will be a free air drop of the Spark token from the Flare network on December 12, and you may need to prepare for that, or your wallet or exchange may plan to do it for you. For more information on Flare and on how to claim the Spark token.
Crypto Musings
CNBC’s Fast Money tweeted “…it might be time to take a breather. Here’s why…” on Thursday 19/11/2020 in the context of bitcoin crossing $18,000 suggesting it may be time to sell some of your Bitcoin. The traders on “Crypto Twitter” (CT) have observed and comment frequently that CNBC’s calls are known as a counter trade indicator. And in the last few years this has wrung true on many occasions with bitcoin and the crypto market going the opposite to what they say within a few weeks. So, let us see if it rings true within the next few weeks for Bitcoin!
The crypto craze is at full throttle with bitcoin crossing $18,000 today for the first time since 2017. But Chart Master @CarterBWorth warns it might be time to take a breather. Here’s why. pic.twitter.com/pU4vKg2Kyd
