Category: Bitcoin

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Bitcoin Crypto News

BTC Price Now vs 2013 and 2017 Graphs Shows Positive Correlation

Last week Bitcoin had its worst sell-off since March 2020, and the global crypto market has suffered great losses along with it. Over 250 billion was erased from the market as selling panic took over.

While many were panicking and considering this as the end of the bull run, some we’re taking a closer look at the data and compared todays BTC price with 2013 and 2017 and the results showed a positive correlation.

BTC Now vs 2013

BTC current graph compared to 2013 [source]

The graph above shows a positive correlation for the BTC price now vs back in 2013. Back in 2013, BTC corrected up to 50% before rocketing to another all-time high just over US$1,000.

This data might suggest that this a normal cycle for BTC, as the market corrects, then resets and resumes into the final phase of the bull run. At least thats what happened in both 2013 and 2017.

BTC Now vs 2017

BTC current graph vs 2017 [source]

The graph above also shows a positive correlation for the BTC price now vs back in 2017. Back in 2017, BTC corrected up to 50% before rocketing to another all-time high just over US$17,000.

If Bitcoin follows the same pattern as 2017 then BTC may be on track to retake its uptrend run and surge somewhere between US$70k – $120k.

As we previously reported, this is the 10th time BTC has dropped by over 30% since 2017. So newcomers should be aware that this market is still volatile and drops like this are “normal” for this market.

ETH vs BTC

Another interesting take is between ETH and BTC that shows a positive correlation across the same price period. If ETH continues on this pattern it would also retake its bull run.

ETH 2016 vs BTC 2011 [source]

This isn’t the End of the Bull Run, Says Top Analyst

Experts in the crypto field don’t believe the bull run has exhausted, whatsoever. During a podcast with Peter McCormack, top analyst Willy Woo talked about the current situation with Bitcoin, saying it might take time to recover from this crash before taking off to prices over $100k.

“I think it’ll take a bit of time to recover, just from the sheer amount of coins that we dumped out. I think ultimately, if you look at the network health, this is a good thing.”

Willy Woo

Woo referred to several indicators that are showing price positivity for BTC. He noted that this is not the end of the bull run rather an “unwind” necessary for the network’s health, referring to the NVT ratio, which shows network activity in relation to market cap.

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Bitcoin Bitcoin Mining China Crypto News

Déjà vu – China Crackdown on Bitcoin Trading and Mining

China’s State Council Calls for Crackdown on Bitcoin Trading and Mining

It seems like history is repeating itself once again as the Chinese authorities have reiterated plans to crack down on Bitcoin trading and mining activities in the country.

Upon the news, the price of Bitcoin dropped by 10 percent below $40,000 USD late on Friday and is still on the decline as we reported in the reasons why Bitcoin crashed.

This isn’t the first time China has caused FUD with Bitcoin, they did almost exactly the same thing back in 2013 causing the Bitcoin price to drop from $1k to $400. China then did the same thing again in 2018 causing the Bitcoin price to drop from $20k to $6k.

China FUD since 2017

China Ban Bitcoin Mining Operations

Following the report shared by the Chinese journalist, the State Council of China, and Vice Premier Liu, He is looking to step up regulatory measures to protect the financial systems while also preventing individual financial risks. This was discussed in their 51st meeting of the “State Council Financial Stability and Development Committee” of May 21. 

This is the first time that the highest level of the Chinese government has clearly proposed a blow to the mining industry.

Crypto reporter, Colin Wu

As part of the measures, the State Council intensified their call to crackdown Bitcoin trading and mining in the country and “and resolutely prevent the transmission of individual risks to the social field.”

China houses the majority of Bitcoin’s global hashrate. Over 65 percent of Bitcoin mining activities are observed in the country, and so, some people are curious about how the Chinese ban on BTC mining will affect the overall network health.

Monthly share of global Bitcoin hashrate. Source: CBECI

On the other hand, some believe the development will propel more Bitcoin mining activities in the United States with clean energy.

We reported that China was clamping down on Bitcoin mining operations back in March, forcing F2Pool to sell off their BTC.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Google

Cryptocurrency Hits New All-Time High on Google Search Trends

Cryptocurrency Hits New All-Time High on Google Search Trends

Search interest in cryptocurrencies around the world has reached another record high, according to Google Trends data.

This follows the recent downwards volatility in the market, which resulted in a significant decrease in the market capitalization of global cryptocurrencies.

Global Search Result Shows Investors Are Worried

The increase in search interest for cryptocurrencies was probably triggered by the recent decrease in many cryptocurrencies this week. The queries on Google showed that many people are worried about the current volatility of the market. For instance, recent data shared by Google Trend confirmed that questions on “What happened to cryptocurrency today” around the world increased by over 850 percent. 

At the same time, searches for “should I sell my crypto” in the United States increased by over 400 percent.

What’s even more surprising is that many people are interested in knowing how Bitcoin uses energy and environmentally friendly digital currencies. Searches for “how does Bitcoin use energy” surged by over 1,050 percent in the United States over the past week. 

This is coming after Tesla announced it has suspended accepting Bitcoin payments for its electric vehicles.

Did Tesla’s Announcement Affect The Bitcoin Market?

As recently as May 12, the founder of Tesla, Elon Musk, informed that the company has stopped accepting payments in Bitcoin due to the “rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal.” Shortly after the announcement, Bitcoin began dropping gradually below the $50,000 USD mark the next day. At some point, some claimed that Tesla’s announcement contributed to the hit on Bitcoin’s price on Wednesday. 

Bitcoin price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap

Bitcoin is yet to reclaim the $50,000 USD mark. At the time of writing, it was trading at $37,227 USD on CoinMarketCap, with a market capitalization of over $697 billion USD. 

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Bitcoin Cryptocurrencies Education

University Receives $5 Million Cryptocurrency Anonymous Gift

While some universities are turning to crypto staking to fund research, others are receiving crypto directly from anonymous philanthropists.

Donation Will Fund Innovation In Finance

The University of Pennsylvania has announced that they have recently received an anonymous donation of $5 million worth of BTC.  The donation was facilitated by NYDIG, an institutional finance company that facilitates the transfer of cryptocurrencies even to traditional banks that may not accept crypto directly.

The donation was acknowledged by Penn State President Amy Gutmann, who thanked the anonymous benefactor and commented on the changing nature of charity.

“As the nature of philanthropy continues to evolve, Penn stands at the forefront of innovative ways to make a difference in the world. I am deeply grateful for this creative and groundbreaking gift to support the important work of the Stevens Center. At the Center, the intersection of finance and technology is being reinvented through research, exploratory projects, and engagement with industry leaders, to make the greatest global contributions.”

All funds will go to the Stevens Center for Innovation in Finance at the Wharton School. The Stevens Center for Innovation in Finance was established with the support and partnership of undergraduate alumnus Ross Stevens.  The faculty is currently a hotspot for students eager to get into fintech, and other non-traditional areas of finance.

Erika James – the dean of the Wharton School – also expressed her gratitude for the unexpected funding, and promised that it will be put to good use.

“With finance at the heart, history, and future of the Wharton School, we are honored to receive this incredible gift. This investment marks a new era and mode of giving to the University and lifts up opportunities for students to become tomorrow’s leaders in finance—through exceptional coursework and transformative interactions with policymakers and industry experts.”

In a time when many donations are simply PR moves, this anonymous donation – possibly from former alumni who may have gotten into crypto early thanks to what was taught at the Wharton School – is a heartwarming reminder that random acts of kindness can go a long way.

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Australia Bitcoin Investing

Love Island Australia Star Vanessa Sierra Tells Fans To Ignore Celebrity Bitcoin Influencers

Known for her appearance on Love Island Australia, Vanessa Sierra recently revealed that she’d been into cryptocurrency for a while – and advised fans to stay away from vague advice from crypto influencers.

Watch the video

Be Wary Of Celebrity Bitcoin Influencers

Vanessa advised those who were new to the crypto space to stick to the major cryptocurrencies in order to not fall into one of the many traps associated with the crypto space, such as ignoring the market cap.

In a story video posted to her Instagram, Vanessa advised fans to stay wary of internet personalities telling fans to buy a tokens.

“I’m sorry but I’m disgusted in the lack of morality and really want to warn people about investing in crypto when influencers are clearly being paid to promote it. If someone is genuinely educated about cryptos, they would post and talk a lot more in detail about blockchain rather than posting a “tip” with absolutely zero background Information. I post because I’ve been into crypto since I was 12 years old and do hours of reading a day. And I still don’t consider myself that knowledgeable.”

Social Media Influencer Vanessa Sierra

Indeed, 2020 and 2021 has seen a fresh influx of crypto investors – some of which have been baited into decisions by the cohort of clickbait Youtubers with dramatic thumbnails advising fans to buy tokens. We even saw some Youtubers show proof that they have been paid to promote coins.

As always, conduct your own research before deciding whether to invest in cryptocurrencies – do not blindly follow the advice from your favourite social influencers.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Gold

Data Shows Gold Consumes More Energy Than Bitcoin

In a white paper recently released by Galaxy Digital, a tech investment and research firm shows that Bitcoin’s annual energy consumption is considerably lower than that of gold and the largest players in the banking industry.

Bitcoin Production Uses Way Less Energy Than Gold Production

Auditing Bitcoin’s energy usage is quite simple compared to retrieving data for energy usage of the gold industry since this data is publicly disclosed.

Gold uses roughly 240.61 TWh/yr when using the standard conversion from GHG Emissions to kWh/yr using the global IEA carbon intensity multiplier. That’s just more than double that of Bitcoin, these estimates don’t include second order effects like production and discarding of vehicle tires and other materials used by the industry.

Total Emissions of Gold [Galaxy Digital]

Bitcoin Also Uses Less Energy Than Gold

Banking uses an estimated 263.72 TWh/yr. This includes energy used by banking data centres, bank branches, ATMs, and card network’s data centres, which is discussed in-depth in the report. A comprehensive number would require individual banks to self-report on their electricity usage.

Bitcoin uses an estimated 113.89TWh/yr which is considerably lower than that of both other industries.

Estimated Annual Electricity Consumption of the Bitcoin Network [Galaxy Digital]

Kathy Wood also recently stated that 50% of Chinese bitcoin mining initiatives use renewable sources of energy as well as the fact that many use offset electricity.

Just cleaning up our wastage could power the Bitcoin network. The authors found that the amount of energy lost in transmission and distribution is 19.4x that of the Bitcoin network according to data from World Bank and IEA.

Bitcoin and Ethereum Will (Eventually) Go Eco-Friendly

Most new technologies that have high energy consumption eventually turn more eco-friendly, and we are starting to see Bitcoin and Ethereum take steps towards this.

Ethereum 2.0 is switching from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake (mining to staking) to consume 99% less electricity. And we also see some Bitcoin mining operations switch to carbon neutral systems.

The recent price drop of Bitcoin was linked to Elon Musk’s debate with Michael Saylor about Bitcoin’s environmental impact. Hopefully, this is something cryptocurrencies can address in the near future.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Ethereum TRON

Tron Founder Justin Sun “Buys The Dip” for $285 Million Worth of BTC and ETH

Following the market crash on Wednesday, the founder of the TRON network, Justin Sun, announced he bought a sizable amount of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) in the dip. The total purchases he disclosed were worth over $285 million USD, and he plans to HODL them. 

TRON CEO Stockpiles Bitcoin and Ethereum

Justin shared on Twitter that he purchased a total of 4145 BTC during the market dip on Wednesday. He bought the coins at an average price of $36,868 USD per BTC, spending a total of $152.8 million USD on Bitcoin. He also spent as much as $135.8 million USD for 54,153 ETH, at an average price of $2,509 USD. 

In a separate tweet, Justin also confirmed that he’s maintaining a strong hand and won’t sell.  

The cryptocurrency market got extremely volatile yesterday, with lots of buying and panic selling to the extent that major exchanges suffered system downtime and technical issues at some point. Although many cryptocurrencies significantly dropped in value leading to massive liquidations and more panic selling, some people like the founder of TRON seized the opportunity to buy major coins in the dip.

Tron Users Unhappy

Meanwhile, some people in the TRON community didn’t welcome the idea that Justin bought Bitcoin. They said he should have invested in the Tron (TRX) instead.  

Bitcoin is Back to $40,000 USD 

The cryptocurrency market is gradually regaining its shape, as some coins are recouping from the loss on Wednesday. 

Bitcoin was trading at over $40,000 USD, with a market capitalization of over $730 billion USD, during the time of writing. The entire crypto market is worth over $1.7 trillion USD. 

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Bitcoin Crypto News

BlockFi in Trouble after Crediting 700 BTC into Wrong Customer Accounts

Crypto lending platform BlockFi has blundered a campaign they ran in March, offering users bonus payments of 1:1 dollar-backed GUSD (a stablecoin built by cryptocurrency exchange Gemini), mistakenly crediting accounts in Bitcoin instead.

700 BTC Promo Credit

One user posted on Reddit that he had been credited with over 700 BTC (amounting to more than $25 million at the time).

BlockFi has confirmed this in a statement on Reddit.

“On May 17, 2021, fewer than 100 clients were incorrectly credited with cryptocurrency associated with a promotional payout that did not belong to them. BlockFi has contacted these clients and is working with them to rectify the issue.

The situation does not affect any of BlockFi’s ongoing operations and measures have been taken to ensure that an error like this will not be possible in the future. BlockFi’s latest publicly reported AUM is $15B as of Q1 2021. Client funds are not impacted and are safeguarded.”

BlockFi Staff Member

Reward For Returning Funds

The company is now desperately trying to reverse the damage of these generous deposits, reportedly even offering rewards ranging from $500 to $1,000 for returning the lost funds and even threatening legal action against users.

This isn’t the first time BlockFi have been in the news, they recently expereinced Downtime And Public Sign-ups Temporarily Disabled.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Markets

Open Interest in Bitcoin Drops to $12.9 Billion as BTC Plunged to Almost $30,000 USD

Bitcoins on ladder chart cryptocurrency background concept
Bitcoins on ladder chart cryptocurrency background concept https://www.dreamstime.com/bitcoins-ladder-chart-cryptocurrency-background-concept-image112362966

Open interest in Bitcoin (BTC) has dropped significantly following the massive decline in the price of the leading cryptocurrency within the past 24 hours.

Open Interest in BTC Drops Below $13 Billion USD

On Wednesday, the price of Bitcoin dropped to about $32,000 USD as more people sold off their holdings. This drop brought the market capitalisation of the cryptocurrency below $640 billion USD, according to data on CoinMarketCap. BTC’s drop to $32,000 USD also affected many investment products tied to it, including the futures markets.

Open interest in Bitcoin futures has dropped to about $12.9 billion USD (about 386k BTC) at the time of writing, amid the declining value of the underlying crypto asset. This represents a -25.89 percent change over the last 24 hours. Binance accounts for $2.93 billion USD of the open interest in BTC, followed by CME ($1.58 billion), and Deribit ($1.46 billion), according to the market data from ByBt.

BTC Futures Open Interest Chart [ByBt]

Over $3 Billion USD in BTC Liquidated

Many Bitcoin traders got over-leveraged as the cryptocurrency dropped to almost $30,000 USD. As per ByBt, about $3.57 billion USD worth of Bitcoin has been liquidated over the past 24 hours. This affected traders on derivatives exchanges with a long position.

Total BTC Liquidations by ByBt

While there could have been multiple reasons for BTC price crash, it’s also worth noting that Bitcoin is not the only cryptocurrency affected in this bear market. In fact, the market capitalization of cryptocurrencies dropped further to about $1.5 trillion USD, as Bitcoin tanked, followed by other major altcoins, including Ethereum (ETH), Binance Coin (BNB), Dogecoin (DOGE) and many more.

Open interest in Ethereum also dropped by 30 percent to $6.67 billion USD, during the time of writing.

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Bitcoin Crypto News

Bitcoin Pizza Launched to Support Bitcoin’s Software Developers

Bitcoin Pizza is the first decentralized pizza brand, uniting favourite neighbourhood pizzerias under one crypto roof.

For years, companies like Domino’s and Pizza Hut have ruled the pizza industry, displacing many small businesses, much like Uber Eats and Deliveroo type apps have challenged independent restaurants in the food delivery business.

The History of Bitcoin and Pizza

Eleven years ago, the first real-world purchase was made with Bitcoin, to order pizza online. A man named Laszlo Hanyecz famously traded 10,000 Bitcoins for two Papa John’s pizzas. May 22, 2010 is now a highly celebrated date on the crypto calendar, coined “Bitcoin Pizza Day”.

That first pizza order would be worth over $450 million AUD today given the Bitcoin (BTC) price at the time of writing. A few years later, a pizza delivery driver received a tip in Bitcoin and story kept feeding the Bitcoin & Pizza lore.

Pizzerias, united

Bitcoin Pizza is a new US pizza chain that allows you to enjoy pizza, while supporting Bitcoin developers. Customers would visit eatbitcoinpizza.com to order pizzas and have it delivered to their door in a specially customised designed Bitcoin pizza box.

Custom pizzas from Bitcoin Pizza [source]

The actual pizza would be prepared by selected restaurants that have partnered with Bitcoin Pizza, with customised pizzas added to the menu. The service is launching initially through ten cities in the USA: Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin, Houston, Boston, New York, Washington DC and Miami.

Your purchase of Bitcoin Pizza will support the HRF’s Bitcoin Development Fund research and advocate for people’s rights and liberties across the earth.

eatbitcoinpizza.com

Bitcoin Pizza is supporting the Human Rights Foundation, which has launched a fund to support open-source software developers who are making the Bitcoin network more private, decentralised, and resilient. Profits from pizza orders contribute to the HRF’s Bitcoin Development Fund.