Categories
Bitcoin Crypto News Cryptocurrencies

$860 Million In Crypto Wiped Out in a Single day — An Even More Volatile Market Ahead

These past two weeks have been interesting for the cryptomarket world: an overall bullish trend and a new all-time high of $19,918 for Bitcoin since 2017 — more financial institutions savagely acquiring BTC, famous investors highlighting crypto in general and, even more insane: at least $860 million in Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and other alts were liquidated this Tuesday, in just a few hours.

But Bitcoin takes the lead on ramping liquidations — recent data from Bybt shows how exchanges were massively liquidating trading positions after BTC dropped from 19,900 to 18,000 — which means that more than 80,500 long traders sold off their futures to avoid bigger losses.

Futures Liquidation Data chart: Source: Bybt

Binance Takes The Lead

Binance is the current platform with the most liquidated positions — and long positions were 85 % of that sum. In a single order, a trader lost $6 million on the Singapore-based Huobi-BTC, which is the largest liquidation in a single order.

This Tuesday, investors were looking to hit $20,000 on Bitcoin after the price surged again at the beginning of this week. Sadly, it never went above 19,918. This second drop — from 19,900 to 18,000 — caused more than $370 million in liquidations in less than a single hour.

Now, in Bitcoin alone, the number appears to go as high as $720M at the moment of writing.

Exchange Liquidation Data. Source: Bybt

“It Was Just A Bull Trap”

However, some traders think that this was just a correction, and a more volatile market is ahead, just as Gleen Goldman, lays it out on his Twitter account:

$20,000 is a major resistance level, and we are now seeing volumes that are rarely traded. There’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding the next move of Bitcoin, so traders must take measures before entering the market again.

Categories
Bitcoin

Grayscale’s Exec Thinks Bitcoin Rally is Just Getting Started

Grayscale Investment, an institutional-grade digital assets investment platform, has been on the upside with its assets under management (AUM). To be precise, the company has been purchasing a massive number of Bitcoin (BTC), more than miners could mine in one week. Following the increasing inflows in Grayscale, the managing director, Michael Sonnenshein, opined that such development indicates that Bitcoin is still going to do more, as the rally is just getting started.

Bitcoin Rally Isn’t Over

While speaking at CNBC’s Squawk Box on Monday, the Grayscale executive admitted that the company has been recording a huge growth in its crypto investments products. The institutional investment company provides investors exposure to cryptocurrencies via its Trust Funds, which covers Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and five other crypto products. 

When asked about the records with these products, Sonnenshein said that all the ten crypto investment vehicles are gaining huge inflows. According to Sonnenshein, the rally with the leading cryptocurrency is just getting started, if the massive capital inflows in the company indicate the current investors accumulating Bitcoin.

Grayscale Bitcoin Purchase

One evidence for the increasing capital inflows in Grayscale stands to be the Bitcoin purchases in recent weeks. The company accumulates more than miners can sell in a single week. For instance, Grayscale reportedly purchased more than 7,300 Bitcoin in the past week alone. Following Bitcoin’s price (US$19,362) at the time of writing, the latest weekly purchase is worth over US$141 million. Bitcoin miners are no longer meeting the demand in the market.

For every new block, miners received 6.25 BTC. Bitcoin miners only produce about 144 blocks daily on average. This means that, for every new week, about 6,300 new Bitcoin are added to the current circulating supply. When comparing the supply rate for Bitcoin with the current trends, it clear that there is a high demand for the cryptocurrency. This is probably one factor behind the rising price of Bitcoin, as the value of an asset is more likely to surge when the demand is greater than it sells.

Categories
Bitcoin

Over 29,000 Bitcoin Left OKEx Exchange Since Withdrawal Resumed

OKEx, a popular cryptocurrency exchange based on Malta, is seeing a massive number of Bitcoin outflow since it resumed full crypto assets withdrawal on Thursday. Mason Jang, the COO at CryptoQuant, shared on Twitter that some of the cryptocurrencies were moved to Binance mostly and other exchanges, while some took direct custody of them via hardware wallets. 

The increased outflow of Bitcoin from the exchange somewhat shows the users haven’t gotten over the sudden suspension of withdrawal, which locked them out of their cryptos for about five weeks.

OKEx Halted Crypto Withdrawals for Five Weeks

Precisely on October 16, the cryptocurrency exchange suddenly informed users that withdrawals would be temporarily halted, as one of their private key holders was out of reach. The absent staff happened to be the founder, Star Xu, who was reportedly cooperating with the Chinese authorities in an investigation. However, OKEx has resumed the withdrawal services on Thursday, as the founder was later released by the police.

Things looked somewhat awkward when the services were resumed. About 2,822 BTC flowed out of the exchange in block number 658,728 just a few hours after the resumption. This accounted for the largest single-block outflow last seen in May 2019. In total, about 24,631 BTC was transferred from the exchange on Thursday alone, accounting for the highest outflow record on OKEx not seen for the past eight months.

Outflows vs. Inflows

According to Glassnode, an on-chain crypto analytics platform, OKEx recorded a total of 29,300 BTC outflow in combination with today’s Bitcoin moves. Within the same period, however, about 21,600 BTC was deposited on the exchange, which reduced the Bitcoin balance to approximately 212k BTC. It remains unknown if the whole development with OKEx relates to the declining price of the cryptocurrency. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at US$16,737 on Coinmarketcap.

Categories
Bitcoin

PayPal User Suspended Over Suspicious Bitcoin Trading

The leading digital payment platform, PayPal, has reportedly suspended a user over suspicious Bitcoin transactions. The company launched the cryptocurrency services a few days ago, and the development today probably marks the first time where a customer is suspended due to digital currency. Meanwhile, PayPal’s entry into the cryptocurrency market was considered a huge milestone owing to its prominence around the world. 

Already, it is recording massive volumes in Bitcoin transactions. 

PayPal Red-Flags Suspicious Bitcoin Trades

According to the affected user (TheCoolDoc on Reddit), the company suspended the account because he made too many Bitcoin transactions. Meanwhile, the user claimed that he only conducted about ten crypto transactions within a week. He usually bought at lower prices to sell only when the cryptocurrency price increases. 

However, things got suspicious as the user began processing about $10,000 worth of crypto transactions in a week, which wasn’t seen of him in the past six years. Due to this, the account got suspended by the company, which notified him that he wouldn’t be able to make use of the account going further. PayPal is known for maintaining strict measures in monitoring transactions, even for fiat currencies. A violation of their transaction rule can cause the suspension of users’ accounts.

However, the user still maintained he didn’t violate the company’s rule, adding that PayPal had raised the weekly crypto transaction limit from $10,000 to $20,000.

PayPal records high crypto transactions

PayPal’s move into the crypto market is seen as a huge step toward more adoption for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The company has been making massive Bitcoin purchases lately as user demand rose incredibly. The CEO of Aussie Nuggets News, Alex Saunders, tweeted on Thursday that PayPal recorded more than $56 million in daily Bitcoin transaction volume.

Categories
Australia Bitcoin Industries

New Zealand Builds Green Energy Plant Partly Paid For In Bitcoin

Earlier this Autumn, TYMLEZ set out to equip the town of Tyalgum in New South Wales with green energy powered by blockchain. However, it turns out they aren’t the only blockchain-conscious fans of green energy in the area.

New Zealand’s Largest Solar Power Plant

Kea Energy has started working on the construction of the largest solar power plant in New Zealand. Construction has already started on the 2.5 MW future power plant in Marlborough.  The new power plant will take advantage of the sunny area to produce about 4500 MW of electricity – enough to power around 550 households all year-’round.

In order to build the promising new power plant, Kea Energy has paired up with solar panel manufacturer Yingli Solar Australia.

Open to environmentally-conscious energy solutions and innovative payment methods alive, Yingli Solar Australia has accepted part of the payment for their solar panels in Bitcoin.

Tim Feng – the managing director of Yingli Solar Australia – stated that although New Zealand already derives 80% of its energy from environmentally-friendly energy, he and his company is glad to be able to help New Zealand reach their target of 90% green energy production by 2025.

“Economic savings for solar systems are highly predictable and proven by the financial modeling. New Zealand has 80 percent of its electricity supplied by clean energy. However, we will need to work closely with our partners to achieve the government’s target of 90 percent of electricity to be sourced from renewables by 2025.”

Kea Energy also stated their pride to be the first company in New Zealand to install a large-scale solar farm – as well as their excitement to explore innovative payment solutions with equally innovative partners.

“We are proud to be the first company in New Zealand to install a multi-MW solar farm. Our team will be executing the entire project including design, financial procurement, and installation as well as managing the grid connection process. It’s good to work with a company as innovative as Yingli Solar who is willing to look at payment transactions such as Bitcoin.”  

The electricity produced by the solar farm will help power the local grid, further reducing the environmental impact of energy consumption in the area.

Categories
Bitcoin

New Ransomware “Egregor” is Threatening Big Companies For Bitcoin

Cybersecurity researchers have learned about new ransomware dubbed “Egregor,” which is gradually rising to pester several organizations in the world, with the recent target being the industrial goods and services companies. Using the malware, the attackers break into the companies’ systems to encrypt their data, which will only be released after victims pay a certain amount of ransom in Bitcoin

The researchers also think that ransomware attacks are just getting started. 

Video Gaming Firms Ubisoft, Crytek Already Affected by Egregor

The ransomware was first discovered in September, but it’s spreading rapidly across the world. Popular video gaming companies, such as Ubisoft, Crytek, bookseller Barnes & Noble, and 71 other organizations have been affected by the Egregor malware in more than 19 countries. 

Due to the rate at which the ransomware is spreading, the researchers at Digital Shadows opined that the attackers could be warming up with the attacks after meticulously planning their activities. One of the cybersecurity analysts, Lauren Palace, commented:

“The level of sophistication of their attacks, adaptability to infect such a broad range of victims, and significant increase in their activity suggests that Egregor ransomware operators have been developing their malware for some time and are just now putting it to (malicious) use.”

Ransomware attacks for Bitcoin

They further explained that the main motive for the Egregor attacks is to generate money for the people behind it, just like other ransomware gangs do. As the malware encrypts vital information from the organization’s database, the attackers would threaten to expose the information (usually confidential data) to the public, except the victimized companies comply with paying a ransom in Bitcoin.

They prefer using digital currency as the payment method due to the anonymity it provides for the users. Recently, CipherTrace confirmed in a report that Bitcoin and Monero, a privacy coin, are the two most-used digital currencies by bad actors and the darknet marketplaces. 

Categories
Bitcoin Investing Japan

Japan’s SBI Holdings to Launch Crypto Lending Service via VCTrade

Major Japanese financial services provider SBI Holdings has announced the launch of a new cryptocurrency lending service via its crypto subsidiary VC Trade.

The new service, named simply as VC Trade Lending, will allow customers to earn interest by lending out their cryptocurrency holdings to other crypto enthusiasts for a period of 84 days. Initially the platform will support only Bitcoin (BTC) but SBI Holdings plans on adding other major coins like Ethereum (ETH) and XRP at a later date.

SBI Holdings announced the new service earlier today in a press release posted in Japanese on its official website. The release outlines the conditions related to the new service, including the level of interest users can earn set at the relatively small amount of only 1.0%. Considering the huge gains Bitcoin has been making lately, this seems like a bad choice of investment. However, for those investors with a low level of risk aversion, it promises guaranteed returns rather than the potentially huge losses one could accrue trading cryptocurrencies on the open market.

Following the news earlier this year of lending platform Cred Inc. going bankrupt and failing to pay out its customers, SBI Holdings is aware of the skepticism around crypto lending services. To this end, it has assured customers that all assets are lent to companies within the SBI Group, mitigating any risk of third-party losses. 

Other conditions include a minimum loan amount of 0.1 BTC (approximately AUD$2,600) and a maximum of 5 BTC (approximately AUD$130,000). Users of the VC Trade Lending service won’t be charged any account management or annual membership fees and won’t have to pay for cryptocurrency transfers or deposits made in Japanese Yen. However, there is a small fee charged for withdrawals in Yen.

Expanding Crypto Products

The move follows a prior expansion of its crypto offerings in August this year, when SBI Holdings launched a cryptocurrency derivatives product on its SBI FX Trade platform. The service allowed users to buy and trade CFDs (contracts for difference) with the top three major cryptocurrencies Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and XRP. 

Each coin was available for trade in pairs with both USD and Japanese Yen, with a high maximum of 500 BTC. However, CFD offerings have come under intense scrutiny lately, particularly in the UK, where local regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has called for a ban on the product.

The ease of entry the product provides makes it very attractive to amateur traders who may not know what they are buying into and fall foul to fraud. More often than not, CFDs are presented in a way that makes them difficult to understand and highly risky for the buyer, leading financial regulators to question the ethics of the product.

Categories
Bitcoin Crypto News Cryptocurrencies

The Wall Street Journal Discusses Bitcoin And The Adoption Of Cryptocurrencies By Institutional Investors

It has been an exciting two months for the cryptocurrency world, especially for Bitcoin. Since it rallied 80 % in just two months, it has settled new market capitalization records and capturing a lot of mainstream media attention. Now BTC lands on the homepage of The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

In a new report, WSJ discusses the embrace of Bitcoin among institutional traders — also highlighting how BTC gained the attention of famous multimillionaires investors, like Paul Tudor Jones and Stan Druckenmiller — both speaking highly positively about Bitcoin over the past few months.

The Wall Street Journal emphasizes how retail investors, hedge funds, and other companies are hungry for buying and holding cryptocurrency — especially BTC.

The Rapid Growth and Adoption of Bitcoin

More institutions and online financial services are embracing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies every day — giving them a big boost in their prices. But also making them more scarce: Grayscale, 3iQ, and ETC Group alone have acquired over 24,000 BTC. That’s roughly translated to $457.764.000,00 million.

This week, BTC reached a level of USD 18,900 (25,700 AUD) on the daily chart, trading as high as 19,400 — prices that are rarely traded.

As more high-net-worth investors and financial institutions buy Bitcoin, BTC replaces gold as a store of value, breaking their correlation.

Gold vs Bitcoin correlation

Public figures like Dan Schulman, CEO of PayPal, also spoke about Bitcoin, stating his bullish position with BTC and how cryptocurrencies are moving away from being “just an asset“:

As paper money slowly dissipates and disappears from how people are using transactions, central banks especially on the retail side will need to replace paper money with forms of digital fiat currency.

Stated Schulman for CBNC.

PayPal made a considerable impact in the cryptocurrency world these past months — the company recently removed its waitlist for US residents to buy and hold crypto-assets — and together with Cash App, they have accumulated over 70 % of newly mined Bitcoins.

Categories
Bitcoin

Institutional Call? Grayscale, 3iQ, ETC Group Stacked up Over 24,000 BTC Last Week

Bitcoin adoption among institutional investors has been rising tremendously since the current bullish tide began. This is evident as institutional-grade investment platforms have been posting substantial records and have also accumulated more Bitcoin so far. Just in the past week, Grayscale Investments, 3iQ, and ETC Group purchased over 24,000 BTC, according to new data. 

The record simply translates to more interest and demand for the leading digital currency amongst institutional investors.

Institutions are Increasingly Buying Bitcoin

A recent diagram from Crypto Crunch App summarized the Bitcoin purchases across the three platforms. 

Grayscale Investments is one of the largest Bitcoin fund managers. According to the information, it purchased about 20,336 BTC in just the past week. At the moment, its assets under management (AUM) are worth more than US$11 billion. The assets are dominated by its Bitcoin Trust fund, which is worth about US$9.65 billion. Other top-ranking Grayscale Trust funds cover Ethereum (US$1.2 billion) and the Digital Large Cap Fund (US$155 million).

From the recent Bitcoin purchase, Grayscale currently has about 526,764 BTC from its Trust Fund. Likewise, the total number of Bitcoin held by the Canadian investment fund manager, 3iQ, increased to about 13,765 BTC, after an additional purchase of 3,140 BTC last week. ETC Group made the third-largest Bitcoin purchase last week, raising its Bitcoin holdings by 895 BTC to a total of 8,312 BTC.

More purchase, more scarcity

Most recently, Crypto News Australia reported that Square’s Cash App and PayPal purchased more than 100 percent of newly-mined Bitcoin – signaling more adoption amongst retail investors. Together with the report today, it is evident that there is currently a strong demand for cryptocurrencies from both retail and institutions. This demand was even attributed as one of the factors behind the runs in the Bitcoin price.

Noteworthily, Bitcoin supply was recently reduced after the third halving. As the demand continues to grow – with less supply – the cryptocurrency gets more scarce, which is speculated to drive up prices even higher. However, it remains largely unknown how Bitcoin will react amidst the growing demand. 

Categories
Australia Bitcoin Bitcoin Cash Coinbase Ethereum Litecoin

Australian Online Pet Shop Now Accepts Cryptocurrency As Payment

Pet Parlour is the first Australia pet shop to accept cryptocurrency through their partnership with digital currency exchange Coinbase. Customers can pay using Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dai, Ethereum or Litecoin.

Launching in November, Pet Parlour aims to deliver high quality pet products fast to Australian consumers. Founder Tom Sadler says,

“Our approach is unique in the Australian market. We wanted to offer our customers every possible payment solution. By offering multiple payment options we are aiming for a frictionless customers experience.”

At the moment, it looks like the pet shop mainly offers Dog products including dog food, toys and shampoo. They are supporting many brands, including the Australian Naturals range, where every product bought also supports an Australian business.

Along with accepting cryptos as payment, customers also have the option of paying via Visa, Mastercard, PayPal or Afterpay.

Developing Trend – Australian Businesses Accepting Crypto as Payment

Cryptocurrency is not yet adopted mainstream as an everyday payment option, but this trend is slowly changing as we see more Australian businesses consider accepting it.

While Pet Parlour is the first Australian pet shop to go down this route, it’s a trend we have seen emerge from other industries. South Korean electronics giant Samsung Group renewed its partnership with crypto shopping application Lolli earlier this month, providing opportunities for shoppers to earn reward points in Bitcoin when shopping for Samsung products.

Cryptocurrency is growing in popularity, and we are starting to see many online shops support them as a payment method across Australia. Previously we have also seen many Australian restaurants support cryptocurrencies as payment. With worldwide e-commerce sales also rising it has been also suggested we may see giants such as Paypal and Amazon enter the e-commerce space soon. And we also saw Mastercard announce Crypto Card Partner Program, Making it Easier for Consumers to Hold and Activate Cryptocurrencies.

This highlights the potentials of cryptocurrency becoming a legitimate form of value transfer.

Get Involved

If you’re looking to accept cryptocurrencies for your business we have a guide to help you set that up. And if you’re a customer looking to buy online with cryptocurrencies then checkout our Crypto Visa Cards review.