Crypto markets still range bound; Bitcoin, BCH and BSV moving marginally, Litecoin, BNB and ADA fall back. Market Wrap It has been another day of consolidation for crypto markets as they end the week flat. Very little movement outside of the channel has occurred this week as total market capitalization has been range bound around the $250 billion level. Things have picked up marginally for some crypto assets but others have lost ground.
Bitcoin hit an intraday high of just above $8,300 a few hours ago but pulled back to its current price of $8,230. The move is bullish but not strong enough to break the resistance at this level. Volume has picked up again and is approaching $20 billion which is a sign that further gains could be on the cards.
Ethereum is still flat and holding around $255. There has been very little momentum in the ETH camp and it is down 1.5 percent on the day. Volume is declining as the head and shoulders formation reaches its closure and a drop could be imminent. Current support for ETH lies at $230.
The top ten is showing more red than green during Asian trading this morning. The only two aside from Bitcoin that are up on the day are Bitcoin Cash with 2.5 percent and Bitcoin SV with 3.5 percent. The rest are in the red with Litecoin and Binance Coin dropping the most at over 3 percent each.
Top twenty movements are also minimal with a couple of percent being dropped by Cardano and Tron. Gaining a similar amount are Cosmos and NEO reaching $6.25 and $13.13 respectively. The rest are plus or minus a percent or so as the crypto consolidation continues.
FOMO: Chainlink Spikes on Google Hints It comes as no surprise that today’s top one hundred top performer is Chainlink. The 43 percent spike came after Google Cloud dropped hints that it would be working with Ethereum based LINK. The Reddit feed went wild and the altcoin spiked in volume from $24 million to $390 million as the fomo frenzy gathered pace. Binance is getting the majority of trade at the moment with 67 percent.
Energi is a newcomer to the top one hundred with a 30 percent pump as NRG gets listed on KuCoin. Bytom has also had a productive 24 hours with 14 percent added. As predicted the big dump is Aurora as it peaks and troughs on a daily basis, today dumping 50 percent for no obvious reason.
Total market cap 24 hours. Coinmarketcap.com Total crypto market capitalization is currently marginally higher than this time yesterday at $262 billion. Markets are still range bound however and are unlikely to see any bigger moves until Bitcoin breaks out. The push back above $8,200, albeit briefly, is a bullish sign though so the weekend in crypto land could get interesting.
Market Wrap is a section that takes a daily look at the top cryptocurrencies during the current trading session and analyses the best-performing ones, looking for trends and possible fundamentals.
Crypto markets sliding slowly; EOS, Cosmos ETC accelerating losses, BSV and Tron holding steady. Market Wrap The crypto correction appears to have slowed today but has not reversed and the short term trend is still downwards. Markets have settled a little following yesterday’s big dump but further losses could be imminent. Total market capitalization has now dropped below $250 billion.
Bitcoin has spent a large part of the past 24 hours hovering around $8,000 but could not hold that level. A slide last night dropped it back below $7,500 but BTC has since recovered marginally. Lower highs and lower lows indicate further losses however; Bitcoin is currently trading at $7,750.
Ethereum has weakened slightly and is now back below $245. Price has turned short term bearish and it is likely to mimic what Bitcoin does over the course of the day. Major ETH support lies at $240.
The top ten is still largely in the red for the third day this week. Losses have decelerated though and altcoins appear to be preparing for a bounce which may be short lived. EOS has dumped a further 6 percent dropping back to $6.20 while Litecoin hold steady above it in fifth. The rest have not moved much aside from Bitcoin SV which, adding another 4 percent, could be manipulated again.
Top twenty movements during Asian crypto trading today are larger, and mostly in a southerly direction. Ethereum Classic has dumped the most with 11 percent back to $8.18 while Cosmos is close behind dropping 8. NEO and Tezos continue their slide with another 6 percent lost each. Only Tron is making a little back today as 4 percent is added to TRX to reach $0.035.
FOMO: HedgeTrade Hedges In Something called HEDG has surged into the top one hundred with a 50 percent pump today however an obscure spike in price that instantly dumped is responsible. GXChain and Bytom are both going strong at the time of writing with 14 percent added each and Revain has been revived with a 13 percent gain on the day.
At the messy end of the tables Crypto.com Chain sliding back 12 percent. Ravencoin is also in a bad way this morning with an 8 percent dump.
Total market cap 24 hours. Total crypto market capitalization has declined for another day but only by 1.6 percent to $248 billion. Over the week a downtrend has started to form and losses could accelerate if Bitcoin and its brethren cannot hold their support levels. Daily volume is still a high $80 billion and BTC dominance has crept back up to 55.7 percent.
Market Wrap is a section that takes a daily look at the top cryptocurrencies during the current trading session and analyses the best-performing ones, looking for trends and possible fundamentals.
Crypto markets holding on to weekend gains; Bitcoin still dominating, XRP moving up, ETH retreating slowly. Market Wrap Crypto markets have held on to weekend gains and there has been no typical ‘Red Monday’ reaction so far. Bitcoin’s surge to new 2019 highs has buoyed up markets and several altcoins have also gained. A number have fallen however, but in general total market capitalization is high and holding above $280 billion.
Bitcoin traded above $9,300 twice yesterday marking a new high for thirteen months. A pullback dropped BTC price back to high $8,000s but it quickly recovered during Asian trading today to reach $9,200 again at the time of writing. Technical indicators and historical highs show a lot of resistance at $9,600 which will need to be broken for BTC to hit five figures.
Ethereum got a weekend boost reaching $278 but it has not been able to follow Bitcoin and hold those gains. ETH is down 2 percent since yesterday dropping prices back below $270. The longer term trend for ETH is still up though so more momentum could take it to $280 this week.
The top ten is pretty mixed during Asian trading on Monday morning. XRP is showing a little progress with a further 2 percent added taking it to $0.429. Litecoin has remained flat following its epic rise last week and is still at $135 and the rest are level with yesterday’s prices.
Top twenty movements are also mixed with Cosmos and Tezos getting the best performance adding over 4 percent each to reach $6.54 and $1.33 respectively. NEO has added almost 3 percent and NEM is back in the big twenty with a 5 percent gain. As above, the rest are pretty flat this morning.
FOMO: A Smiles For Grin Entering the crypto top one hundred with a 12 percent push is Grin, a private lightweight blockchain based on mimblewimble. The only thing that could be driving momentum is an approaching hard fork next month. Bytom is the only other double digit altcoin today with 11 percent added, BitTorrent token is third gaining over 8 percent.
There are no big dumps going on as markets remain flat on the day. At the bottom of the pile right now is Dent, MaidSafeCoin, and KuCoin Shares dropping 5-6 percent.
Total market cap 24 hours. Coinmarketcap.com Total crypto market capitalization is at $284 billion, holding gains but remaining flat over the past 24 hours. Since last Monday crypto markets have gained a solid 16 percent, driven largely by Bitcoin. Over the same period daily volume has jumped from $60 to $75 billion. Bitcoin dominance is also up to 57.3 percent as it continues to eat into lack luster altcoins.
Market Wrap is a section that takes a daily look at the top cryptocurrencies during the current trading session and analyses the best-performing ones, looking for trends and possible fundamentals.
Energi (NRG) has been one of the biggest movers in the cryptocurrency space over the last couple of days - catapulting into the top 100.
At its core, the NRG blockchain is trying to take distributed ledger technology to the masses and achieve widespread adoption. Energi wants to build a secure, user-friendly platform that is trusted and globally accepted.
However, are these ambitions too lofty? What makes this project so valuable to investors now?
In this Energi review, I will attempt to answer that. I will also look at the use cases and potential for their native NRG coin.
Like most other cryptocurrencies, Energi is decentralized and blockchain based. Its focus is on decentralized applications and smart contracts, and it has a good method of governance along with a self-funding treasury model intended to assist in making it the largest, most popular blockchain platform in the world.
The Energi project began in the summer of 2017 as a fork of the Dash blockchain. At the time it used a Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism, with an ASIC resistant algorithm called Energi hash that is similar to Ethereum’s Ethash.
Since then it has transitioned to a Proof-of-Stake consensus with a network of masternodes. These masternodes provide usability and some of the notable features of Energi.
Masternodes ❓: If you are uncertain as to what masternodes are and how they work you can read our comprehensive Masternode guide.
Although Energi is a fork of Dash, it has been highly modified and has enhanced privacy, lower fees and higher scalability when compared with Dash.
The self-funding treasury system of Energi and on-chain governance system was enacted to ensure the long-term development of the project and serves as a means to attract contributors and developers.
Energi FeaturesEnergi has the same basic features you will find with nearly any blockchain project; decentralization, an on-chain governance model, its own HD wallet, and trustless transactions.
It has also put a spin on some common features to make them more useful.
Self-Funding TreasuryA self-funding treasury isn’t an unusual feature in a masternode blockchain, but Energi has one of the largest percentage allocations to the treasury of any masternode blockchain. A full 40% of the released NRG goes to the treasury.
The Treasury Cycle at Energi. Image via Whitepaper
Since there are 1 million NRG released every month, and there’s no cap on the total coin supply, this gives the treasury 400,000 NRG every month to be used for marketing and development of the project. This is meant to ensure longevity for the project, providing funds to improve technology, grow the community, and to compensate developers.
Because there is no supply limit Energi has allocated this large percentage to the treasury to improve the decentralization of the blockchain, and to maintain the performance of the network.
Built-in GovernanceLike many of the other more recent blockchain projects, Energi has included a community-based governance model. In the Energi model, any stakeholder can submit a proposal for open consideration by the community.
Then, once done, the masternode owners then vote on the proposals to determine whether they will be implemented or not. This governance model was chosen because it not only encourages adoption by giving users a voice, it also helps with scalability and increases the stability of the network.
Masternode BenefitsAs a fork of Dash, the Energi network includes both the Instant Send and Private Send transaction features, but the masternodes of Energi allow this with improved transaction speed and with lower fees.
Masternode returns for Energi blockchain. Image via whitepaper
Because Energi has a 2 Mb block size and 1 minute block time users benefit with minuscule fees and quick transactions. Scalability is also improved by using masternodes, with the scalability of the network growing as the number of active masternodes grows.
DApps and Smart ContractsThe planned network of dApps will give the Energi network usability that will help it realize its goal of global adoption. And the addition of smart contracts will increase trustlessness, security, speed, efficiency and transparency for the entire Energi ecosystem.
Smart contracts will also help promote development, which in turn will bring in new users and investors to increase the value of NRG as it becomes increasingly valuable as a currency for developing and powering dApps, as well as the base currency in the planned Energi X exchange.
MasternodesAnyone is able to host a masternode by staking 10,000 NRG. At current prices, this amounts to an investment of $86,100 as of July 5, 2019.
The masternodes provide several of Energi’s features, including the Private Send and Instant Send functionality, as well as self-funding and self-governance and increased scalability and security for the network.
Masternode owners are rewarded for securing the network with NRG. 40% of the NRG generated is allocated to masternodes. This is roughly 400,000 NRG per month. Currently, there are 798 masternodes, which means each masternode is receiving around 500 NRG per month, which is equivalent to just over $4,300. That’s $51,600 annually or an annual return of 60%.
Setting up a masternode is not extremely straightforward and you need a bit of command line experience to do it. The Energi team have tried to make it as easy as possible with this pretty intuitive guide.
Alternatives ❓: Those who have less than 10,000 NRG can also stake their coins and receive staking return. The minimum required to stake a coin is only 1 NRG and it is also that much easier to set up and configure.
The Energi TeamThe Energi team consists of 18 dedicated and knowledgeable individuals, all of whom are committed to blockchain technology and the creation of a decentralized network that is self-funding and community governed. They come from a wide variety of disciplines, including development, operations, marketing, and of course entrepreneurship.
The CEO and founder of Energi is Tommy, also known as TommyWorldPower from his Twitter and YouTube accounts. He is a well-known blockchain evangelist and educator within the blockchain space. His understanding of how blockchain functions and its prospective uses were the inspiration and foundation of the Energi platform.
Some Energi Team Members. From Left: Tommy, Ryan Lucchese & Andrey Galkin
The president of Energi is Ryan Lucchese who oversees the day-to-day operations. He has a strong background in software development which is no doubt an asset for the Energi project. Prior to starting at Energi, he was an engineer at Hyland Software and NCH Software.
In the lead developer seat is a guy called Andrey Galkin. His linkedin does not list his experience on Energi but perhaps that is an omission. Andrey has a long engineering background and has held numerous roles in both Enterprise and startup environment.
These are only some of the team members but you can view the rest of their credentials over on their team page.
When a cryptocurrency launches with no ICO or premine, it does not have I large marketing budget to spread awareness of the coin. This is where a strong and engaged community can help.
To that end, Energi has a pretty sizable community behind it.
For example, they have a large member count in their Telegram channel with over 14k members. I decided to jump into the channel to get a better sense of the ongoing conversation.
Energi Telegram Channel
As you can see, the Admins are quite helpful to the community member and the conversation above. There is also a distinct lack of your typical "moon boys" in this channel which is a good sign.
Apart from their telegram channel, they also have a Discord server which could be an attractive alternative for those users who prefer this platform.
On the social media front, Energi has a pretty decent following on Twitter with over 30k followers. They regularly keep their users up to date here with the latest developments. There is decent engagement with these tweets.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that Energi also has an official blog that they contribute to regularly. This helps to keep the broader cryptocurrency community informed.
The NRG TokenNRG began as a Proof-of-Work coin with no ICO and no pre-mine. The mainnet launch was announced and mining began fairly.
The first listing for NRG on CoinMarketCap was August 24, 2018, with an opening price of $0.264592. Price jumped higher by around $0.10 immediately and spent several months trading between the all-time low of $0.244958 and roughly $0.40.
In October 2018 the coin began trending higher after masternode payments began, and reached levels over $1 as November began. This rally is much earlier than the Bitcoin rally and the end of the crypto bear market for the broader cryptocurrency space.
NRG Coin Price Performance. Image via CMC.
Price dipped in January and February 2019, but never below $0.54 and by March NRG was trading above $1 again. It remained between $1 and $2 in April 2019, then moved to a range of $2 to $3 in May 2019.
The real rally began in June 2019, with NRG reaching an all-time high of $9.90 on June 25, 2019. Since then it has pulled back somewhat and trades at $8.61 as of July 5, 2019.
For those interested, the Energi team has been conducting airdrops of the coin and there is one final round of 1 million NRG to be airdropped. Details can be found here once the airdrop round begins.
Trading & Storage of NRGIf you would like to buy or trade your NRG, then there are a limited number of exchanges that you can use. These include the likes of Digifinex, Kucoin and Cryptobridge.
Digifinex has the bulk of the volume though and turnover rates appear to be on the lower end for a coin with such a large market cap. This means that liquidity could provide a challenge for those traders who are trying to execute large block orders.
Once you have got your NRG tokens, you are going to want to move them off of the exchanges. We are all too aware of the risks that come from a large centralised exchange hacks.
If you are looking to merely send / receive the coins and "hodl" them for price appreciation then you can use the Coinomi wallet. This is a third party wallet that has support for an additional 500+ cryptocurrencies. It is available on mobile and desktop across multiple operating systems.
Unfortunately, the Coinomi wallet cannot be used to stake coins. If you would like to do this then you will have to download and install their core wallet. There are also a whole host of more advanced functions that the core wallet can execute.
Energi DevelopmentI consider project development progress as a critical metric that one should track. This can give you an idea of just how much work is actually being done on a daily basis.
Although some developers may work in private, those projects that are open source should use a public code repository. Thankfully, Energi has a public GitHub that allows us to dig into their code.
Below are the GitHub commits for the main core Energi Protocol repository:
Commits for Energi over the past 12 months
As you can see, the developers have been quite busy sending coding updates to their core protocol. Its also worth noting that there are a further 14 repositories in their GitHub although only 4 have any code commits over the past year.
Comparing the coding commits for the core repository with that of the rest of the cryptocurrency complex, it is reasonably positioned. For example, they are ranked at 134 on this site which is just between Bytom and the Request Network.
Indeed, this coding activity could make more sense when you take a look at the broader roadmap. The Energi team has been meeting a number of key milestones and there are some really interesting updates that are planned...
Energi RoadmapI include this section because I feel it’s relevant to know what the team has planned for the future. The reason this is relevant is that Energi depends on a dApp platform and smart contract functionality, but so far it has neither of these. Currently, the project is little more than another masternode blockchain with its own cryptocurrency.
The Energi roadmap is complete and gives good details of the development plans for the coming 18-24 months.
The most important item on the roadmap now is the launch of Energi 3.0 in the fourth quarter of 2019. This will include smart contracts and will allow for the migration of Ethereum dApps and is the first real step towards the goal of global adoption.
Worth Considering?Energi has rocketed into many traders awareness as it has come from over 200th in market cap to 58th as of July 5, 2019. Its listing on the popular DigiFinex and KuCoin platforms is certainly positive too.
Considering the rally in NRG began back in October it may not follow the lead of Bitcoin. It could also pullback leading up to the launch of Energi 3.0, which I would expect will spark a new rally as smart contract and dApp functionality are core features of the platform.
You might wonder why this coin has gained 300% in June when right now it’s little more than a PoS masternode coin. There’s been no earth-shattering news from the project and no major developments. Does that mean this has been a manipulated pump of the coin? There’s no way to tell for sure, but if that’s true these gains will quickly evaporate.
Energi - Yay or Nay?
Consider too that even though Energi says their launch was fair, there was actually no public announcement of the mainnet until block height 171897. That’s hardly fair, and with the treasury getting 40% of rewards and the founders receiving 10% of rewards there’s no reason for this type of trickery.
The runup in price has made it more expensive to run a masternode, but the return is still quite good. That might not continue to be the case as new investors setup masternodes to take advantage of the 60% annual returns being generated.
Energi says they want to be the leading global cryptocurrency, but nearly all blockchain projects have that goal. Energi has certainly made great strides recently, but what makes the project different or unique?
There will be more possibilities with the introduction of smart contracts and dApps, but Energi still won’t be unique. And they’ve already pushed back the launch of these features from Q3 2019 to Q4 2019.
So, you will have to decide whether NRG are still attractive at these levels or whether a retracement is imminent - which could present additional opportunities.
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BYTOM, a blockchain protocol held its 2019 Developer Conference named Bytom DevCon2 on 24th August in Fort Mason, San Francisco.
The purpose of this conference is to promote the Blockchain Technology application, develop sustainable open source ecology and motivate developer talents.
For this Developer challenge, more than 50 teams from US, Russia, India, Belgium, Brazil, Nigeria, and China registered and out of which, the six winning teams presented their demo show. The first prize among those six teams was captured by PAYPAW TEAM FROM CANADA, which developed a BTM micropayment system and they received $30,000 equivalent in BTM tokens.
This DevCon by Bytom was the second conference after last year’s conference which was held in 2018. Many famous speakers including directors or co-founders of famous organizations like Darin Kotalik, Naveed Ihsanullah, Nick White, Mo Dong, Daniel Yan, Zera Alexander was invited by Bytom DevCon who discussed in public blockchains, investments, and digital assets.
The conference started with Duan Xinxing, CEO of Bytom who discussed that he wanted to create digital assets internet to support multiple assets and programmable the economy also revealing the recent release of Bystack, a blockchain service platform with mainchain-sidechain design to which already one sidechain having 42 partners have integrated. James Zhu discussed that he would release Bystack roadmap in the near future meanwhile working on BBFT 2.0 and Bytom 1.2 release. Wei Wang showed that the BBFT algorithm, TPS on sidechain could reach 20k with the confirmation time 0.6 seconds per transaction having fork probability of 0.27% where MATPool stated to provide most profitable tokens automatically using Mining as a service (MaaS).
Mo Dong told he wants to promote adoption of blockchain through games, Steven yang discussed regarding value creation in digital assets, Zera Alexander’s thoughts were that stable coins would boom in the future, and Daniel Yan shared Hong Kong and Singapore as Asia’s best crypto business places whereas Will Yang pointed out the experience of users is more important. Lastly, Cecilia Li and TF Guo shared their thoughts regarding asset demand, value, and trading.
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Manisha Agrawal Manisha Agrawal is a cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiast. She has worked as a content writer for two years and worked as a research based blockchain blog writer too. Also, she worked as a crypto news writer with various known firms like Crypto-News India, Coingape and The Coins Report.
In 2017, China dominated cryptocurrency headlines – but to many observers, it’s now all quiet on the eastern front. But don’t let the diminished focus fool you – Chinese blockchain projects continue to innovate and build; and some are moving ever-closer to major global adoption.
On Thursday, September 6th, NEO organized a press event entitled “Symposium: Blockchain in China” which involved seven Chinese and Southeast Asian blockchain projects – NEO, Bytom, PlatON, Ontology, Vechain, Conflux, and TomoChain.
NEO Global Development (NGD)’s head of marketing, Gao Yuan, moderated the event. Discussions focused primarily on the Asian blockchain industry through 2020; driving mass adoption in China; and the Chinese regulatory environment.
Last February, NEO’s leadership outlined the roadmap to NEO3 at the second DevCon in Seattle. Since then, many of their goals have been achieved. NEO has successfully expanded the NGD Seattle team, updated NEO’s consensus algorithm, partnered with second layer solution providers, and launched a digital identity solution.
Source: NEO The project leaders discussed collaborative efforts towards building Web3 solutions, or what NEO founder Da Hongfei referred to as the next-generation internet (NGI) initiative, launched by the European Commission.
The future of blockchain in China The symposium began with a discussion of stablecoins and their potential impact on the future of Chinese exchanges. Most participants at the round table believed fiat-backed stablecoin assets could be viewed similarly to traditional currencies, which regulators may see as a replacement for conventional fiat.
Notably, the traditional industry seeks stable assets, because Bitcoin’s price volatility reduces institutional interest in using cryptocurrency for lending or settling trades. When regulators can view fiat-backed stablecoins as currency alternatives, cryptocurrency may become acceptable assets for management.
But TomoChain’s CBDO, Kyn Chaturvedi, challenges the need for banks to accept crypto-backed assets.
As centralized exchanges such as KuCoin and Binance offer “soft staking,” Chaturvedi pointed out, these platforms have become bank-like entities that manage retail investor’s assets. With staking benefits, retail investors may choose to park assets in an exchange, as opposed to a bank.
Further, the outlook through 2020 is “all about enterprise,” according to Chaturvedi. He expects decentralized finance applications to begin entering the Vietnamese and Southeast Asian markets.
Da Advocates For Blockchain Trade Organization NEO’s Da added that interoperability (or cross-chain atomic swaps) will have a more significant role moving forward.
With the digitization of assets, he pointed out, retail investors can use physical assets (i.e., mortgaging a home) for collateral. Digitizing assets also allows for user transaction history to act as a form of credit history, which may increase access to assets or settlement characteristics for users.
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Further, Da believes the conversation could begin around a type of world trade organization (WTO) between blockchain-based companies. A WTO might help to create a broader overlap across chains, much like the overlap between economies of varying countries. He went on to say that a free-trade zone among public blockchains could create a better division of labor.
For example, European and U.S.-based projects seem ever more likely to register in Switzerland, and Asian projects are often primarily interested in registering in Singapore. Something like a blockchain-WTO is necessary to consider activities allowed in specific jurisdictions.
Looking forward, Jun Li, founder of Ontology, believes changes in the coming year will meld developing countries with the internet. This could allow smaller to medium-sized platforms the opportunity to increase data points, use cases, and credibility.
Source: NEO Driving mass adoption in China Before mass commercialization of blockchain can occur, current technologies and product offerings must reach a level of maturation, which reduces friction for onboarding new users. Reducing friction for end-users is a prerequisite.
Developers and companies should make it simple for the less technologically savvy portions of the population to purchase cryptocurrencies and use decentralized applications. Further, tokens need to be integrated into current traditional platforms to replace current offerings.
Kevin Fang, founder of VeChain, is integrating the company’s blockchain technology into the existing technology of the company’s enterprise partners. As a service, VeChain outsources provider solutions that are customized for specific industry-based pain points.
For example, VeChain offers traceability to Walmart China’s supply chain for food safety. To hammer home the point of interoperability, Fang said, “enterprise partners don’t care which chain they’ll use, or if it’s a public or private chain, they just care that a traceability solution will work.”
John Wang, head of NEO Ecosystem Growth department, believes there are two areas of focus for driving mass adoption: complete ecosystems and interoperability.
First, he said, complete ecosystems are required to grow user bases and integrate blockchains. The integrity of a public blockchain is critical for the success of a project as is its ability to offer support for ecosystem partners.
Second, a single blockchain cannot serve real enterprises, just as systems, applications, and products (SAP) solutions can not address all of an industries problems. In addition to software, he said, implementation teams are also necessary to coordinate and assist enterprise partners in meeting their needs.
Ultimately, blockchain-based entities require further regulation, so they understand the limitations within which they can operate and where they stand. Without defined regulations, existing companies can get shut down when new regulations come down the pipeline.
With a clearly defined regulatory framework, blockchain can more easily integrate with current financial products and traditional industries.
China’s regulatory environment The final discussion of the symposium focused on China’s current and potential future regulatory environment.
Yuanjie Zhang, CFA of Conflux, highlighted that “blockchain and regulation aren’t incompatible.” Activities on blockchain architecture require regulation, he said, whether it’s activity through the exchanges or private wallets.
For example, U.S. projects require digital currency exchanges to submit know your customer (KYC) data. If a user gains returns from their assets through an exchange and doesn’t file taxes, authorities will soon be able to to catch tax evaders.
“If the Chinese government wants to tighten regulation,” he said, “then it just needs to look at the regulations around the world.”
Chaturvedi noted that, “In the West, we think China is strict, but there is clarity on what regulations actually are. In the US, there’s the SEC, the CFTC, FinCEN… each look at cryptocurrencies in different ways. As a result, regulation is very confusing.”
“Permissionless doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to be non-compliant,” said Ontology’s Li, noting that ICOs are banned in China because of illegal fundraising strategies. Li went on to say, “Fraud is illegal everywhere; China isn’t an exception.”
“Chinese regulation is among the strictest in the world,” added Da Hongfei. “China knows very well what can be done and what can’t be done, which is different from many regulators.” He went on to highlight that Chinese blockchain projects spend more on legal costs than blockchain companies in other countries.
With only three regulators in China that usually issue joint guidelines, Chinese-based projects like NEO better understand what can and can’t be done.
Interoperability Demonstrates Blockchain Advances NEO hosted the symposium to highlight the importance in the industry to build relationships across projects and establish interoperability protocols in the future.
Perhaps price isn’t the best indicator to measure blockchain projects’ successes and their potential moving forward.
Rather, it may be more telling to pay attention to coordination efforts between blockchain projects that have remained in the industry through the 2018 bear market.
If multiple blockchains are to succeed in the future, it is interoperability that will likely be paramount to their success – and that of the broader industry.
This article has been amended to correct a mispelling of Kyn Chaturvedi’s last name.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Dylan Grabowski. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
During the inaugural NEO Community Assembly (NCA), NEO introduced three new products. Fresh off the week-long NCA, NEO launched NEO3 Preview1, a pilot on their testnet that demonstrates considerable upgrades that could soon be incorporated on NEO’s mainnet protocol. These additions have pushed NEO closer to its anticipated NEO3 mainnet launch.
Inaugural NEO Community Assembly (NCA) Product Launches
Taking place from September 2 to 6, the NEO Community Assembly offered powerful insights into mass blockchain adoption within the China landscape by bringing together NEO as well as leading China-based projects such as Ontology, VeChain, PlatON, and Bytom. The biggest news out of this event was the release of three products focused on advancing towards next-gen Internet by enabling large-scale blockchain adoption through NEO’s signature developer-centric approach to innovation.
NEO•ONE offers an end-to-end framework for simplified programming, testing, and deployment of NEO dApps. NEO Blockchain Toolkit for .NET and NEO Express, developed by Visual Studio and Microsoft .NET, is a plug-in to improve the accessibility of smart contract development for both platforms’ large developer communities, 21 million and 7 million respectively.
Finally, NeoFS provides a system for decentralized file storage that emphasizes privacy, security, fault tolerance, scalability, and performance. The vision for NeoFS is to support dApp users who need to store data by providing a much cheaper alternative to what centralized cloud providers currently offer. The combination of all three tools are part of NEO’s strategy to strengthen the foundations of the project’s growing ecosystem.
NEO3 Preview1 Goes Live
Besides the launch of new products, the focal point of NCA was the talk surrounding the future of NEO’s protocol changes. Since the project published the NEO3 roadmap in April 2019, NEO developers have been working towards a full-scale mainnet upgrade which will provide several improvements that are vital to enterprise adoption. Recently, NEO achieved another milestone with the launch of its NEO3 Preview1 pilot on TestNet, representing a step towards NEO’s goal of building the foundation for next-gen Internet. NEO3 Preview1’s upgrades and features only apply to the TestNet. Nevertheless, they offer a compelling snapshot into NEO3 ahead of the planned migration, which is expected to happen sometime in Q1 2020.
Numerous upgrades have gone into the release of NEO3 Preview1. This includes an auto compression mechanism on P2P messages, which provides savings on space and bandwidth. In turn, this increases the possible number of transactions per second (TPS). While many changes apply to the efficiency of the blockchain itself, there are several refinements made with developers in mind. As one example, NEO 2.x has nine different transaction types that are related to a particular application scenario or provide more niche functionality. With NEO3, there will only be one transaction type. Other changes are focused on small tweaks for specific scenarios. For instance, the time unit of each block timestamp has been changed to milliseconds to open up more possibilities for IoT use cases.
It’s no secret that the decentralized oracle network Chainlink (LINK) has been one of the best performing digital assets of 2019, despite crypto winter and the absence of an altcoin rally.
And a large part of that success may be down to one word: partnership.
The ultimate irony? It may have been a mistake.
The word is over-used in blockchain circles. And a Chainlink representative was quick to contact Crypto Briefing when we reported ‘partnerships’ with companies such as IoTeX and Matic (even when one of the companies used the term itself) to request that we change the term to the more accurate ‘integration’.
In fact, the Google ‘partnership‘ reported by CoinDesk referenced a post by Google that never used the word ‘partnership’ at all.
CoinDesk never updated that headline, despite updating the article itself on September 11th, 2019.
John Biggs opened his article by claiming that “Google has tapped a startup token project, Chainlink, as an official Cloud Partner and the relationship suggests a deep and detailed interest in blockchain technology by the Mountain View giant.”
And CoinDesk wasn’t even the first: Forbes pre-dated their article, suggesting on June 13th that “Google software will be able to integrate data from sources outside the blockchain through a partnership with Chainlink…” (Emphasis ours.)
Chainlink themselves did not advertise the Google integration as a partnership either – founder Sergei Nazarov called it an ‘implementation’, and the Google Cloud Partners Twitter account did not mention it.
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Chainlink has been clear on the matter: on their website, they explain that “We work with top companies like Google…, providing them the secure oracles needed for next generation smart contracts.”
We contacted Chainlink and they neither confirmed nor denied that the company was an official Cloud Partner. Multiple searches for ‘blockchain’, ‘oracle’, ‘chainlink’ and so on did not return a result on the Google Cloud Partner Directory (which, incidentally, does not appear to work on Brave).
Yet those headlines made a big impression. On June 13th, the day before CoinDesk’s article, Chainlink’s market capitalization was at ~$400M. By June 29th, it stood at over $1.54bn.
We don’t know precisely how Forbes and CoinDesk found the Google blog post. Or whether it was sent to them with the word ‘partnership’ included or not.
But setting aside the discussion over whether the CoinDesk headline and Forbes characterization was incorrect (and if it was, the purpose of this article is not to assign blame – as previously noted, we have made the same mistake), the multiple integrations announced this year by Chainlink and other companies have clearly had a major impact on its price.
Chainlink Integrations And Price Action Chainlink has inked more than seventy integrations since it launched in late 2017. Although initially these had a limited impact on the LINK token price, the market’s reaction has grown in step with the rise in the project’s profile.
LINK has climbed steadily, moving from 38th to 15th largest cryptocurrency by market cap, since the beginning of the year. Even though the coin has been pared back from its ATH in late June, if an investor bought a dollar’s worth of LINK tokens on January 1st, they would still be worth more than $9 today, as a longer-term overview from CoinMarketCap illustrates.
Tokens have surged 800% since the beginning of the year. Source: CoinMarketCap. By Crypto Briefing’s calculations, each new integration/partnership has led to a 10% increase in the LINK price, on average. That figure falls to 7.7% if you exclude that crucial Google announcement.
The news in mid-June that BigQuery – Google’s search engine’s data warehousing and business intelligence solution – was “integrating Chainlink into their approach to smart contract adoption” sent the LINK token price skyrocketing.
In the space of six hours, the LINK price soared by more than 70% and the market cap surged by $300M. Analysis from TheTIE shows this had a significant effect on long-term sentiment – turning an already bullish market to very bullish in the space of a few weeks.
Source: TheTIE This clearly had a discernible effect on other announcements in the ensuing weeks. LINK surged by 20% on the IoTeX (IOTX) integration on July 12 and 15% on the Elrond (ERD) July 18 announcement, all of which happened within a month or so of the Google news, causing an above-average 10% surge in the LINK price.
Interestingly, LINK rose just by 4% following the announcement with INT Chain (INT) on July 23 , fell by 1% on the Akropolis (AKRO) integration on July 25, rose slightly by 1% on QuarkChain (QKC) on July 26, and finally dropped 13% on Bytom (BTM) in July 27.
This second grouping of integrations had below-average and even negative effects on the LINK price. As the graph below shows, it coincided with a precipitous drop in tweet volumes and 30-day average daily sentiment: the first instance of a move into the ‘bearish’ camp since the Google BigQuery announcement.
Source: TheTIE What this shows is that significant announcements – the sort of development that creates surging prices and a volte-face in sentiment – can have a longer-term influence on other positive news.
Like a new version of the ‘Coinbase Effect’, which could exert a strong influence on trading behavior, integrations a month after BigQuery led to higher average increases in the LINK prices, something that quickly subsided as sentiment began to pare back.
That might explain why integrations at the end of July received below-average price increases.
Cryptocurrencies are driven by sentiment much more than any other asset-class.
Using Chainlink announcements as an example, traders can see just how long sentiment’s reach really is, and how much it can be driven by one headline.
Even if the headline that drives the sentiment may not be entirely accurate.
Jon Rice contributed additional research and analysis to this article.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Paddy Baker. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
After the events of last week, news from China keeps on coming. After China’s president, Xi Jinping, urged the country to increase its usage of blockchain technology, crypto prices have gone through the roof. The overall cryptocurrency market experienced a significant uptick initially, but that wasn’t enough for Chinese projects, as some have continued to surge by the hour.
Chinese Crypto Projects to the Moon Friday was a day filled with optimism in the crypto market. The president of China made an announcement that appears to have had a huge impact on the industry. According to Xi Jinping, the country should invest more in blockchain tech in light of its “critical role in technology innovations and industrial revolutions”.
The community was quick to react, and gains were had all over the place, especially for China-based projects. While most altcoins are surging against the USD but falling against Bitcoin, NEO, Ontology, Qtum, Bytom, GXChain are all skyrocketing at the moment.
Bytom’s rise is the most notable one as of now, having increased more than 75% against BTC and 85% against the US dollar.
BTM/BTC Bittrex. Source: TradingView Ontology has risen 40% against BTC and 45.5% against the dollar.
ONT/BTC Binance. Source: TradingView NEO is trading at $11.71, having risen 35% against the dollar and 27% against BTC.
NEO/BTC Binance. Source: TradingView As impressive as these surges are, these projects’ all time highs are even higher. Bytom’s current price ($0.143) is down 85% from its ATH of $1.17. Similarly, ONT is down 90% from $10 to $0.95, and NEO has fallen 94% from its ATH of $196.
You may also like: Trump Heads to Beijing for High-Stakes Xi Summit: What It Means for Bitcoin Why Has Bitcoin Dumped 50% When Global Liquidity Has Increased? Chinese-Language Laundering Networks Now Dominate a Fifth of Global Illicit Crypto Flows Chinese Interest Picks Up Xi’s announcement regarding blockchain has had a significant impact in other areas as well. It’s still hard to say if that was the only reason for the substantial price surge, but it’s safe to assume that it played a role.
CryptoPotato reported earlier today on increased interest in blockchain and Bitcoin among the Chinese public. The China-based multi-purpose app WeChat showed a 1,200% increase for blockchain-related searches on the 25th of October. Also, a new cryptocurrency law is set to become active in the country starting next year.
Interestingly, the CEO of US-based Facebook last week urged his own country to invest more in blockchain, lest it fall behind other countries such as China.
This weekend has been one of the best in recent history in terms of crypto asset performance. Bitcoin’s epic rally to retouch five figures has given its brethren a boost but there appears to be a pattern emerging. Chinese crypto assets are leading the way resulting in speculation that the red dragon may have just ignited another altseason.
Chinese Crypto Bulls Awaken Most altcoins have remained on the floor this year. A brief move in summer renewed hope that an altseason may be about to begin again but that was quashed when all gains evaporated over the past few months.
Only a tiny handful of altcoins have made serious progress this year, the majority are still over 80% down from their all-time highs.
As Bitcoin got a major boost late last week from the Chinese president, crypto asset markets increased by 25%, or over $50 billion in just a day or two. Many of those low lying altcoins started to surge and Chinese ones were leading the pack as the fomo builds.
Tron has been explosive over the past day with a 30% surge to reach $0.021 or 215 satoshis. Daily volume is almost $2 billion which has push market capitalization up to $1.9 billion. Chinese entrepreneur and project CEO Justin Sun has been a marketing machine and he didn’t miss the opportunity to post that TRX was now a top ten crypto asset again.
Back to TOP 10. #TRON #TRX $TRX $BTT pic.twitter.com/kTMIof3PIT
— H.E. Justin Sun 👨🚀 🌞 (@justinsuntron) October 28, 2019
There has also been a lot of Tether printing recently for chain swaps to the TRC-20 standard which Poloniex, Huobi and Bitfinex are now supporting.
VeChain is another Chinese crypto project and it is no surprise that this token is also surging 30% at the moment. VET has spiked to 44 satoshis in under 24 hours as the fomo intensifies in the People’s Republic. Bytom, another Chinese dominated crypto platform, has pumped over 100% in 24 hours as BTM topped $0.18.
NEO is another solid performer as this ‘Chinese Ethereum’ has cranked 35% on the day. Late last week NEO was trading below $7 and by Monday morning it had topped $12. Daily volume has surged from around $225 million late last week to $1.3 billion at the moment which equals that during the January 2018 peak.
There have been continual updates and development on the blockchain and network but until this weekend NEO has not performed at all. When NEO does perform well, its sibling tokens also get a lift and GAS and Ontology are cranking higher today.
Not So Fast … Not all are so optimistic however and the Chinese fomo should be taken with caution according to some crypto analysts. Alex Krüger noted that China will not allow public decentralized crypto assets and is all about control;
“Odds of China supporting public blockchains with tradeable tokens that can be used for speculation and moving money out of China bypassing capital controls … are close to zero. China is not interested in decentralization but in control. Private blockchains don’t need tokens.”
This may be the case but it does seem that the China effect has caused more fomo than Bakkt, Libra and any crypto ETF promises combined.
It’s safe to say that the last few days have been nothing short of turbulent for Bitcoin. After trading in a close range for a few weeks with rather low volatility, the cryptocurrency last week recorded its largest daily price increase since 2011. In a span of about 24 hours, it surged by more than 40%, rising as high as $10,350.
Predictably, a correction soon followed. Bitcoin shed about $1,000, as its price fell to around $9,400. Bitcoin’s dominance rate also increased notably. Prior to the latest surge, Bitcoin’s share of the overall crypto market was around 65.5%, and it rose as high as 68.6% before pulling back to 67.9%.
BTC/USD. Source: TradingView Altcoins also saw substantial gains following Bitcoin’s price surge. This was especially true for Chinese projects, many of which saw massive increases. That’s perhaps to be expected, given that one of the potential reasons for the overall market increase was China’s President Xi Jinping urging the country to streamline the usage of blockchain technology.
Major Cryptocurrency Headlines Mark Zuckerberg Is Right About China: President Xi Jinping Urges Investment in Blockchain. The president of China, Xi Jinping, urged the country to increase the development and implementation of blockchain-based technology, praising its qualities and usage in various industries. Interestingly enough, this came just a couple of days after Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, said that “China is moving quickly” in this regard and that the US could fall behind if it fails to speed up.
Bitcoin’s Price Touches $10,350, Records Largest Daily Percentage Increase Since 2011. Immediately after President Xi Jinping’s speech, Bitcoin recorded its largest daily increase in percentage terms since 2011. The cryptocurrency went parabolic, spiking more than 40%. The move was sudden, and the price subsequently cooled off a bit, retracing to $9,400.
WeChat Searches For “Blockchain” Spiked 1,200% Following News of New Chinese Cryptocurrency Law. It goes without saying that regulations have a lot to do with adoption and awareness in the field of cryptocurrency. WeChat, a Chinese multi-purpose application, saw a substantial surge in searches for blockchain-related terms. The development followed not only the president’s statement but also some reported changes in the country’s cryptocurrency laws.
You may also like: Saylor Should Stop Buying Bitcoin, Says CryptoQuant Strengthening Dollar and OG Selling Pressure Keep Bitcoin Bears in Control Analyst Warns: Strategy Will Have to Sell Over 50,000 BTC by 2028 The Biggest Winners and Losers Bytom (+84.91%) Bytom, being a China-based cryptocurrency project, is among the biggest winners of the top 100. BTM has surged upwards of 86% in the past 24 hours, bringing its price to around $0.144 at the time of this writing. Trading against Bitcoin, BTM is up around 85%. It currently possesses a market cap of around $144 million and has also seen a notable increase in trading volume. Over the past day, its trading volume has exceeded $152 million.
Ontology (+33.19%) Ontology has also managed to capitalize on the latest market movement. Its price increased by about 33%, and ONT is currently trading at around $0.973. Its market cap is approximately $541 million. Interestingly enough, the cryptocurrency also made substantial gains against Bitcoin, as it’s trading around 31% higher against the leading cryptocurrency. Its trading volume is also massive – more than $709 million in the past 24 hours alone.
Nexo (-9.66%) Unfortunately, not all projects managed to catch Bitcoin’s latest wave. In the past 24 hours, Nexo has declined by about 10% against the US dollar and 11% against BTC, making it the biggest loser among the top 100 coins. Its current market capitalization is around $53 million, and its trading volume is a little more than $10 million.
Over the last three days, cryptocurrencies have registered one of the biggest price jumps and crypto enthusiasts are more optimistic than ever about the future. The market cap of the aggregate crypto market stands at around $250 billion, after gaining more than $50 billion in days. According to some analysts, this unexpected ascent was as a result of the comments made by the Chinese President Xi Jinping and the passing of the crypto law that will see increased use of blockchain technology in China.
The Chinese crypto FOMO has had a profound effect on digital assets than ever witnessed, with Chinese-centric coins posting the most gains. To cap it all off, a major Chinese bank has invested in a local bitcoin wallet provider.
Chinese Crypto FOMO Massively Pumps The Market The comments by Xi Jinping and the passing of the cryptography law came as a huge surprise to many considering the fact that China has been on the forefront to fight cryptocurrency. Now, the Chinese government is seemingly taking a bold step towards the adoption and growth of blockchain technology, presumably to gain an edge in the budding digital landscape.
On Friday last week, Jinping made some positive comments about blockchain technology. On Saturday (26/10/2019), the standing committee of the 13th National People’s Congress passed the cryptography law which will take effect early next year. This law is designed to standardize the application of passwords and the use of blockchain technology.
These events have had a tremendous effect on the crypto economy. Overall, the prices of almost all the cryptocurrencies have improved a great deal over the last few days. These gains have been monumental compared to the impact seen with Bakkt, Facebook’s Libra or the hope of approval of ETFs by the USA regulatory bodies.
Chinese-Centric Coins Record Huge Gains Although the news coming from China pumped the entire crypto markets with bitcoin, XRP, Ethereum, and other top cryptos posting considerable gains, Chinese-centric coins are noticeably enjoying the lion’s share.
TRON (TRX) has gained 15.60 percent against the US dollar in the last 24 hours. TRX climbed from $0.0137 to $0.020244 at press time. Its market capitalization stands at $1.35 billion, making TRX the tenth-ranked cryptocurrency. TRX’s ascent is as a result of several bullish reports surfacing from China. Additionally, TRON founder Justin Sun recently mentioned an upcoming partnership between Tron and a 100 billion dollar megacorporation. According to Sun, this partnership will promote the distribution of TRON Dapps and tokens to a vast number of customers.
Other cryptocurrencies that have some sort of tie to China are posting massive gains. Bytom, Ontology, VeChain, and IOST are up by 37.78%, 11.37%, 5.31%, and 8.19% respectively in just 24 hours.
Chinese Bank Invests In Bitcoin Wallet BitPie According to a couple of crypto analysts, bitcoin was headed towards a bearish territory, the Death Cross. This is a scenario that happens when the 50-day moving average drops below the 200-day moving average. In simple terms, before Friday, bitcoin’s technical outlook looked dismal but dramatically changed after comments from the Chinese leadership.
Chinese bitcoin FOMO has risen, so much so that a Chinese bank has reportedly invested in a local bitcoin wallet platform. According to a well-known industry analyst and founding partner of Primitive Crypto Dovey Wan, China Merchants Bank has invested in BitPie, one of the longest-serving bitcoin wallet provider in China. BitPie is a non-custodial wallet and so far has the largest number of users. Per Wan, this move is a continuation of the growing trend of crypto and blockchain nationalization in China. She summed it up nicely, stating:
“All I can say is this ton me it’s a sign of [the] beginning of the nationalization of Bitcoin/cryptocurrency related infra in mainland [China]. Eventually, all things can be state-owned, or at least partially (mining, ASIC, exchanges, wallets, etc).”
Does This Mean China Is Finally Unbanning Bitcoin And Cryptocurrencies? In 2017, the Chinese government restricted trading on local cryptocurrency exchanges and banned ICOs. However, it appears that the Chinese government is now taking a different approach. In addition to embracing blockchain technology, reports say that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is distributing material intended for blockchain learning, with content about bitcoin and ethereum as well.
Moreover, Sichuan Daily reported today that Yang Jiang, former Vice-chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission suggested that Sichuan province should open up more business opportunities in the region using both bitcoin and blockchain technology.
It’s worth noting that the remarks made by Jiang are not representative of the Chinese government. However, they come just a few days after the Chinese president Xi Jinping made impressive comments about blockchain. This goes to show that China is not only becoming more interested in blockchain technology but also in bitcoin.
While it is rather improbable that the Chinese government would create any kind of competition for its upcoming digital currency, the hard-line stance on bitcoin and cryptocurrencies seems to have changed considerably.
China is abuzz with all things blockchain. Since Thursday, when Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered his ringing endorsement of digital ledger technology, China has seen an abundance of new initiatives, positive sentiment and surges across cryptocurrencies and blockchain related stocks.
In late 2017, in a bid to protect retail investors burned by the ICO craze, China adopted a tough stance on cryptocurrencies, while continuing to champion blockchain, the underlying technology. The global effect wasn’t instantaneous, but many analysts saw its attitude to cryptocurrencies as a harbinger of the fall in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies over the following months.
Xi’s calls last week for China to “take the leading position” in blockchain, as a “core technology,” and for industry investment and support, have resulted in what many are calling a new boom for the industry.
Here’s how that’s playing out in China and beyond.
1. Crypto boom timeBitcoin (BTC) surged 24% in the 24 hours following Xi’s comments, reaching $10,350 in its biggest two-day leap since late 2017. Other major cryptocurrencies including Ethereum (ETH) and Ripple's XRP also saw big gains. Pundits took to Twitter to proclaim that the president’s comments had sparked a crypto boom, though not everyone was in agreement.
$BTC has moved +42% today
- 4th largest gain in history and largest since May/10/2011 (if comparing against daily returns).
- 15th largest two-day gain in history, Nov/18/2013.
Thank you China.
President Xi is the true Crypto Dad.
— Alex Krüger (@krugermacro) October 26, 2019
2. Soaring blockchain based stocks Government support of preferred Chinese industries translates to billions of dollars in cheap financing and other subsidies, with investors alert for any sign of favoritism towards a certain sector.
As a result of Xi’s pronouncement, Chinese investors have been snapping up shares in blockchain-related businesses. More than 85 stocks hit the 10 per cent upside limit that halts trading in Shenzhen and Shanghai, the Financial Times reported today. Even businesses only marginally related to blockchain benefited, including an index of blockchain-related equities compiled by data provider Wind which saw an 8.9 percent rise to its highest level since April. In Hong Kong, Pantronics Holdings, which was acquired by crypto exchange Huobi, soared as much as 62 per cent.
“It’s all because of Xi,” Pan Shaochang, an equity analyst at financial services startup Dongwu Securities, told the FT. He added that many of these businesses were still at an early stage, but that “the growth potential is huge.”
3. Chinese crypto renaissanceChinese cryptocurrencies have emerged from the doldrums to take centre stage. Home-grown cryptocurrencies NEO, Ontology (ONT), Quantum (QTUM), VeChain (VET) and others saw gains of more than 50%. Bytom (BTM), saw an increase of 459%, as per reports on China’s Huobi exchange. Such staggering gains caused commentators to ridicule the influence on the market of crypto startups such as Bitcoin futures exchange Bakkt or Facebook’s Libra coin.
Ahahahahahhaha, now on Chinese CT
" Fuck ETF, fuck Bakkt, fuck Libra, none of these BS will pump, only we Chinese pump with real money, the only way to pump"
(excuse me for the F word... try my best to translate from very Chinese slang)
— Dovey 以德服人 Wan 🗝 🦖 (@DoveyWan) October 28, 2019
Chinese research agency CCID today poured oil on these claims with its update of global project rankings. EOS retrained its pole position, but Swiss-headquartered Ethereum gave way to China-based Tron. While the CCID’s methodology has been questioned by some, it’s also gained credence after Xi’s comments.
4. Surging interest across Chinese mediaBlockchain has been all over the Chinese media since Xi’s remarks, with @cnledger, a Twitter account for China's crypto industry, noting that it’s been reported on “intensively” across national TV channels and newspaper headlines.
Search volumes for keywords related to blockchain also spiked on Chinese search engine Baidu and messaging app WeChat after the presidential speech. China-based Google searches rose significantly, suggesting that Xi’s remarks had encouraged intense interest in cryptocurrencies, said Reuters.
"There have definitely been more conversations since the weekend," Anthony Wong of Hong Kong-based crypto investment firm Orichal Partners told the New York Times.
5. China’s national digital currency is imminentIn recent months, China has stepped up plans to launch its own national digitial currency, with the People’s Bank of China hiring experts to join its Digital Currency Research Institute (DCRI). Huang Qifan, vice chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE), predicted in an interview with tech news site Pandaily that China would be first off the mark with a national currency. Many believe that the FOMO (fear of missing out) generated by Facebook’s efforts to get its cryptocurrency Libra off the ground has led Beijing to accelerate its efforts. While no date has yet been set, Li Wei, head of the People’s Bank of China’s technology department, today told a Shanghai forum that, in preparation, commercial banks should step up their application of blockchain technology and embrace digital finance.
6. China’s blockchain ecosystem is expandingChina’s blockchain industry is in rude health. The Chinese government requires blockchain projects to register with its Cyberspace Administration, and more than 500 blockchain projects have done so since March, run by state-owned banks, courts and tax offices, as well as commercial tech conglomerates. China’s most popular app, Xuexi Qiangguo, has launched government-run courses in Bitcoin and Ethereum.
And China looks set to expand its focus on blockchain education; in his speech, Xi called for the creation of new initiatives such as “Blockchain+,” a platform for “personal development” in areas such as education, employment and health. China’s Communist Party is even urging patriots to “seize the opportunity” created by the technology, and swear their allegiance via blockchain.
7. China has introduced its first cryptography lawChina’s national congress on Saturday passed a new law designed to encourage research and development on commercial cryptography technologies. It also aims to build up standardized regulations for the industry, in preparation for the upcoming challenges the nascent sector will face. On Twitter, it sparked comparisons with the approach taken by the U.S.
A pal sent me this from Vegas. If the US regulators don’t allow for fintech innovation, the Chinese will eat our lunch. Xi’s comments on Friday were significant. Crypto and blockchain will be part of the financial and consumer infrastructure in the future. Buy the dip. $btc pic.twitter.com/prM9VvjT3x
— Michael Novogratz (@novogratz) October 26, 2019
But what of Bitcoin? Will developments in China continue to fuel the recent meteoric rise of the original cryptocurrency? Sentiment is, broadly speaking, bullish: “The positive comments from the Chinese leader will continue to support the broader crypto prices to maintain at current levels,” Andy Cheung, head of operations at Malta-based OKEx, an exchange popular among Chinese users, told Reuters.
Cheung’s not alone in his thinking. “It’s likely that momentum, perhaps partly driven by FOMO, will now pick-up pace again in the cryptocurrency sector,” Nigel Green, CEO of financial advisory deVere Group, told Decrypt.
Chinese websites have pointed out that blockchain is not the same as interest in bitcoin, of course. But the country’s newfound enthusiasm for blockchain seems just as extreme as its previous erstwhile ban on crypto, with @cnledger even claiming that “Articles saying blockchain technology is a scam are now BANNED.”
3/ Articles saying blockchain technology is a scam are now BANNED.
Who still remember the days when posts promoting blockchain getting deleted real fast? pic.twitter.com/W5iRJ3PDYS
— cnLedger (@cnLedger) October 28, 2019
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Bitcoin went on one of its most impressive runs ever last week, surging over 42% in just a day. Not only did this make last week the best one Bitcoin has had since May, it also brought positive sentiment back to the market, which had previously been fairly bearish.
However, Bitcoin has since retraced and is currently trading at around $9,200. Interestingly enough, BTC flash crashed to slightly above $9,000 earlier today, but it managed to recover fairly quickly. At the time of this writing, Bitcoin is down about 2% on the day.
BTC/USD. Source: TradingView We also saw a very slight decrease in Bitcoin’s dominance rate, suggesting that altcoins have managed to capitalize somewhat on the flash crash. Indeed, all of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap are trading in the green against BTC, having marked slight increases. ETH is up about 2%, the same as XRP. Bitcoin Cash is up about 3.6%, and all others have seen minor gains in the range of 0.5% – 1.5%.
Major Cryptocurrency Headlines Bitcoin Cash Spikes 10% as Jihan Wu Resumes Control of Bitmain. Jihan Wu, who stepped away from Bitmain’s operations at the beginning of this year, has since resumed control over the company, ousting the CEO, Ketuan Zhan. In an email to staff, Wu directed employees to not take any orders from Zhan or participate in meetings organized by him. Bitcoin Cash’s price rose by 10% on the news. Wu has previously expressed his support for the cryptocurrency, as Bitmain spent around 70% of its 2017 operating cash flow to buy BCH.
China’s CCIEE Chair: We Will Be the First to Launch Central Bank Digital Currency. The vice-chairman of China’s Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE), Huang Qifan, maintained that the country will be the first to launch a blockchain-based central bank digital currency. He also said that he doesn’t believe in Facebook and its potential cryptocurrency, Libra. However, he feels that digital currencies of the kind are needed because conventional payment methods are outdated.
NEO and Other Made-in-China Cryptocurrencies See Huge Price Gains. The news from China sparked a rally throughout the cryptocurrency market. However, China-based projects saw particularly impressive gains. Bytom, NEO, Ontology, Qtum, and GXChain were among the more notable gainers.
You may also like: Bitcoin Price Crashes Below $60K as Strategy’s MSTR Plunges 10% Mining Profits Dry Up Across Bitcoin, DOGE, LTC, and BCH Bitcoin’s Network Is Booming Even as Prices Remain Below Record Highs The Biggest Winners and Losers NoahCoin (+1177%) NoahCoin rallied hard, surging upwards of 1,100% in less than a day. The project recently announced that users could swap their tokens for native ones. Given that this update was made around a month ago, however, there is no apparent reason for the recent surge. In any case, NoahCoin is currently trading at around $0.004, which is a staggering increase compared to its price a day ago when it was only $0.00028.
IOST (+31%) IOST is another project which saw significant gains over the past 24 hours despite the seemingly stalling cryptocurrency market. Having increased by upwards of 30%, IOST is currently trading at around $0.0075. Interestingly enough, it surged even more against Bitcoin, gaining more than 35%. The project’s total market cap is now over $90 million.
Bytom (-10%) Bytom was one of the biggest gainers during last week’s rally, as mentioned above. The coin surged about 80% following the news out of China, but it has since cooled off and is actually down over the past 24 hours. BTM marked a decrease of around 10% and its price is currently around $0.11, though its total market cap remains well above $113 million. The cryptocurrency is also down around 7.5% against BTC.
Recent developments in the People’s Republic have not just excited Bitcoin holders. A bullish wave of momentum has flooded back into the blockchain and crypto scene as venture capitalists return to take a second look at what’s hot in the fledgling industry.
Chinese Crypto Projects Get a Boost The 2018 bear market was pretty brutal and as much as 90% of China’s venture capital fled the scene. This year has seen a solid recovery in the industry as total crypto market capitalization has gained almost 100% since the beginning of the year.
Recent bullish comments from president Xi Jinping had added to the momentum when he said that China needs to embrace the technology in order to innovate. Bitcoin surged 40% over night and related technology firms saw large increases in stock prices. Additionally Chinese cryptos such as NEO, VeChain, Tron and Bytom surged on the developments.
According to Chinese financial data tracker 01Caijing, Chinese blockchain and crypto startups raised $368 million via 71 funding deals, during the first six months of 2019. Reports indicate that funding is flowing back into the sector and this could be good news for home grown crypto projects.
NEO backed Neo Global Capital announced that they would be raising a second fund of about $50 million. The first fund, founded in late 2017, had returns of 7-8 times according to Neo Global Capital partner Tony Gu.
According to CB Insights mining hardware giant Bitmain is China’s most well-funded crypto company with Hyperchain coming in second. The firm develops a host of enterprise blockchain products and distributed ledger technologies. Last month it was reported that Hyperchain has plans to bring blockchain to China’s national power grid.
Other notable VC investments include the $500 million Fundamental Labs fund which backed industry giants such as Coinbase, Canaan Creative and Binance. Earlier this year the fund invested $44 million into Bitcoin mining that could increase the bitcoin network’s total hash rate. VC firm Parallel Ventures also invested around $15 million in Bitcoin mining hardware this year.
Managing partner of Fundamental Labs, Howard Yuan, estimated that there were thousands of VC funds following the 2018 crypto market peak but just a handful left today. The scene has matured somewhat though and the funds that do remain have evolved to find more sustainable investments.
Xin Jiang, investment manager at one of China’s largest firms, Fenbushi Capital, told Coindesk;
“Before the market crash, investors didn’t evaluate projects carefully because token prices kept going up. Now investors need to truly find value through more vigorous research and due diligence.”
The passing of new cryptography regulations will also add to the bullish sentiment in China as the country strives to remain ahead of its competitors. Its home grown blockchain projects are likely to reap the rewards from this new wave of investment and positive sentiment from the government.
A further $6 billion has been added to total crypto market capitalization over the past 24 hours and it is altcoins that are leading the gains. A big dose of Chinese FOMO boosted home grown projects there and Stellar’s coin burn is igniting them this morning, but are they destined to dump again?
Crypto Cap and Volume Rising Total market cap reached $253 billion a few hours ago which is the highest it has been for a week. The bigger picture shows more range bound trading but altcoins appear to be driving momentum at the moment.
Total market cap 24 hours – Coinmarketcap.com The chart also indicates that daily volume has climbed almost 30% since the beginning of the week as everything looks green at the moment. Trader ‘Paddy Stash’ has noted the increase in altcoin dominance over the past week as BTC failed to top 70% and has started to decline in terms of market share.
“Altcoin dominance has continued to climb back upwards since the big $Btc spike from $7.4 to over $10k last week.”
While the ‘China effect’ heavily influenced the prices of NEO, Tron, Qtum, VeChain, Bytom and other local blockchain platforms last week, others are getting a lift today.
ParallelCoin Pump and Dump Something called ParallelCoin is looking very spurious at the moment as CMC is reporting a 7,000% surge for DUO tokens. ‘Crypto Bitlord’ has called it a dangerous pump and dump scheme which should be avoided.
Another altcoin having a serious pump at the moment is Stellar as the Foundation just burnt 55 billion uncirculated XLM tokens. The crypto community is skeptical however and the 25% price pump has already started to fall off.
Stellar is currently priced at just over $0.08 and has knocked Tron back out of the top ten with a market cap of $1.6 billion. Ripple’s XRP got a related pump at the same time of just over 4% which takes the token back over $0.30 where it faces heavy resistance. This week’s Swell event could help XRP to break through that though.
Ethereum has made a small 2.5% move to hold above $185 at the moment while BCH remains flat at $290. Litecoin has made a solid 6% to break above $60 while EOS adds a similar amount to reach $3.45.
BSV and Cardano have gained over 5% a piece in the past few hours and Cosmos has cranked 12% as it reaches $3.80. The two Chinese altcoins VeChain and Qtum are also going strong today with 7% gained.
Bitcoin has made minor gains to reach resistance at $9,400 again but until it surges back into five figures the altcoins are unlikely to climb any higher. It is still likely that a dump will follow whatever gains altcoins have made today as altseason is still a long way away.
