July 2, 2018

The MASSIVE Tether Ticking Time BOMB

Tether is a cryptocurrency designed to be pegged to the USD in a 1-to-1 ratio. Doubts about whether or not this is true have been floating around for months now, but Tether mostly left the news cycle since the $30m hack back in November. However, it’s back in full force now as their relationship with their auditor recently dissolved. Is this the end for Tether?

Steemit Post: https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@cryptovestor/the-massive-tether-ticking-time-bomb

Nobody knows, and the reality is that establishing a time-line of such an event is near impossible. However, what we do know is that Tether has been increasing the rate at which they print money. Most of the crypto community is cautious about it even if they use it, suggestings its public perception isn’t the highest. They’ve have many issues with banking – What do you think the odds are that serious individuals and businesses have increasing demand for Tether which matches the rate at which they are being created?

Even if Tether ISN’T a scam though, they have massive regulatory risk. The primary function of Tether is to bypass regulations and capital controls that exchanges face with using the real USD or other fiat currencies. As they grow larger and larger, Tether will paint a bigger and bigger target on their heads and eventually the US government or another government will likely take action against them.

However, I still suspect Tether is a scam either way as it looks and behaves like one. When Tether retailiates against the accusations made against them by Bitfinexed, they sound like children rather than professionals (a characteristic I have seen as particularly common in the crypto space). The dissolvement of their relationship with their auditor suggests the auditor found details that Tether wasn’t comfortable with revealing.

If it looks like a duck, acts like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. It is highly probable Tether is a scam and if it is well interconnected with Bitfinex as many suspect, then this poses a huge systemic and systematic risk to cryptocurrencies as a whole. Keep a close eye and be cautious. Thanks for watching / reading!

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Key Highlights

Ripple price extended declines and moved below the $1.80 support against the US Dollar.
Yesterday’s highlighted crucial bearish trend line with current resistance at $1.85 is still in place on the hourly chart of the XRP/USD pair (data source from Kraken).
The price continues to move down and it could soon break the 1.60 low to for more losses.

Ripple price faced a lot of selling pressure against the US Dollar and bitcoin. XRP/USD could accelerate declines and it may soon test or break the $1.50 level.

Ripple Price Decline

It seems like the current bearish pressure is here to stay on Ripple price below $2.00 against the US Dollar. The price was under a lot of pressure and it moved below the $1.80 and $1.70 support levels. The downside move is strong and the price is now below the $1.65 level. Recently, there was a recovery from the $1.6062 swing low with a break of the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the last decline from the $2.38 high to $1.60 low.

However, the upside move was capped by the $2.00 handle. Moreover, the 50% Fib retracement level of the last decline from the $2.38 high to $1.60 low also acted as a resistance. More importantly, yesterday’s highlighted crucial bearish trend line with current resistance at $1.85 is still in place on the hourly chart of the XRP/USD pair. It may continue to act as a strong barrier for buyers above $2.00. As long as the price is below the $2.00 handle, it remains at a risk of more losses below $1.60.

A break below the $1.60 level could open the doors for a test of the $1.50 level. Below the $1.50 level, there is a chance an extension towards the $1.40 level.

Looking at the technical indicators:

Hourly MACD – The MACD for XRP/USD is now placed in the bearish zone.

Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI for XRP/USD is heading lower towards the 25 level.

Major Support Level – $1.50

Major Resistance Level – $2.00

Charts courtesy – Trading View, Kraken

The post Ripple Price Technical Analysis – XRP/USD Bearish U-Turn appeared first on NewsBTC.

July 21, 2017

BIP 91 Has Activated. Here’s What That Means (and What It Does Not)

It looks as if bitcoin is getting Segregated Witness.

Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 91 (BIP 91) just locked in. Up to 90 percent of all hash power signaled support for this soft fork, which implies miners intend, in turn, to trigger Segregated Witness (SegWit) activation. By extension, this should make BIP 148 obsolete and August 1 a non-event.

But SegWit is not certain. In fact, on a technical level, SegWit is not any closer to activation at all.

BIP 91

Segregated Witness, defined by BIP 141, locks in if at least 95 percent of miners (by hash power) signal support for the upgrade within a two-week difficulty period. To do so, miners need to embed a piece of data called “bit 1” in the blocks they mine.

Importantly, this is technically the only way for SegWit to activate right now. And this threshold has not yet been met.

But there are alternative strategies to try and reach this threshold “indirectly” — like BIP 91.

BIP 91 is a bitcoin Improvement Proposal proposed by Bitmain Warranty engineer James Hilliard. It is compatible with the New York Agreement and backed by a number of bitcoin companies and mining pools. It is also compatible with BIP 148, another strategy to meet the BIP 141 threshold indirectly.

Miners have been signaling support for BIP 91 over the past couple of days through another piece of data, “bit 4.” Once 269 blocks within a 336-block window include bit 4, this BIP 91 soft fork gets locked in. This threshold was just met.

This means that after another 336 blocks, a little over two days from now, all BIP 91–compatible nodes will reject any block that doesn’t include bit 1.

As long as a majority of hash power enforces BIP 91, this majority should eventually control the longest valid chain according to all bitcoin nodes. And as this chain consists of bit 1 SegWit-signaling blocks only, it would in turn activate SegWit on all SegWit-ready nodes.

In that case, BIP 141 should lock in by mid-August, and SegWit should be live on the bitcoin network after a two-week “grace period” by the end of that month.

If all goes well …

What Could Go Wrong?

Although well over 80 percent of hash power has signaled bit 4 for BIP 91 activation, this doesn’t actually guarantee anything. Most importantly, it doesn’t in itself mean that these miners will signal bit 1 for SegWit.

Indeed, so far, most miners don’t. Currently, the proportion of miners signaling bit 1 is still far lower than BIP 91 activation would suggest. It is even lower than 50 percent.

Moreover, BIP 91 is probably being enforced by hardly any economically relevant nodes; that is, nodes operated by users that accept bitcoins as payment. Almost no bitcoin users on the network recognize BIP 91 or its bit 4 signaling at all, and will therefore continue to accept blocks with or without bit 1.

BIP 91 is, instead, enforced by hash power alone. This in turn means that a majority of miners (by hash power) could back out of BIP 91 with little more than reputational damage. They could continue to mine blocks that do not signal bit 1, even after BIP 91 activates in a few days. As long as these miners are in a majority, they will still control the longest valid chain: valid according to most miners, and valid to most users.

Furthermore, any minority of miners and the few nodes that do enforce the BIP 91 soft fork would then be forked off the bitcoin network. In a few days from now, these miners would mine (on top of) blocks that almost only they themselves would consider valid, while most of the rest of the entire bitcoin network would completely ignore them. These miners would be wasting their own resources.

With this week’s bit 4 signaling, a majority of miners have effectively made a statement that they intend to start to activate the SegWit soft fork within a couple of days. But for now, that’s really all it is: a very public, blockchain-based statement of intent.

Actual SegWit activation should start next week, if miners stick to their stated intent.

The post BIP 91 Has Activated. Here’s What That Means (and What It Does Not) appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

The MASSIVE Tether Ticking Time BOMB

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Ripple Price Technical Analysis – XRP/USD Bearish U-Turn

Key Highlights

Ripple Price Decline

BIP 91 Has Activated. Here’s What That Means (and What It Does Not)

BIP 91

What Could Go Wrong?