Crypto Guides, Knowledge & Insights

Bitcoin’s Price Volatility Expectations Slip to Lowest in 3 Months

Bitcoin might be diminishing in a quality that‘s long been a sore spot for criticism: volatility. One critical gauge shows the cryptocurrency’s expected price swings are now at their lowest point in three months.　　The cryptocurrency‘s implied volatility, or expectations for price turbulence, declined to an annualized 75% early Monday, based on calculations using options premiums with a one-month horizon. That’s the lowest since Dec. 25, according to data provider Skew. They peaked above 145% in mid-January.　　“The declining trend suggests that markets are expecting sideways price action,” Denis Vinokourov, head of research at trading sentiment data provider Trade the Chain, told CoinDesk in a Telegram chat.　　Bitcoin is currently stuck in a narrowing price range, with both bulls and the bears unwilling to lead, as seen below.　　Bitcoins daily chart　　Source: TradingView　　Vinokourov expects a “pickup in downside protection flow,” given the lack of clear visible upside.　　In plain English, traders could buy put options amid signs of bull fatigue. A put option is a derivative contract that gives the purchaser the right but not the obligation to sell the underlying asset at a predetermined price on or before a specific date.　　At press time, one-, three-, and six-month put-call skews, which measure the cost of puts

2021-03-23Deep Dive

This is why digital artist Beeple thinks NFTs might be a bubble

In an interview for CNNs First Move, digital artist Mike “beeple” Winkelmann talked about “the craziness” he has experienced with the sale of his NFT for $69 million. Acknowledging that the process has been “overwhelming,” beeple the consequences of the marriage of art and technology.　　The digital artist has a career that spans 20 years. The work sold for millions as part of a “unique auction” at Christies and was created with images made over 13 years. Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT), Beeple said, has become “a real way” to connect with an audience. Beeple said:　　To be quite honest, this is not something that I saw coming. It has just been overwhelming (…). Every part of me looks at this and says, “this is insane”. I always thoughted they will be some attention paid to it, I did not think it would be this quick or this much.　　The digital artist considers himself a political critic of sorts and showed disbelief about the NFT market during the interview. Beeple believes that digital techniques and media have the opposite effect of devaluing artworks:　　I dont think art is being devalued, I think in some cases a lot of value is being placed on the work. I

2021-03-23Deep Dive

Is Bitcoin The First Truly “Good” Cult?

I have written elsewhere about cults and the ways in which some cults offer group members genuine hope. This is not a deluded, Jim Jones type of hope; no, this is a hope based on reality.　　Based on reality, you say. Arent all cults, by their very definition, built on a foundation of deluded thoughts and nefarious ideologies？　　Well, firstly, it‘s important to clarify the following: when discussing cults, I’m talking about “benign” cults, like Apple and Tesla. Devoted members of such cults tend to be harmless individuals, most of whom pose no threat to society. Wait, though, isnt it a stretch to class Apple and Tesla customers as cult members？ Not exactly. After all, a cult is basically a system of veneration and devotion, often religious in nature, directed towards a particular figure or object.　　Have you ever watched the unveiling of a new iPhone？ How about a Tesla launch？ If not, think Mega Church preaching meets Burning Man. Then, theres the deification of Elon Musk. The worship of Steve Jobs. And to a far lesser extent, Tim Cook.　　Misplaced reverence　　From a mechanical perspective, the average Tesla leaves a lot to be desired. According to the latest Consumer Reports Vehicle Reliability Study, Teslas

2021-03-23Deep Dive

What Is SafeMoon? How to Buy the New Cryptocurrency

A new type of cryptocurrency called SafeMoon is gathering interest amongst enthusiasts, search trends show.　　Little is known about the cryptocurrency so far, though developers have held live Ask Me Anything (AMA) meetings to answer some questions.　　Launched this month, SafeMoon claims it will reward people who buy and hold on to the cryptocurrency and issue a penalty to those who sell it on.　　This article is not intended as financial advice and should not be taken as such.　　Its Facebook page states: “Remember, getting to the moon takes time and the longer you hold the more tokens you pick up.”　　Going “to the moon” is a phrase popularized in recent times by the WallStreetBets community on Reddit, who use it in reference to an asset price soaring.　　The mechanism by which SafeMoon rewards participants involves issuing a 10 percent penalty tax fee on sellers and redistributing five percent of this to people who already own the currency.　　One Reddit user claimed a whitepaper—a report that highlights the features of a product such as a cryptocurrency—is available on the website, but others said they had trouble accessing it.　　The SafeMoon website appeared to be down at the time Newsweek tried to load it. The organization said website issues

2021-03-23Deep Dive

Cardano Turning Down Dapps Due to Sheer Volume of Applications

Replying to remarks over the lack of dapps running on Cardano, IOHK CEO Charles Hoskinson responded by saying demand is so high his firm cannot handle the applications flooding in. In many cases, as a strategy to cope with the demand, applications are being rejected.　　Goguen is Coming to Cardano Very Soon　　Speaking on a live stream, Hoskinson said criticisms of Cardano having no dapps are entirely unreasonable. He drew attention to sneaker and cattle authentication apps already run on the chain using just metadata features.　　Although full programmability at the base layer is missing at present, he likened the fault-finding to criticizing attendance at a nightclub that hasnt yet opened.　　“Yet they say, what are the dapps running on Cardano？ That‘s like saying you’re opening a nightclub, you haven‘t opened it yet, and you say, ’how come no-one‘s in your nightclub？’ It‘s like, we’re still building it.”　　Hoskinson is more than confident that once Goguen is up and running, the ecosystem will fill out accordingly. However, right now, the firm cannot deal with the demand to build dapps on Cardano. He said the only thing to do under these circumstances is to turn down applications from developers.　　“As if, smart contracts come and there‘ll be

2021-03-23Deep Dive

Poker Privacy & The Role of Cryptocurrency

With everything now on the internet reachable through a few expert clicks and keyword searches, keeping your data private has never been more important. Simply by searching your name, prospective employers, friends, or even potential romantic partners can find out more or less everything — from your elementary school to your favorite color. And if everyone can find this information, then your online habits can come back to haunt you, even if theyre perfectly innocent.　　Admittedly, this is also the tame version of events. Poker is followed by a social stigma that sometimes extends into the government itself. This means that some authoritarian governments could have a problem with adults gambling, giving you all the more reasons to protect your privacy. Here, we go through a few basic ways in which you can still play without worrying about whether your private information will be compromised by anyone.　　Using cryptocurrency　　Bitcoin, the original cryptocurrency, was born out of the libertarian idea that governments (along with financial institutions) exert too much control over people‘s lives, especially the way people spend their money. This is why one of the cryptocurrency’s purposes has always been to add a previously unimaginable amount of privacy to every user (however,

2021-03-23Deep Dive

Concerns on Crypto and Energy Consumptions Amid Rallies

The recent surge to new crypto-highs has undoubtedly stimulated the debate on crypto-currency energy consumption. Critics call it an energy hog, while advocates hail it as less intense than the global economy.　　One of these critics, Alex de Vries, editor of the DigiEconomist, said he‘s never seen anything as inefficient as bitcoin. On the other hand, ARK Investment Management’s investigation found that the Bitcoin ecosystem consumes less than 10% of the energy needed for traditional banking services.　　While people use the banking system, cryptocurrency is still maturing, and the early infrastructure phase is intensive like any industry.　　Cryptocurrency Mining Debate　　Of course, the bitcoin energy debate has some political aspects. There are reasons why some would like to stress or exaggerate the power consumption of Bitcoin, just as ideological arguments exist for defending it robustly.　　The cryptocurrency mining industry, which in February 2021 alone raised nearly $1.4 billion, also has no exceptional environmental impact on other contemporary aspects in an industrialized society. Even de Vries said that if ecological regulators take every possible action with Bitcoin, its unlikely that all governments would support that mining regulation. Adding, ideally, change comes from within.　　He hopes Bitcoin Core developers will alter the software to require less computational energy.

2021-03-23Deep Dive

The ‘Inevitable’ Institutionalization of the Cryptocurrency Space

Just after adding the Bitcoin symbol to his Twitter profile page, Elon Musk wrote a tweet that will eventually go down in the history books – “In retrospect, it was inevitable.” We may not be able to state with 100% certainty that he was referring to his change of stance on cryptocurrency, but it seems overwhelmingly likely that he was.　　The next day, the news that Tesla had purchased $1.5 billion of BTC and planned to accept BTC as payment for its cars came out. Tesla may not have been the first publicly-listed entity to buy BTC as a balance sheet asset. But it was the most significant, as the most highly valued car company in the world – owned by the richest person on the planet.　　The Tesla news moved the market, and BTC quickly saw itself propelled to a new all-time high above $58K. Other major announcements from global players, from Mastercard to BNY Mellon, quickly followed, and a trend that had been fueled by MicroStrategys Michael Saylor was ignited in earnest.　　The “inevitable” institutionalization of the cryptocurrency space is upon us and participants in the ecosystem must respond to their needs – or watch themselves being left in the dust.　　

2021-03-23Deep Dive

Turks Look for Bitcoin (BTC) As Lira Collapses, BTC Is Now The World’s Third-Largest Currency

Bitcoin (BTC) has time-and-again proved that it is the ultimate saviour of the world against the inefficient fiat systems and government agencies. Over the last week, the Turkish Lira plunged another 14% against the U.S. Dollar which resulted in Turks searching for Bitcoin (BTC) in order to protect their wealth.　　Over the last weekend, Google searches for Bitcoin (BTC) in Turkey shot up to the roof almost doubling as we can see a sharp spike in the chart below.　　With the way that Bitcoin (BTC) has performed over the last few months, the trust in the world‘s largest cryptocurrency is also building up strongly. At press time, Bitcoin is trading at a price of $57,783 with a market cap of $1.078 trillion. With this, Bitcoin (BTC) has cemented its position strongly thereby being the world’s third-largest currency in terms of the total value in circulation, notes Deutsche Bank in its latest published report.　　Courtesy: Bloomberg　　Deutsche Bank: Bitcoin (BTC) Too Important to Ignore　　Deutsche Bank acknowledged that even government institutions and central bank institutions have started acknowledging the role of cryptocurrencies and accepted the fact that they are here to stay. In the report, Deutsche Bank research analyst Marion Laboure, Ph.D. writes:　　“Bitcoins market cap of

2021-03-22Deep Dive

Bitcoin mining stocks have outperformed BTC by 455% over the past 12 months

Despite the top publicly-listed Bitcoin mining firms operating at losses, their share prices have dramatically outperformed BTC over the past 12 months.　　Appearing on CNBC, Fundstrats vice president of digital asset strategy, Leeor Shimron, shared his analysis into the market performance of the four-largest publicly-traded mining firms — Marathon Digital Holdings, Riot Blockchain, Hive Blockchain, and Hut 8, each of which represent a market cap of more than $1 billion.　　Over the past 12 months, Shimron found the average return for shares in the mining firms to have been 5,000%, while BTC has gained 900% over the same period. Unsurprisingly, the stocks were found to have a “high positive correlation” with BTC.　　The researcher concluded that for every 1% price move in BTC, Bitcoin mining shares move by 2.5% on average. However, the observation applies to both upward and downward price moves, meaning mining stocks are likely to plummet with more than twice the aggression of BTC during bearish market conditions.　　“Theyll probably be hit hard as Bitcoin draws down,” he said.　　Shimron attributed the wild volatility in miner stocks to the lack of regulated crypto investment products in the United States, speculating that “until a Bitcoin ETF is approved, investors may view public mining

2021-03-22Deep Dive

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