Wow, what a week, Bitcoin and notably Stellar Lumens have taken off like a rocket. At the time of writing Bitcoin is in the mid 8000s and Stellar Lumens is 34 cents, up massively, from 19 cents only a few weeks ago.
Is this the start of the Crypto Bull run? What is making the price of Bitcoin and many other Cryptocurrencies pump? Many technical analysts are still saying we are in a bear market. Notably Tone Vays. He is still pretty adamant that the bears dominate and yesterday made the comments that we did not spend enough time at 6000 to call a bottom. If like me, your still getting your head around many of the principles when it comes to technical analysis it can be confusing. Tone still sees us going back to 5k maybe lower. He also says that you need to look at the numbers frequently and reassess positions. Are we at that point, is the bottom in and we are going up? Is it reassessment time?
Coindesk released an article today, 26th July, saying:
Bitcoin traders may have their eyes on a different kind of chart this week.That’s because Friday, July 27 is the date that bitcoin futures contracts offered by derivatives giant CME Group are scheduled to expire. A financial product that lets institutions and professional traders long or short the crypto asset (betting on it’s future performance), history shows the price of bitcoin drops 7.89 percent on average in the five days prior to a contract expiration.
That has not happened this week. They go on to say:
As such, data suggests the event could trigger a healthy pullback in prices for the cryptocurrency.Still, other factors may be at play this time around. Investor interest in the bitcoin futures market is seeing substantial growth – perhaps best depicted by a tweet from the CME Group which stated that their bitcoin futures product was up 93 percent in volume and 58 percent in open interest in Q2.
All eyes on that then.
Let’s have a look at the big stories that have clearly had a role in this 40% rise in the price of Bitcoin over the last month.
Table of Content
Chicago Board of Options and Exchange applies for an Exchange Traded Fund, ETF.
The CBEO ETF has people in Crypto very excited. We have been starved of a major piece of positive news this year. Yes, we could be one ETF, exchange-traded fund away from a massive bull run. August 10th was a date looming large. The CBOE, the Chicago Board of Options and Exchange was to have a decision on its application for an ETF. This decision has been pushed back. Now if this stood no chance common sense would suggest we would be hearing, a, sorry, no, take your play money and go away. This has not happened. My gut feeling is it will not be approved in August/September but we will edge closer to one and ultimately get one within a year. Maybe it will be the CBOE application maybe someone else. Hey and guess what, Bitcoin exists outside of the USA, maybe another country will lead the charge to mass adoption and trigger the next bull run.
Is Blackrock looking at Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency?
We started last week with the CEO of Blackrock, Larry Fink, being interviewed about their involvement in Cryptocurrency. Blackrock have over 6 Trillion under management so this could be huge if they were to enter this market. Fink stated that none of their clients has any interest in Bitcoin and Crypto. Really, over six Trillion under management and NO clients have asked!! The fact he is being interviewed about Crypto is pretty amazing to many of us who have been in this space for a while. As recently as last year this type of thing didn’t happen, JP Morgans Jamie Diamond excepted. Factor in that, Finks comments are in total contrast to those of his Chief Multi-Asset Strategist and Managing Director Isabelle Mateos Y Lago who earlier this year stated that they get asked about Bitcoin at least every week.
Maybe it’s not smoke and mirrors but certainly hazy. I suspect Bitcoin and Crypto are just too out, therefore the likes of Larry Fink. Fink still likely thinks it’s just for criminals would be my guess. God, I hope we can move on from that nonsense.
In short, the Blackrock story did not really come to much, it was jumped upon by many media outlets with click-bait headlines, most likely causing some of the gains we have seen. It will have been closely watched and noted by large institutional players how sentiment, hype, headlines and the like can move this market dramatically, easily and often. Blackrock talking about gold would have very little effect on the price of gold. Many must be licking their lips and thinking, wow we could really have some fun with this Crypto price with some well-timed comments.
As they say, buy the rumour sell the news. Where are we on that at the moment? J
Coinbase, the McDonalds of Crypto exchanges making you love it
Coinbase is getting custodial services in place. This makes it easier for both institutions and the masses to enter this space. This has been big news and adds to that the fact they are looking like listing five new coins and the market sat up, took notice and started buying.
My thinking is that people will really only arrive in large numbers when things like setting up a wallet are done for them. Coinbases’s custodial services will provide that. This is a slap in the face for what many of us really love about Bitcoin, and Crypto in general and that is the fact that it is money you control. Not needing a trusted third party like a bank is really the essence of what this is all about. Be hey ho, many will look back and think I should have got in earlier if only that wallet stuff was easier. I guess the Coinbase’s of this world and whoever trumps them in the near future are at least are making it easier to get into this space. That super nice guy Charlie Lee of Litecoin is starting a bank I hear. More on that in another article.
Is McDonald’s involved in Cryptocurrency
McDonalds headlines are dotted around the space at the moment in regards to a partnership between OmiseGo OMG and McDonalds. This story surfaced a year ago and I’m seeing reports popping up albeit in publications I’m not familiar with. I bought and sold this coin a number of times. I sold out of it as it didn’t make the same gains as others I was trading. It does, however, look like a very solid company and project. And well worth a close look.
Here is a link to the interview with Hester Chew, Chairman of Executive Committee and Chief Executive of McThai Co Ltd from the omise.co website.
Omise say:
In September 2017, McDonald’s Thailand chose to partner with Omise to further enhance the purchase experience through their online sales channels
The article states Mr Chew as saying:
“Optimizing the checkout flow on the McThai website and mobile app has been a big focus for us. We revamped the website and the mobile application and launched it in July 2017. Integrating with Omise, we were able to solve quite a few things around customer experience. The significant changes we see are reduced drop-offs at checkout and also the reduced steps in which our customers have to go through to complete the purchase. This is because we are able to leverage the payment technology that Omise has to offer.”
This is big news to me and warrants close examination. I will get back to you with more details. I’m in Thailand next month and will endeavour to meet with Omise.
All this McDonalds chat has made me hungry but also leads me to mention what will be big news in the coming weeks. The anniversary of the Bitcoin Hard fork to Bitcoin cash. Here is another Tone Vays reference. During a highly amusing Vlog, yesterday Tone mentioned that it is still early days in the Bitcoin ecosystem. He mentioned that you won’t be using Bitcoin at McDonald’s anytime soon.
Not to confuse or compare Bitcoin to Omisego functionality and it’s involvement with Mc Donalds but right after I watched this clip I watched Roger Ver, Bitcoin Jesus and Bitcoin cash evangelist. Roger talked about his belief that Bitcoin cash will be the top Crypto. His rationale is that it can be used as currency and Bitcoin can not. My involvement in this space became extensive this time last years and I will be covering the first anniversary of the hard fork extensively. That anniversary is next week. There will be some great content to come on this website subscribe to our newsletter now, don’t miss a thing!
Here is the Roger interview.
Cryptocurrency news, especially Bitcoin news, primarily seems to be coming out of the USA. I’m in Asia for the next few months and I am going to have a close look at what is happening in the many hotbeds of Crypto action here. Yes, we seem to have ICO’s churning out the door here every day. I’m, however, very interested to see what’s happening in Bitcoin. Bitcoin cash is having its one year anniversary on August 1st in Hong Kong and I will endeavour to cover that.
