Crypto Brief Jan.03: SOPR indicates Bitcoin is no capitulation yet plus Ripple, ETH, LTC, Binance, Coinbase, MakerDAO, Electra, Argo

By Emma 01/3/20 11:45 AM

From Bitcoin’s moment capitulation not come yet to Binance opens crypto trading pairs for EUR. These are some of the prominent news in the crypto space.

Bitcoin News

Since the entire cryptocurrency returned to a state of decline after Bitcoin reached a yearly $ 14,000 peak set in June, analysts have wondered if the 2019 bear market has entered a capitulation moment.

According to on-chain analysis, this event has not happened yet, implying that the price of digital assets may drop further before recovery.

Cryptoroulette analyst recently posted a chart showing the SOPR (Spent Output Profit Ratio), an indication of the average Bitcoin holder’s profit over the past few years.

SOPR, 7-days-smoothed data.
Markets phases are pretty clear (see the reaction of the indicator with the level “1”).
Currently we are in a bear market and there was no capitulation yet. $BTC $BTCUSD #bitcoin @renato_shira pic.twitter.com/VyEQ0R0olo

— CryptoHamster (@CryptoHamsterIO) January 1, 2020

SOPR is how analysts can pinpoint exactly four stages of Bitcoin’s market cycle: the bull market, the transitional period, the bear market and the capitulation event begin to cycle again.

Cryptoroulette noted that according to historical trends, Bitcoin has yet to see the capitulation event for the current cycle, implying that the cryptocurrency market could see a sharp decline before returning to a bull run.

Bitcoin underperformed in 2019

In early January 2019, BTC was priced near the market bottom at around $ 3,750. By the end of the year, it was trading around $ 7,000, marking an increase of about 85%. Even so, 2019 is the worst active performing year in Bitcoin history.

Analyst Rptr45 has established a historical price list of BTC that revealed that the performance of 2019 is a bit inferior to 2015.

0/ $BTC finished the year +85.4% which is actually the “worst” positive year on record (slightly edging out 2015’s +88.1%). Gains were entirely driven in the Feb-June time period with 2H19 decidedly negative (-33.3%) with 5 of 6 months closing in the red. pic.twitter.com/I0MtXsG4sd

— Rptr45 (@Rptr45) January 2, 2020

The highest year recorded so far is 2013 with a huge increase of 3,448%, followed by 2011 and 2017 with a four-digit increase.

The worst operating years with losses were 2014 and 2018, in heavy bear markets.
2019 marks the third-worst operating year in Bitcoin’s life cycle.

According to analysts, the correlation between Bitcoin price and transaction volume continues to decline in 2019. However, the theoretical cost basis relative to the graphic price is generally steep, usually a good sign of support and subsequent price increases.

Peter Schiff: Bitcoin is the worst-performing asset of the decade

Euro Pacific Capital CEO Peter Schiff firmly believes that Bitcoin can fall “even faster” than US stocks. Schiff has called BTC the “worst-performing asset” in the decade based on its performance in the first two days of 2020.

Continuing the Dec. trend all asset classes are rising except Bitcoin. #Bitcoin may have been the best preforming asset of the last decade, but it’s already the worst performing asset of this decade. While I think U.S. stocks will soon drop, I think Bitcoin will fall even faster.

— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) January 2, 2020

Bitcoin vs. Internet

Analyst Willy Woo predicted that the number of Bitcoin could exceed internet commerce when it comes to transaction volume in 2019:

The entire Internet $4.1T
Bitcoin: $3.8T

2019 transaction volume:
The entire Internet $4.1T
Bitcoin: $3.8T

Bitcoin to exceed the Internet in 2020.

BTW Bitcoin pertains to investment velocity while the Internet is payment velocity. Quite different, Bitcoin is currently a store of value, so investment is more important https://t.co/v6oSZM01NJ

— Willy Woo (@woonomic) January 2, 2020

Whales transferred a large amount of BTC

Today, the Bitcoin whale is active and there have been five transfers totaling 7,700 BTC over the past 12 hours, of which, there are four transfers to exchanges that are supposed to be owners selling their holdings.

Source: Whale Alert/ Twitter

Ripple News

Evan Schwartz has just finished his last day at Ripple. He is the person who helped create the Interledger Protocol (ILP), which is designed to give companies an easy way to transfer value between fiat currencies and digital currencies like XRP.

Schwartz intends to remain an active member of the ILP community for the time being despite leaving Ripple.

I’ll be taking a step back from active development on https://t.co/eHzAJTRjRj for a while but I’ll stay involved with the @Interledger community and the boards of @Coil and the Interledger Foundation.

— Evan Schwartz (@_emschwartz) January 2, 2020

49 job openings in the US, UK, Brazil, Japan, Singapore, Dubai, and India

Ripple is getting ready for global expansion once 2020 begins.

The San Francisco-based company now has 49 open locations spread around the world, including in the US, UK, Brazil, Japan, Singapore, Dubai, and India. Sixteen positions for engineers will continue to develop Ripple’s payment solutions and help customers integrate their software. Ripple is also looking for senior managers in São Paulo, London, and San Francisco.

Litecoin News

On December 26, 2019, at 12:50 UTC Block 1,760,000 created the 64 million Litecoin, marking another milestone online. There are currently less than 20 million Litecoin mined, with half of them expected to be minted in the next four years. Litecoin was eventually estimated to be mined around 2142 due to the deflationary nature of the network.

The 64 Millionth Litecoin has been mined ?⛏️ https://t.co/FvPgkT0ZDb

— Litecoin.com (@LitecoinDotCom) December 29, 2019

Litecoin Foundation Director Franklyn Richards said the milestone was a reminder of LTC’s limited supply, which would eventually reach 84 million.

Ethereum News

Gavin Andresen, a famous IT engineer involved in the development of Bitcoin products in 2010, believes that to date, the most interesting things in the cryptocurrency industry (over the past two years) have been built on Ethereum. In 2017, the most interesting thing about cryptocurrencies was CryptoKitties and in 2018 it was PoolTogether. Both are built on Ethereum.

Gavin Andresen seems to believe that Ethereum is the best platform for dApps. And 2020 will also bet on Vitalik.

I found @CryptoKitties the most interesting cryptocurrency-related project of 2018. @PoolTogether_ the most interesting of 2019.

I dunno what I will find interesting in 2020, but it will probably be built on Ethereum.

— Gavin Andresen (@gavinandresen) January 1, 2020

Binance News

Binance will open trading for BTC/EUR, ETH/EUR, BNB/EUR, XRP/EUR, EUR/BUSD, and EUR/USDT trading pairs at 2020/01/03 8:00 AM (UTC).

The Euro (EUR) is a national currency and does not represent the ticker of other existing digital assets.

#Binance Adds BTC/EUR, ETH/EUR, BNB/EUR, XRP/EUR, EUR/BUSD and EUR/USDT Trading Pairshttps://t.co/ZZE2YnQzDs pic.twitter.com/MKMuATJCtE

— Binance (@binance) January 3, 2020

CEO Changpeng Zhao described 2019 as a platform year and one of the exchange’s key goals for 2020 is to bring cryptocurrencies to the public. For this, Binance aims to allow fiat-to-crypto transactions for more than 180 fiat currencies.

Coinbase News

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong posted an article on Medium on January 2 sharing his thoughts on how the cryptocurrency space has grown over the past ten years.

Armstrong’s post starts with Bitcoin. Armstrong noted that BTC has failed once in its ten-year history. Despite any doubt about Bitcoin’s existence, Armstrong pointed out that No. 1 has really thrived.

I published “What happened in crypto over the last decade” https://t.co/yOszZYA1Vm

— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) January 2, 2020

MakerDAO News

Nikolai Mushegian, the former technical partner of the MakerDAO blockchain project, donated 3,200 MKR to his alma mater, Carnegie Mellon University, to allow the university to work on DeFi’s specific protocols. The Pittsburgh-based university is also expected to receive 6,800 MKR in the next one to three years to study applications and protocols for Web3.

Many believe that the future of blockchain is revolutionizing the financial industry, which is why most blockchain investments focus on promoting DeFi.

Electra News

Electra (ECA), the open-source Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain project focused on digital payments, will begin testing its flagship product this month, ElectraPay.

The new product functions as a financial management system that allows merchants to apply electronic payment methods without requiring a third-party service provider, bank or credit card company to complete the transaction.

ElectraPay is a management solution that allows e-commerce providers to accept Electra’s ECA cryptocurrency through a Woocommerce plugin for WordPress.

The official launch of ElectraPay will be announced after the testing phase is completed Currently, the Electra team is looking for merchants to pilot ElectraPay.

If you are a merchant that likes to be at the forefront of the new opportunities in #cryptocurrencies, this is your chance to witness the technology behind what is being done at @ElectracoinECA. Apply today to be a part in the pilot phase of #ElectraPay. https://t.co/9CKICkuJf9

— Greg (@GregCherry) December 30, 2019

Argo News

The cryptocurrency mining tool Argo Blockchain is installing 3,616 new Bitmain machines to increase its mining capacity by 75%.

Argo said the new Bitmain Antminer T17 machines are expected to go live on January 10. These machines represent 159 petahash (PH), an increase of 75% in mining capacity.

The company plans to install an additional 6,384 units to increase its total operating capacity to 204% by the end of Q1 2020.

Other News

Telegram declines to share ‘financial records’ regarding its token sale

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said Telegram declined to share financial details related to the token sale of $ 1.7 billion.

The SEC asked Telegram to provide documents, including how much that Telegram spent, and how, in the development of the TON Blockchain, the Telegram Messenger application will be integrated with the TON Blockchain and related applications. The SEC said these records are “highly relevant” in the case but Telegram declined to disclose.

Cryptocurrency and tax laws are creating a big confusion in Korea

On December 30, the Korean government stated that under current law, it cannot tax income on individuals’ profits from cryptocurrency transactions. However, recently, the National Tax Service has applied a tax bill of 80 billion won ($ 68.9 million) to local exchange Bithumb Korea.

On December 29, South Korea’s local tax authority received 80 billion won ($ 68.9 million) in tax from the exchange. The next day, Choi Kyo-il, a legislator of the Korean Liberal Party, received information from the Ministry of Strategy and Finance addressing tax and cryptocurrency issues. The document shows that under the current tax laws, the profits of individuals from cryptocurrency transactions are not taxable because they are not listed in the income tax law.

Not surprisingly, Bithumb is planning to apply to avoid paying the bill, as tax rules have not yet been applied to the cryptocurrency trading industry.

Read more: