Digital currency Bitcoin hits new high before losing S$200 in value in one day

[specuvestor]

Bitcoin extended losses, bringing its four-session slide to as much as 20 percent, as questions mount about whether the world’s biggest cryptocurrency was manipulated during last year’s record price surge.

After rallying more than 1,400 percent in 2017 amid an investor frenzy for digital assets, Bitcoin is down almost 70 percent to around $6,238 as of 4:37 p.m. in New York, from its record high of $19,511 set in December. It traded at a few cents after being launched in 2009.

“Things have changed for Bitcoin and the crypto space,” said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at online trading firm Oanda Corp. in London. “There doesn’t seem to be as much hype, or positive news. Every time we get a negative news story now -- after a period of consolidation -- we don’t see bullish sentiment come in to support it. It’s almost as if people are waiting to sell it.´´

-Bloomberg

Munger calls this Hubris. This is what I mean when I say over the years I have learnt and disciplined myself not to participate in things that I don't understand or make no sense, even if the siren tempts me with 10 bagger or what

----
Gartman said he broke his Rule No. 1 of investing via his newsletter: never buy a stock that’s in decline.

“More importantly we are smarting from having broken our own primary rule of trading to never, ever add to a losing position,” Gartman said Wednesday.

The investment in crypto-related assets is odd for Gartman, an investment traditionalists who tends to espouse the benefits of owning tangible assets. Although he has said blockchain, the distributed-ledger technology that underpins most digital assets, has merit, he has been mostly skeptical of the virtualcurrency sector, which he suggested was benefiting from speculative hype.

In December, Gartman described bitcoin as a “classic bubble,” in a CNBC interview, saying it had gone beyond the “absurdity” of Holland’s tulip bulb mania in the 17th century.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/one-pr...2018-02-21

[Big Toe]

For now the bubbles seemed much more contained compared to the dot.com era
We have speculators dabbling in bit coin, which no major financial institution is directly Involved.
We have unicorns burning piles of cash, and commanding ridiculous valuations. But most are not traded publicly YET.
The above 2 will not end well but we should be not seeing shocks on the financial system from these risks anytime soon.
What we will see is the end of cheap money and highly leveraged companies will struggle.

[specuvestor]

Looks like the tide has gone out. Should be obvious by now that crypto is an ingenious scam without any backing but the technology of blockchain is interesting for limited transactions

(Bloomberg) --The Great Crypto Crash of 2018 looks more and more like one for the record books.
As virtual currencies plumbed new depths on Wednesday, the MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 10 Index extended its collapse from a January high to 80 percent. The tumble has now surpassed the Nasdaq Composite Index’s 78 percent peak-to-trough decline after the dot-com bubble burst in 2000.

[specuvestor]

Interesting to hear from the 2nd party point of view

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...no-regrets

During the initial period, Garzik, 44, worked directly with Nakamoto, corresponding via private email and the Bitcointalk forum, until the token’s creator abruptly disappeared in 2011. Former collaborators and journalists have been guessing since about who he or she or they were -- a matter of importance since Nakamoto controls about 1 million Bitcoins, and could impact the cryptocurrency’s market price.
"My personal theory is that it’s Floridian Dave Kleiman," Garzik said in an phone interview. "It matches his coding style, this gentleman was self taught. And the Bitcoin coder was someone who was very, very smart, but not a classically trained software engineer.”
Kleiman, a former Florida sheriff’s officer who ended up becoming a computer forensics expert, died in 2013. Kleiman’s estate is suing Australian Craig Wright, who has claimed to be Nakamoto, for allegedly seizing billions of dollars worth of Bitcoins and intellectual property from Kleiman. Wright denies the claim.

[weijian]

Death by a thousand cuts i suppose?

Bitcoin Set to Close Week Near $3,000 as December Losses Mount

Bitcoin headed for its seventh weekly slump on Friday, holding above $3,000 -- a level it hasn’t broken below since September last year.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...sses-mount

[cyclone]

Bitcoin's death problem: how billions of pounds worth of crypto assets are being lost when people die

By James Cook, Matthew Field, and Hasan Chowdhury
The Telegraph, 6 February 2019

After losing his life to Crohn’s disease in India at just 30 years of age, cryptocurrency executive Gerald Cotten risks taking tens of millions of pounds worth of Bitcoin with him to the grave.

As the chief executive of QuadrigaCX, Canada’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, Cotten was responsible for accessing thousands of Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency worth £2,600 per coin, on the company’s "digital wallets".

But after Cotten’s death from complications of Crohn's, a disease of the bowels, on December 9, his family and colleagues realised that the strict security measures he had adopted to guard his cryptocurrency stash left them with no way to access the company’s coffers.

The result? Nearly $200m worth of cryptocurrency has gone missing forever, as the complex string of passwords required to gain access were solely in his hands. An encrypted laptop became the nerve centre of the company’s exchange business and the company, and its many creditors and investors, are unable to gain access to his funds.

It might sound like a one-off scenario, but this is not the first instance of someone’s death wiping out their cryptocurrency fortune.

Digital currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum are built on the blockchain, an online database that stores records of all transactions. They are designed to be extremely hard to hack into, existing on the internet or on encrypted hard drives known as “cold storage wallets”.

More details in https://sg.news.yahoo.com/bitcoin-apos-d...00869.html

[cyclone]

Quadriga Clients Won't Get Help From Regulator on Lost Crypto Millions

By Doug Alexander
February 7, 2019, 11:33 PM GMT+7

The latest twist in the crypto drama that stranded $145 million in assets on Quadriga CX brought more bad news for the investors: British Columbia’s securities regulator said Thursday it doesn’t have jurisdiction over the exchange.

The provincial agency “does not currently have any indication that Quadriga CX, the crypto asset trading platform, was trading in securities or derivatives or operated as a marketplace or exchange under British Columbia securities laws," Brian Kladko, a spokesman for the British Columbia Securities Commission, said in an email statement. “As such, BCSC does not regulate it."

Vancouver-based Quadriga CX has been unable to access C$190 million ($145 million) in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies belonging to its customers since its Chief Executive Officer Gerald Cotten -- who had the electronic keys to access the cache -- died in December. That’s left 115,000 users scrambling to figure out how to get back their money.

The Canadian Securities Administrators, an umbrella group, published an investor alert last June urging Canadians to be cautious when considering buying crypto assets through trading platforms. The alert said a platform may call itself an "exchange," but it may not be selling or trading securities or derivatives and, if such is the case, it will generally not be subject to regulation under securities or derivatives laws.

To date, no cryptocurrency exchange has been recognized as a marketplace by Canadian securities regulators, Kladko said.

B.C.’s securities regulator does have some oversight on the exchange owner, Quadriga Fintech Solutions Corp., which is a public company. The commission ordered that shares of Quadriga Fintech cease trading in March 2016 for failing to make required filings.

More details in https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...emium-asia

[cyclone]

Hackers steal over $40 million worth of bitcoin from one of the world’s-largest cryptocurrency exchanges
* Hackers stole 7,000 bitcoin from major cryptocurrency exchange Binance, the platform said.
* They used a variety of methods to carry out the “large scale security breach”, according to the exchange.
* Binance said it would cover the incident “in full” and no user funds will be affected.

Arjun Kharpal
Published 8 May 2019

Hackers have stolen over $40 million worth of bitcoin from Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, the company said on Tuesday.

Binance said the hackers ran off with over 7,000 bitcoin and used a variety of attack methods to carry out the “large scale security breach” which occurred on Tuesday.

They also managed to get some user information such as two-factor authentication codes, which are required to log in to a Binance account.

The cryptocurrency exchange was able to trace the stolen bitcoin to a single wallet, it said.

“The hackers had the patience to wait, and execute well-orchestrated actions through multiple seemingly independent accounts at the most opportune time,” Binance said in a statement.

“The transaction is structured in a way that passed our existing security checks. It was unfortunate that we were not able to block this withdrawal before it was executed. Once executed, the withdrawal triggered various alarms in our system. We stopped all withdrawals immediately after that.”

Binance said the theft occurred from the company’s so-called “hot wallet,” which accounts for about 2% of its total bitcoin holdings. A wallet is a digital means of storing cryptocurrency. A “hot wallet” is one that is connected to the internet as opposed to a “cold” one which stores digital coins offline.

More details in https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/08/binance-...tolen.html

[cyclone]

Bitcoin climbs back above $7,000 and is now up 90% year-to-date
* Bitcoin climbed close to $7,600 on Sunday, according to industry website CoinDesk.
* The world’s most-valuable cryptocurrency is now up nearly 90% since the start of the year.
* One analyst says bitcoin could soar as high as ”$50,000 or $100,000,” as it’s only “in the early part of its cycle.”

Ryan Browne
PUBLISHED 13 May 2019

Bitcoin has jumped above $7,000, continuing a stunning comeback for the cryptocurrency in 2019.

The virtual currency climbed close to $7,600 on Sunday, according to industry website CoinDesk. It’s since pared gains, but is still holding above that $7,000 level.

It marks yet another move higher for the world’s most-valuable cryptocurrency, which is now up nearly 90% since the start of the year.

That’s despite negative headlines surrounding bitcoin exchange Bitfinex, whose parent company has been hit with a probe in New York, and Binance, which was hacked in a heist that saw more than $40 million in bitcoin stolen.

“Bitcoin has been building up momentum,” Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst at social trading firm eToro, told CNBC via telephone. “Ever since the mid-December lows we’ve actually doubled in price. ”

According to Greenspan, the digital currency could soar as high as ”$50,000 or $100,000,” because bitcoin is still only “in the early part of its cycle.” It’s worth noting bitcoin was once worth nearly $20,000 in late December 2017, before a massive slump last year.

More details in https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/13/bitcoin-...-7000.html

[cyclone]

Bitcoin soars above $11,000 for the first time in 15 months — now up 170% for the year
* Bitcoin surged above $11,000 on Monday hitting its highest level since March 5, 2018.
* It is now up over 170% this year.
* Experts said Facebook’s cryptocurrency project Libra has been a catalyst for bitcoin to go higher.

Arjun Kharpal
PUBLISHED SUN, JUN 23 2019  11:29 PM EDT

Bitcoin surged above the $11,000 mark on Monday hitting a more than 15-month high, as a high-profile project from Facebook throws cryptocurrencies back into the spotlight.

The digital coin hit an intraday high of $11,307.69 around 5:30 a.m. HK/SIN Monday, according to Coindesk’s Bitcoin Price Index, which takes into account the price of the cryptocurrency across various exchanges. That’s the highest level since March 5, 2018. Bitcoin had pared some of those gains and was trading at around $10,624.10 at 10:05 a.m. HK/SIN Monday.

Investors appear to be shrugging off some of the memories from the burst of the bitcoin bubble after it hit a record high of over $19,000 in December 2017. The price of the cryptocurrency came crashing down over the course of 2018 and into the start of 2019 where it fell to the low-to-mid $3,000 mark.

But since late February, bitcoin has been marching higher again, as major companies began to announce cryptocurrency-related projects. Fidelity rolled out a cryptocurrency custody and trade execution operation in March. But it was perhaps news of Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency that helped boost bitcoin.

More details in https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/24/bitcoin-...onths.html