Bitcoin
Another Exciting Bitcoin Forecast
Bitcoin, the largest digital currency by market valuations, traded slightly at this writing Monday, laboring above the $9,300 area. Some cryptocurrency market observers believe that if the king of digital currencies can breakthrough the psychologically important $10,000, exciting levels could be on the way.
“From a technical standpoint, there is some resistance that will put the asset [bitcoin] to the test,” wrote Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Think Markets U.K., reports MarketWatch. “But a move above $10K could be very explosive and that would open the floor towards the $15K mark.”
While bitcoin still has plenty of detractors, Aslam’s forecast is the latest in a string of bull calls on bitcoin. For example, some crypto market participants believe bitcoin can rise to $20,000 or even $25,000 before the end of this year.
From $9,300, bitcoin would need to surge more than 61% to reach the $15,000 mark.
An Impressive Run
Bitcoin’s recent run is undoubtedly impressive. On April 5th, the digital currency’s market capitalization was $113.55 billion, but at this writing Monday, that number was $158.92 billion. Bitcoin’s market value is more than double that of the second-largest cyrptocurrency ethereum. Detractors would note that bitcoin would still need to more than double just to reclaim its December peak around $20,000.
Recently, the 17 millionth bitcoin was mined, meaning there are just 4 million of the coins left to be mined. However, that is not worrisome because, at the current mining rate, it will take over a century for the remaining 4 million bitcoins to be mined.
“In the long-term, the digital currency has had an exponential growth but also presented important downturns. There is decent likelihood that the currency could stabilize between 7’000 – 12’000 in 2018. Bitcoin is trading slightly above its 200 DMA (8000 range),” according to FXStreet.
Bitcoin prices labored around $7,000 on April 1st, meaning the digital currency gained about 30% in the fourth month of the year.
Bitcoin
Only 1.3 million Bitcoin are left in circulation on cryptocurrency exchanges!
Christmas is coming, and Bitcoin (BTC) scarcity is at historically low levels. CryptoRank announced in a recent tweet that just 6.3% of the overall Bitcoin supply, or 1.3 million BTC, are kept on cryptocurrency exchanges.
The decreasing amount is nothing new; it’s been steadily declining since the Bitcoin halving in 2020, when the BTC block reward was cut in half. The supply of BTC on exchanges has also decreased gradually over the past year, trending downward. On October 2020, exchange wallets made up 9.5% of the BTC supply, just before the all-time highs at Christmas time, and 7.3% in July 2019. In December 2021, the 6.3 percent figure is a record low.
However, the dominance of Coinbase’s BTC wallet is also falling. The American exchange used to store more bitcoin than all other exchanges combined. Over the past year, its domination has decreased from 50.52% to 40.65%.
Following a spate of good price statistics that tie into the rising price of Bitcoin, the announcement has sparked further excitement among investors. First and foremost, owing to the fact that BTC output is shifting from a “liquid” to an “illiquid” state, monthly BTC production has frozen at 100,000 BTC. In other words, more BTC is stored in cold storage than is being mined.
Additionally, it’s crucial to remember that many retail investors and several firms keep their BTC on exchanges, demonstrating that the “illiquid” BTC category may be even smaller. Instead of keeping their BTC in cold storage, some Bitcoin holders would entrust it to exchanges instead of leaving custody of their keys with them.
Surprisingly, Binance CEO and co-founder Changpeng Zhao has encouraged hot wallets, despite the best efforts of Bitcoiners like Andreas Antonopolous to the contrary: “Not your keys, not your bitcoin.” is part of everyday BTC mantra.
This may lead to the situation in which 1.3 million BTC is “stored” on exchanges, but they are not “circulating,” and they certainly do not contribute to the liquidity problem.
Despite calls for a “Santa Rally” on the back of strong analytics, the bears are not yet out of the woods. A tweet from BullRun Invest using Glassnode data showed that 24.6% of all BTC supply is sitting above $47,000.
According to the report, close to a fourth of the BTC purchased at those prices levels are now underwater. If BTC fails to make progress into the 50s, there may be fewer gifts under the tree tomorrow.
Banking
U.S. Takes Crypto Crime Seriously with Anti-Money Laundering Reforms
The United States passed into law its Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020, which takes effect on January 1, 2021. This brings digital currency exchange companies and other digital-asset-related businesses under the scope of regulations of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), which requires financial institutions “to actively detect, monitor and report potential money laundering activity.”
“I’m pleased that our anti-money laundering legislation was included as a part of this year’s [National Defense Authorization Act]. This bipartisan legislation protects Americans by depriving criminals and terrorists of the tools they use to finance illicit activity. It is the first serious overhaul of our anti-money laundering system in decades, and it makes sense to include it in the biggest, most important national defense legislation Congress passes each year,” South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds said in a press release.
The massive anti-money laundering reforms are targeting businesses dealing with digital currencies and assets by clearly specifying the definition of a “financial institution” to “‘a business engaged in the exchange of currency, funds, or value that substitutes for currency or funds” and “a licensed sender of money or any other person who engages as a business in the transmission of funds or value that substitutes for currency.”
The reforms further define a “money transmitting business” to include those who deal with “currency, funds, or value that substitutes for currency.” Now, there are no longer loopholes that digital asset companies can use when dealing with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the agency that enforces the BSA.
Stricter Penalties Enforced
Aside from updating definitions to ensure that digital currency exchange firms and others dealing in digital assets are clearly within the scope of the AML Act of 2020 and the BSA, stricter penalties are now being enforced for crypto criminals.
Now, those who have been found guilty of violating the AML Act of 2020 and/or BSA are faced with fines amounting to profits earned while committing the violation and possible jail time. Those guilty of an “egregious” breach are also going to be banned from taking a board member position of any financial institution in the country for 10 years. Furthermore, employees of financial institutions who commit these crimes will be obligated to return to their employer all bonuses received during the time the act was committed.
FinCEN is being given additional resources, like increasing its manpower, to ensure the enforcement of these reforms. This will further safeguard investors against crypto crimes and nail down digital currency exchange firms and other digital-asset-related businesses that do not comply with BSA regulations.
Bitcoin
Bitcoin (BTC) Crosses 55k And Is Heading Towards 60k Fast!
Less than two months into 2021, the price of bitcoin has risen 95.4%.
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