Currency Analysis Report 8-1-19…Where Next For The US Dollar???

Fed Powell cut central bank cut rates on yesterday for the first time in ten years, due to continued uncertainty and a slowdown in the global markets.  However, this wasn’t anything surprising as everyone and my Grandma expected the cut.  However, it was his language that did surprise the Markets.  He pretty much said, I’m throwing the markets a bone, but don’t necessary expect more bones.

Image Source

This was a dovish tone in terms of more rate cuts and so the US dollar moved higher on the news as worldwide investors moved money into the currency (the US dollar) offering the greatest return.  Although the US Feds cut rates, everyone around the world is cutting as well, but a faster pace.

So where is the US dollar heading next, lets go to the charts?

Bigger picture, the US dollar is moving towards the weekly demand at $99. This is key as there is room for the US dollar another $1 higher before potentially reversing. Which means Gold, Oil, Wheat, Soybeans, the Euro dollar, etc. should move lower as these assets are inversely correlated to the US dollar.

Based on the daily chart, potential turning points are between $99.40 and $100.40 as highlighted by the daily supply zones marked in white.

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.

@actifit is again leading the STEEM Ecosystem

@actifit is doing it again! They have launched another new functionality, from now on you can exchange your AFIT tokens for STEEM at the STEEM-ENGINE market.

In order to allow all users and investors the use of this new functionality, you need to have AFITX tokens in your wallet which are going to be airdropped in the coming hours, with a maximum of 10 AFITX per account (equivalent to 100 STEEM at the current price).

In short, For every 1 AFITX owned, you can move daily up to 100 AFIT.

That means, AFIT current price is 0.05 STEEM/AFIT , so, at the current price it is 5 STEEM a day just with 1 AFITX!

But, wait, AFITX seems to be even more important than the rewarding AFIT token… The more AFITX token you have in your wallet the higher your user rank and so the higher you will be rewarded in AFIT, STEEM, ZZAN, SPORTS, PAL.

Also have a look on the Token description:

AFITX is a new special benefits token for Actifit users & AFIT token holders. Holding this token enables users to: – Daily Move AFIT tokens to S-E – Increases user rank – Increases post rewards via our different rewarded tokens – Receive priority when exchanging AFIT for STEEM upvotes – Participate in contests – AFITX will constitute the basis for our future Exchange framework

So here I am now buying some AFITX while exchanging already some of my AFIT for STEEM…

Actually, it is working somehow as an AFIT POWER-DOWN in automatic, so, seems that you have to select the amount you want to send daily to the Steem-engine exchange so, be sure to choose a sustainable amount because it can affect your User Rank.

For me this is a Clear WIN-WIN again!!!!

Congratulations and thanks to @mcfarhat and @actifit team for the excellent work.

@toofasteddie


P.S: You can learn more about it by reading Actifit last post.



Have You Ever Heard Of A Frontier Market???

An emerging market is a country that doesn’t have all the characters of a developed market.  Examples of developed markets would be the US, Australia, England, Canada, etc. Years ago, when it came to emerging markets, it was all about the big four, BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, and China. 

Since then, India, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand and several other countries are now considered emerging markets.  Countries wanting to join the club, known as frontier markets include include Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria, Philippines, Vietnam, among others.  As these frontier markets develop, they could perhaps offer investors with handsome returns. 

The VanEck Vectors® Vietnam ETF (VNM®) seeks to replicate the performance of the MVIS® Vietnam Index (MVVNMTR®), which includes securities of publicly traded companies that are incorporated in Vietnam or that are incorporated outside of Vietnam but have at least 50% of their revenues/related assets in Vietnam.

“Recently, Vietnam has attracted global investor interest as a potential beneficiary of the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China, but investors have also taken notice of the country’s attractive long-term fundamental characteristics,” said VanEck in a recent note.

The equity market there is small as highlighted by VNM’s roster of just 27 stocks. However, the nation is growing rapidly and its demographics are more favorable than larger Asian economies such as China and Japan.

“Vietnam is taking gradual steps to liberalize its markets, while seeking to avoid the negative impacts of capital flight,” according to VanEck. “Hot money is a real issue for frontier and emerging market economies, and the negative repercussions, including volatility, may have long lasting effects on the local economy.

Source

Now I see why they call it frontier markets, as these markets are still underdeveloped like the chart below. At some point, VNM will breakout…maybe by this time Vietnam joins the emerging market club.

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.

How to Lockup (stake) your KuCoin Shares – Lessons Learnt from Day 1

 

I wrote about the new KuCoin staking plan on Tuesday. This post explained it: “Don’t miss this one!”

True to my word:

I fully intend to lock up my KCS for this period, and I will do so as soon as I can.

I was waiting on KuCoin, ready to lock my KCS as soon as the clock hit 1 August (UTC +8), which was at 16:00 (UTC) on 31 July.

Of course, there were problems…

The problems:

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised. Secretly, I had been expecting some sort of issue, even though I have great faith in the KuCoin team. Blockchain tech is just still all so new; because of this, platforms often forget to take something into account and fail under heavy loads or unusual conditions. This is exactly what happened to KuCoin.

The second that the staking contract opened, it failed. I hopped onto the various social media channels and watched the ensuing chaos for the first few minutes. To their credit, KuCoin were quick to respond. I saw multiple KuCoin admins respond on the telegram channel within minutes.

It turns out that a large block of simultaneous API calls (to lock KCS tokens) had triggered a safety system in KuCoin’s software. From a geek point of view, this is interesting: I have been wondering what safety systems KuCoin has in place – for obvious reasons these are not openly published. I guess we just found one! The safety system shut off the locking contract and had to be reset and disabled for these particular KCS withdrawals. The delay took about 20 minutes to rectify, after which KuCoin announced that they would retry launching the staking procedure 20 minutes later.

KuCoin did a good job of keeping us informed, even replying to my personal thread on Twitter where I and another investor were discussing the issue:

https://twitter.com/KuCoinModerator/status/1156603884401504257

 

 

At 00:40 (UTC +8) the contract was reopened – and it worked.

To make up for the problem, KuCoin made the decision to double the maximum total amount of tokens that could be locked on Day 1. The daily cutoff for locking is 500 000 KCS, with a limit of 10 000 KCS per person. KuCoin raised the total to 1 000 000 KCS for Day 1 – which is about the best that they could do at short notice without unfairly disadvantaging those who had been waiting. TAKE NOTE: the 1 000 000 KCS limit was reached well before the 10 minute mark! In fact it took only 6 minutes and 6 seconds before the limit was reached – despite it having been doubled.

What to do and what to expect:

There were not a lot of explanatory posts about the KCS lockup process before it happened. I know of only two that KuCoin released themselves. Because of this, I had a few unanswered questions at lockup time – things I was unsure of. I decided to write this post to try to help you with any questions that you may have about the process, and to guide you through those bits of it which are not immediately obvious.

Firstly – the address to use for the lockup is exactly what they say in their blog post: LOCKKCS. “LOCKKCS” is what you type into the “Wallet Address” field (as seen in the image below).

Note: If you type this in before the contract is open, you will see an error message “Contain invalid or sensitive information”. Don’t worry, this is normal. Just wait for the contract to activate at 16:00 UTC. If you try to lockup once the contract is already full (500 000 tokens have already been staked for the day) then you will see the same error message.

Trying to transact when the contract is closed will look something like this:

From www.kucoin.com ; modified by Bit Brain

 

 

Once the contract is open, refresh the page and the error message should be gone. Remember that you must lock a minimum of 200 KCS at a time. Also remember that KuCoin has a lot of checks and balances when you withdraw (depending on your account security settings). For me this meant the usual ritual of keying in my KuCoin trading code, my 2FA code and a code which is emailed to me. Don’t forget about all that, it adds at least 30 seconds onto your precious time, so be prepared before the contract goes live: have your apps and webpages open and get ready to type/click fast and accurately. In reality, you probably have at least 5 minutes in which to to this – a time which should grow longer each day.

If you manage to beat the rush and lock successfully, then you will see that you have an “in progress” transaction in the “Withdrawal history” section at the bottom of the page.

Additional Information:

The “Remark” section caught me a little off guard. With less than a minute to go before unlocking, somebody on Telegram asked about using referral codes for the lockup (as was briefly mentioned in a KuCoin blog post). With literally seconds before the lockup went live, an admin replied that you put the referral codes in the remarks field. Having no other referral code at hand, and not knowing whether it was mandatory or not, and with the admin already swamped with questions, I hurriedly put my own code in the field, just to ensure that all fields were complete and that my transaction wouldn’t get automatically declined and miss the lockup.

No, I’m pretty sure that you can’t self-refer and that I won’t score anything extra by doing this! ?

I honestly do not know for sure if a referral code is mandatory, I highly doubt that it is. If you want to be a nice person, please use my referral code for locking. I will get extra lockup rewards if you do (which I could really use!). You type it into the “Remark” block. My referral code is E39MoQ

After the problems of the first round, APIs will no longer be able to conduct lockups. Aside from causing problems with the contract, according to https://twitter.com/KuCoinUpdates:

To ensure a fair and equitable KCS lockup program for all of our users, KuCoin will prohibit the use of API to withdraw KCS to the LOCKKCS lockup address. This has taken effect immediately and will continue through the end of the lockup period.

It’s a good decision – it’s fair and it was suggested by a large number of users on Telegram when the first lockup stalled.

Be aware that after you have locked your tokens, you will no longer see them in your KuCoin account. Don’t panic, they will be back (automatically) in three months time – with interest! Also, there is no Lockup Dashboard yet, the only indication of your lockup at this stage is your withdrawal history. Similarly, do not panic if you click on the Etherscan link to your lockup transaction and you see something funny. After lockup your withdrawal page should look something like this:

From www.kucoin.com ; modified by Bit Brain

 

 

If you click “view transaction” (as highlighted above) you will see a message such as this one:

From https://etherscan.io

 

 

That is perfectly normal. The LOCKKCS address is not a regular Ethereum address, it is an internal KuCoin construct. The transaction does not go onto the Ethereum blockchain and will not appear there, so Etherscan is supposed to return an error message. This was confirmed by KuCoin technical staff and the Etherscan screenshot above is from my own lockup transaction.

Note that despite the double allowance, only 286 people managed to lock in round one, I therefore consider myself to be extremely lucky! However, if you missed out, then don’t worry! The rate you can get by locking today is only very slightly less, you’ll still score about a 10% ROI within only three months by locking your tokens! The average amount of KCS locked per person yesterday was 3521 – which I consider to be quite a lot (certainly way more than I own!) With amounts like that being deposited, don’t expect the contract to stay open for long for at least the first few days of locking. I tell you again: be ready and waiting on the dot of 16:00 UTC!

Conclusion:

Despite the teething issues, I want to say well done to KuCoin. I think they did a damn good job of handling the API issue in a rapid, fair and responsible manner – about the best they could have done under the circumstances. I don’t blame them for the issue either, it would have been nice if it had been picked up before the time and prevented, but that’s very easy for me to say after the fact, and hindsight is always 20/20. Just as I think Binance handled their hack very well, it’s good to see the intelligent and levelled-headed folk at KuCoin able to do the same under pressure. Such incidents are potential PR disasters if not handled correctly. I don’t see how KuCoin could have handled it any better, their Tweet on my own Twitter wall being a prime example of the lengths they went to to inform and to ease tensions.

Well done (again) KuCoin!

In other news: I have recently heard that KuCoin are busy with a “dust” feature such as Binance has (great idea in the first place – well done Binance!) whereby small balances of other tokens held on KuCoin will be able to get “dusted” into KuCoin Shares. It should be released with their next platform update, I look forward to this!

Also, for those of you amateur videographers out there, KuCoin is running a video creation competition with 50 KCS up for grabs. Check their Twitter feed for the link.

Out of interest: I decided to shift my small Tron holdings from Binance to KuCoin two days ago. I’m pleased to report that the fully automatic staking contract is working and that I have already earned my first daily “soft staking” rewards.

Now if KuCoin could kindly please stop releasing awesome features all the time, then perhaps I could go a week without blogging about them! That would make a nice change! ?

Yours in crypto
Bit Brain

Featured image from https://twitter.com/KuCoinUpdates

“The secret to success: find out where people are going and get there first” 

~ Mark Twain

“Crypto does not require institutional investment to succeed; institutions require crypto investments to remain successful” 

~ Bit Brain

Bit Brain recommends:

Crypto Exchanges:





? Daily Crypto News, August, 1st?

  • Litecoin Is ‘Halving’ Soon: What’s Happening and What You Should Know ;
  • Ethereum: What the Next 4 Years Look Like ;
  • Bitcoin Lightning Wallets Are Gaining Traction in 2019 ;
  • Bitcoin Passes New Milestone as Network Mines 85% of Its Total Supply ;
  • Sex & Crypto | Cointelegraph Documentary ;
  • ? Daily Crypto Calendar, August, 1st?
  • STEEM Trading Update

Welcome to the Daily Crypto News: A complete Press Review, Coin Calendar and Trading Analysis. Enjoy!

? Litecoin Is ‘Halving’ Soon: What’s Happening and What You Should Know

A rule embedded within litecoin’s (LTC) code is set to soon reduce rewards for the miners who today ensure transaction processing on the world’s fourth-largest blockchain by total value.

In approximately five days, litecoin will undergo a scheduled reward halving – a process aimed at preserving cryptocurrency’s purchasing power. The mining reward is currently set at 25 litecoins ($2,500) per block and will drop to 12.5 litecoins ($1,200) per block on Aug. 5.


With that transition, the protocol will be adding significantly fewer litecoins to the market after Aug. 5.


? Ethereum: What the Next 4 Years Look Like

Yesterday, ethereum celebrated its fourth birthday.


Four years ago, on July 30, 2015, the world’s first general-purpose blockchain platform went live. Called ethereum, the platform was the first of its kind to feature a Turing-complete virtual machine and native programming language able to deploy code of any algorithmic complexity.


“Before ethereum, developers had to design and write extremely complex software,” blockchain researcher Mihailo Bjelic told CoinDesk. “Ethereum introduced a generic programmable layer which abstracted this whole process and enabled developers to build decentralized applications by only writing their applications’ core logic.”


There are roughly 800 monthly active developers building on the ethereum blockchain, according to new data from investment firm Electric Capital.

Eric Conner, founder of information site ETHHub and product researcher at blockchain startup Gnosis, said:

“I think in four years, Ethereum will be moving past the hardest parts of its ambitious goals around proof-of-stake and scaling. At that point, the network will be able to onboard more users and we’ll start to grow beyond the use cases we are seeing today.”

? Bitcoin Lightning Wallets Are Gaining Traction in 2019

Lightning-centric bitcoin wallets are gaining traction in 2019 and making small transactions affordable by reducing network fees.


The bootstrapped Spanish startup Bluewallet garnered 35,000 downloads so far this year, according to co-founder Nuno Coelho, a significant jump from the 5,000 users it had in 2018.


Coelho told CoinDesk the wallet’s built-in lightning marketplace, offering connections to external services like the crypto exchange ZigZag, the blog Yalls and games like Lightning Roulette, facilitates nearly 10,000 referrals a month. So far, BlueWallet users have completed more than 100,000 lightning transactions.

? Bitcoin Passes New Milestone as Network Mines 85% of Its Total Supply

Bitcoin (BTC) now has 85% of its supply in circulation as of August 1, leaving just 3.15 million new coins for the next 120 years. 


3.15 million bitcoins, 120 years


According to data from monitoring resource Blockchain, Thursday saw Bitcoin miners extract the 17,850,000th unit as part of the transaction validation process. 


As a result, due to the number of coins awarded to miners per block decreasing over time, the remaining supply will only be unlocked in the year 2140. Bitcoin has a total fixed supply of 21 million units. 

Bitcoins in circulation

“Scarcity is about to kick in,” the crypto trading account known as Rhythm on Twitter commented on the event. 

The current Bitcoin supply means only a maximum of 17,850,000 people can own an entire coin. In reality, however, some of the existing mined supply is not in circulation and never will be, as users lose access to private keys. 

? Sex & Crypto | Cointelegraph Documentary

Because of its pseudo-anonymous, censorship-resistant nature, cryptocurrency has become a popular payment method in the adult entertainment industry. Porn sites, webcam sites and online sex shops have been using crypto to reduce their dependence on traditional payment services, which often impose restrictions and high transaction fees on these kinds of businesses — which are considered to be high risk. 


Sex performers, who often struggle to set up regular bank accounts, can receive crypto payments directly from their clients, counting on the immutability and censorship resistance of blockchain technology. 

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? Daily Crypto Calendar, August, 1st?

“Our GCR to TRO Token Conversion Event (TCE) will commence August 1st, 2019.”

AUN releases alpha versions of A-ID mobile apps for iOS & Android.

“We are happy to announce that $PAC (PACcoin) will officially be re-named PAC Global as of the 1st August 2019.”

“Submit your questions here or on YouTube before the AMA on Thursday, August 1st @ 6PM UTC (2PM EST).”

Monthly interest distribution by Auxilium Interest Distribution Platform for coinholders. Also supports charity.

image.png

STEEM Trading Update by my friend @cryptopassion

Here is the chart of yersterday :

STEEMUSD.jpg

Here is the current chart :

STEEMUSD.jpg

The STEEM that we know since months now is back. The BTC is having a nice UP but the STEEM is not really following, even we had a little UP move which has been now cancelled. However, the more important is to don’t break our support line around 0.24$. If we continue like that, the UP will come back at one moment.

image.png

Last Updates

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Join this new Free To Play on the STEEM Platform !

AMD Does This, When This Happens

Advanced Micro Devices reported their second quarter earnings yesterday, but they couldn’t live up to the expectations. Revenue was down 13% year over year, net income fell over 40% and AMD said that it expects its full-year results won’t be as good as the previous forecast.  On the news the stock fell double digits.

I remember writing a post about AMD almost one year ago and I remember that $33 level being a monthly supply zone which eventually push price to the sub $20 level.  It’s still so vivid because I remember I was wrong on the call and thought price was going higher. 

AMD Just Got Upgraded

NOTE: I should of known better, as very few things trump a monthly zone, but at the time, all I saw was AMD’s price continuing to higher after years of hibernation.

The CEO, Lisa Su said the weaker than expected forecast was due to weakness in gaming consoles as both Microsoft Corporation and Sony Corp announced they were coming out with new game consoles.  Needless to say the stock fell double digits yesterday.  However, I’m not surprised because the way that monthly supply got me almost a year ago, got many traders/investors who went long yesterday or didn’t take some profits off the table.

On the daily chart, price formed a “M” pattern which is a reversal pattern. So the potential price action over the coming days/weeks might be to the downside.

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.

STEEM is within the Top 10 Crypto-Blockchain Projects…

…according to the 13th Update of The Center for Information and Industry Development (CCID), under China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

China Publishes New Rankings of 37 Crypto Projects

STEEM is ranked 9th while BITCOIN is 11th on a list of 37 Crypto-Blockchain projects.

EOS is the 1st project, it makes sense to me since, if I am not wrong, some of the most important Block Producers are located at China.

I am happy to see that STEEM is up at some of the most important Blockchain Ranks. Surely, projects as @wherein are doing an excellent work there…

It is weird that Cryptocurrency trading is still banned at China…I don’t think this status will last for long since also the government is willing to understand the technicalities and applicabilities of this technology…

In the meantime, as usual, keep calm and steem on!

@toofasteddie

Crypto Contest August 1: PlayChip

PlayChip (HitBTC: PLABTC) has broken out of the triangle pattern in the daily chart.

(Chart courtesy of Tradingview.com (log scale))

Elliott Wave Analysis

In Elliott Wave terms, PlayChip began a wave one advance on January 30. The red wave one (blue sub-waves i-ii-iii-iv-v) finished on January 30, and the red wave two (blue sub-waves a-b-c) correction ended on July 10. If this wave count is correct, PlayChip should be heading next towards the January 30 peak in the red wave three.

(Chart courtesy of Tradingview.com (log scale))

Funnymentals

PlayChip is an universal gaming token for sports betting, fantasy sports and e-sports. You can watch their intro video below.

(Sources: PlayChip and YouTube)

How can I vote? Where is the contest?

You can vote by following this link.

Two Minute Crypto – Time Well Spent?

Click the audio tab below to listen to the 47th episode of my weekly crypto podcast ‘Two Minute Crypto.’ These are intended to be short, single-topic ramblings on some aspect of the cryptosphere. Consider dropping a like and or a review on iTunes or Podbean if you enjoy the podcast. Comments and critiques welcome.



External Podcast Links

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/two-minute-crypto-time-well-spent/id1441492450?i=1000445836307

or

https://www.podbean.com/eu/pb-cxc95-b9e575


Transcript

Time Well Spent?

Welcome to Two Minute Crypto. It would take either a brave or old man to deny that blockchain is interesting. Regardless of whether you perceive possible investment value in any particular project – the in’s and out of blockchain are in and of themselves fascinating. Decentralized transactions, trustless commerce, open access to information, uncensorable records and on and on the cognitive appeal of blockchain goes. As a crypto enthusiast, you have almost certainly spent time exploring and reflecting upon these concepts as you first got to grips with the space. Doubtless, that was time well spent.

The question today though is – Are you still learning about crypto or has your interaction with blockchain slowly degenerated to chart gazing, blockfolio checking, telegram lurking and the consumption of hyperbolic Youtube nonsense?

When was the last time you read a long format article on the tech side of crypto? How about a piece with a contrarian perspective on the value proposition of blockchain? Or a deep dive into Austrian economics?

If you look back over the last week and your engagement with the crypto space – how much of that time involved deepening your knowledge of some aspect of blockchain, economics, trading or investment? Sure, checking in on the Telegram channel of a particular project can offer some insight from time to time but mostly it’s just hype, hope, trolling and admins doing what they are paid to do -spinning the ‘everything is awesome’ narrative.

If you are primarily an investor in crypto – frequent checks of your portfolio balance are simply draining both time and attention for no benefit whatsoever.

We may all be forgiven the very occasional hopium laced video about XYZ crypto to the moon but this should never comprise a significant portion of your engagement with this space. Aside from undermining your ability to make dispassionate decisions about crypto projects – ultimately it will lead to disillusionment with crypto as the ‘too good to be true narrative’ turns out to be just that.

Efficient time management is critical to compounding the financial benefits most of us hope to extract from our engagement with crypto. A focus on learning (broadly applied), the ruthless re-examination of blockchain assumptions and a continual effort to optimize our crypto routines are key to making the most of this crypto ‘moment’.

Thanks for listening.


Reason Not To Buy Ford Under $10

Three months ago, Ford announced first quarter earning in which net income declined, to $1.1 billion from $1.7 billion. Earnings per share were $0.29 cents per share, down from $0.44, but better than expected. Also, revenue fell to $40.3 billion from $41.9 billion a year earlier, but higher than expected. Beating the expectations were enough to send the stock 10% higher on Friday, it’s best one day performance since 2009.

Last year global car
sales declined for the first time since 2009. Based on first half U.S auto
sales, the U.S. auto sales are on pace to drop for a second year in a row.

Automakers are facing headwinds related to a trade war with China and threats of further tariffs up to 25% that could be implemented in November. The Chinese market also is facing oversaturation with predictions of a 7.5% decrease in sales this year after it began to shrink at the end of 2018.

The U.S. auto industry is heading toward a nearly 30% decrease in sales by 2022, a Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst predicts.

Source

Yet this article I read on Yahoo Finance stated the 3 reasons to buy Ford under $10 were the following: Ford’s Volume and Market Share Trends Are Improving, Depressed Domestic Revenue Trends Will Turn Around, Profit Trends Are Moving in the Right Direction.

I won’t get into the details of the article because the case to buy Ford in my opinion is weak. All one has to do is look at the chart. The fact that price couldn’t even make it to the first weekly supply at $11.25, but stalled and fell at $10.50 tells you the #1 reason not to buy Ford under $10. The chart suggests price is going to fall to the monthly demand at $5.25.

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.