As I wrote in this post a few weeks ago when I digged into HF21, I believe this will be very positive for the STEEM price in the Medium Term.
Now that we have different tokens (thanks to Steem-Engine and soon to SMTs). The ecosystem is flourishing quickly through the many dapps that you all use daily.
With this new HF21, stakeholders (therefore investors) might play a bigger role curating and harvesting more value of the STEEM Blockchain. In order to do so, they will have to increase their SP Holdings (which we are seeing during the past 2 days).
STEEM Price is performing very well ahead of HF21
I read daily very carefully @penguinpablo reports. In the past days, we have seen Steemians STAKING more than they were Unstaking ! Yes, you read that right.
This has not been the case for a long, long time and I believe considering the current price of STEEM outperforming the Crypto Market, a few more days like this and we could get into a STEEM Frenzy again.
Steemians and Investors have been powering up in the past 2 days
I have been buying STEEM in the past months and will try to do so before HF21.
Active Steemians Writers are also staking
I came accross this post from a fellow Steemian @toofasteddie: https://steemit.com/newsteem/@toofasteddie/harvestingtime-7yr6gb5xmq
In this post, he is explaining why he sells its STEEM Alts to Buy more STEEM before the upcoming HF.
I think, to make STEEM price continue on this trend, we just need a few hundreds of Steemians, before outsiders see the move and amplify it !
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has confirmed user funds are not at risk after a reported technical problem began affecting withdrawals.
According to CEO Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ, the situation was being resolved on Aug. 23, while funds security was not compromised.
“Funds are #safu,” he wrote on Twitter, employing a now well-known catchphrase he had previously inadvertently created while confirming there was no danger to cryptocurrency holdings.
Ethereum could become the first public blockchain on Hyperledger – if the open-source consortium’s technical steering committee approves a proposal to adopt the ConsenSys-backed Pantheon project.
Pantheon is a suite of ethereum-based services built by PegaSys, a 50-strong engineering team at ConsenSys. The Pantheon ethereum client, built on Java, is used to develop enterprise applications with features like privacy and permissioning.
The proposal was sent out in a Hyperledger mailing list email on Aug. 8, and if it is accepted, Pantheon will be renamed Hyperledger Besu (a Japanese term for base or foundation).
The approval would bring Pantheon’s protocol under Hyperledger, joining blockchain projects like Hyperledger Fabric by IBM and Hyperledger Sawtooth by Intel.
Coinbase Wallet’s decentralized web feature will allow users to link to supported Dapps from any browser using a new system called Walletlink.
The San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange announced today in a blog post, the open-sourced Walletlink acts as a “secure bridge” between the Coinbase ecosystem and the traditional web.
The feature will enable Coinbase Wallet users to access and administer their funds – separate from their crypto holdings on Coinbase.com – from a desktop Dapp interface for the first time, said Coinbase Wallet product lead Sid Coelho-Prabhu.
Circle is hiring a new general partner to raise a $100 million venture capital fund.
The fund will take advantage of the deal flow coming through SeedInvest, the equity crowdfunding startup that Circle acquired in March 2019.
The listing on LinkedIn says: “The Partner will be expected to develop and drive an investment thesis designed to leverage SeedInvest’s sizable deal flow and its unique network of 250,000 investors to maximize returns.” SeedInvest emphasizes itself a registry of potential startup investments that have been thoroughly vetted by the firm before they are shown to users.
San Francisco-based nonprofit Kiva, a company that crowdfunds loans for financial inclusion, has launched a blockchain platform for credit history with the government of Sierra Leone.
According to a Reuters report on Aug. 21, Kiva and President of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio jointly launched the blockchain initiative in the country’s capital.
The platform will use biometric data collected by the government, such as fingerprints, in order to access the credit history of citizens in the country. This will purportedly give a way for lenders to obtain citizens’ credit history.
We are seeing a very high level of fear (or low level of greed). I posted below a graph of their Fear & Greed Index followed by a graph of the Bitcoin Price.
In the last 18 months, the indicator dipped strongly 2 times before and when it did you can see the reaction by BTC a few weeks later !
“We invite you this Friday to learn more about #AE’s #Sophia language, #statechannels and #Starfleet incubator.”
STEEM Trading Update by my friend @cryptopassion
Here is the chart of yersterday :
Here is the current chart :
So the bounce from the support line created from the lows looks quiet powerfull. We are going quickly in direction of the resistance line at 0.18$. The question will be to see if we will be able to break it this time or if we will play ping pong between these 2 lines. Stay carefull, I’m not sure that the bounce on the BTC will continue so we could be heavly impacted on the STEEM.
According to a new survey by Harmony Healthcare IT, millennials prefer getting medical advice online to going to their doctor; 76% of the respondents said they used specialized websites like WebMD or news articles.
It highlights the current transformation of the healthcare sector. Millennials, who will outnumber baby boomers by 20m in 2030, are favouring retail clinics and telehealth for healthcare treatment. The online presence of traditional providers is also important: 65% said they only see doctors who can be found online, with 48% saying they would prefer to have a virtual visit with a doctor than an in-person appointment.
One of the main argument is cost: WebMD for instance, the first choice website for those surveyed, is free, which makes it the economically more sensible option, as only 35% of those surveyed set aside savings for medical emergencies, with 51% of those saving less than US$100 per month.
Analysis and Comments
The first thing that is probably important to note about this survey is that the respondents are American (which explains the emphasis on cost advantages).
However, a much larger study conducted by Accenture in February looked at four times as many consumers from all around the world and came to similar conclusions: there is a shift away from traditional care offerings, towards online alternatives.
Importantly, this shift was not only found among members of the youngest generations (Millennials and Gen Z), but also Generation X (the one after the Boomers).
We are seeing a very high level of fear (or low level of greed). I posted below a graph of their Fear & Greed Index followed by a graph of the Bitcoin Price.
In the last 18 months, the indicator dipped strongly 2 times before and when it did you can see the reaction by BTC a few weeks later !
American cryptocurrency exchange Kraken is adding support for Basic Attention Token (BAT) and Waves (WAVES.)
According to an announcement on Aug. 21, the exchange’s users will be able to deposit, withdraw and trade both assets starting Aug. 22. Kraken will roll out trading pairs between BAT and WAVES and Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH,) as well as with fiat currencies such as the euro and the U.S. dollar.
“The first trade executions will take a bit longer because sell orders cannot be placed until deposits are credited,” the post adds.
Bitcoin quickly fell from $10,842 to $10,082 earlier today, confirming a rising wedge breakdown on the hourly chart. The bearish reversal pattern has opened the doors for a retest of $9,467 (Aug. 15 low).
On the way lower, prices may find support at the 100-day moving average, currently at $9,882. The average served as strong support earlier this month.
The bearish case would be invalidated if prices rise above $11,000 with high volumes in the next 24 hours. As of writing, that looks unlikely. A convincing move above $12,000 is needed to revive the bullish setup, as per the weekly chart.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has sanctioned three Chinese nationals and their cryptocurrency addresses, alleging they violated money laundering and drug smuggling laws.
OFAC named Xiaobing Yan, Fujing Zheng and Guanghua Zheng as narcotics traffickers under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, freezing any property they own within the U.S. and listing a number of email aliases, citizen numbers and passport information for the three.
The agency also listed a number of bitcoin addresses, as well as one litecoin address, that the agency claims belong to the Chinese citizens.
Ethereum wants to translate all of its resources into 15 languages as part of a push to make the network more accessible, the Ethereum Foundation announced yesterday.
The foundation says it’s only focusing on translating its website at the moment—Ethereum.org—but has plans to expand its translations to include “important community resources like documentation, guides, blog posts, and more.”
Its first full translation, Ethereum.org/ko, is the result of a team of eight translators led by Taeyeon Kim, and translates everything on Ethereum’s recently relaunched site into Korean.
San Francisco-based nonprofit Kiva, a company that crowdfunds loans for financial inclusion, has launched a blockchain platform for credit history with the government of Sierra Leone.
According to a Reuters report on Aug. 21, Kiva and President of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio jointly launched the blockchain initiative in the country’s capital.
The platform will use biometric data collected by the government, such as fingerprints, in order to access the credit history of citizens in the country. This will purportedly give a way for lenders to obtain citizens’ credit history.
“Trading will start at 18:00 on August 22, 2019 (UTC+8) and withdrawal will open at 20:00 on August 22, 2019 (UTC+8).”
STEEM Trading Update by my friend @cryptopassion
Here is the chart of yersterday :
Here is the current chart :
So the worst case that I was talking about yesterday just happened. We are now testing the low and the support line that I traced for you which has been created by the 2 previous lows around the same level. Till now we have a bounce from this support line but let’s see if it will be enough if the BTC continues to correct.
If you have been in the CryptoWorld for a while, you probably came accross this indicator.
What is it?
The crypto market behaviour is very emotional. People tend to get greedy when the market is rising which results in FOMO (Fear of missing out). Also, people often sell their coins in irrational reaction of seeing red numbers. With our Fear and Greed Index, we try to save you from your own emotional overreations. There are two simple assumptions:
Extreme fear can be a sign that investors are too worried. That could be a buying opportunity.
When Investors are getting too greedy, that means the market is due for a correction.
Therefore, we analyze the current sentiment of the Bitcoin market and crunch the numbers into a simple meter from 0 to 100.
The complete list of factors with their weighting
Volatility (25%)
Market Momentum/Volume (25%)
Social Media (15%)
Surveys (15%)
Dominance (10%)
Trends (10%)
For a full disclosure on what are these factors exactly referring to please go to their website
We are seeing a very high level of fear (or low level of greed). I posted below a graph of their Fear & Greed Index followed by a graph of the Bitcoin Price.
In the last 18 months, the indicator dipped strongly 2 times before and when it did you can see the reaction by BTC a few weeks later !
I am not saying it is a 100% probability metric but something is SURE; I prefer buying when people are scared than the opposite. And today, it seems investors are being careful maybe too much?
The increased cost of transacting on the ethereum blockchain is hurting the software’s adoption, says project creator Vitalik Buterin.
Speaking with the Toronto Star this week, Butertin suggested projects that are considering whether to build on the technology will likely be butted out as the blockchain is overloaded with transactions, or in his words “almost full.” (While a blockchain cannot ever be technically ‘full,’ Buterin’s comments indicate his current sentiment on the severity of the problem.)
Still, Buterin’s comments speak to his understanding of the difficulties ahead for the project, with major planned upgrades including Ethereum 2.0 and a switch to proof-of-stake consensus ahead.
He told the newspaper:
“If you’re a bigger organization, the calculus is that if we join, it will not only be more full but we will be competing with everyone for transaction space. It’s already expensive and it will be even five times more expensive because of us. There is pressure keeping people from joining, but improvements in scalability can do a lot in improving that.”
Ethereum’s seven-day transaction fee average, a measure of demand on the network, actually sits at a 50-day low, falling since July 1 to sit around 0.11 ether per transaction currently.
Facebook is reportedly already under investigation by the EU over antitrust issues related to its Libra cryptocurrency project.
A document seen by Bloomberg indicates that the European Commission is “currently investigating potential anti-competitive behavior” by the Libra Association. The report describes the document as a questionnaire suggesting the commission is concerned that Facebook’s planned digital payment system could unfairly lock out competitors.
The governance structure and membership of the Libra Association is apparently under scrutiny. A number of major companies including Mastercard and Visa have already signed loose agreements to partner with the Libra Association on the project.
Smart contracts could soon get a boost in bitcoin as prominent programmer Pieter Wuille has unveiled a new coding language designed specifically for their use.
Posted to the bitcoin developer mailing list Monday, the ‘Miniscript’ language aims to make it easier for programmers to write up “smart contracts” or conditions for spending bitcoins. Programmers Wuille, Andrew Poelstra and Sanket Sanjalkar have been working on the code for roughly a year, Wuille said.
Although it’s been shared around behind the scenes, Wuille said he is now posting it to the email list because it’s now it’s reached “a stage where I’d like to get it some more attention.”
Backing up a bit, “Script” is the smart contracting language in bitcoin, which allows users to specify certain conditions need to be met before the bitcoin can be spent. Say, funds are locked up until a certain time before they can be spent. Or, two people need to sign off on a transaction before the money can be moved, a concept called “multi-sig.”
Eleven crypto projects announced Tuesday they had joined the Messari Disclosures Registry, including four top-100 projects by market cap: Cardano, Lisk, V Systems and Beam.
The new batch of crypto assets brings the total number of projects listed on the registry to 54. It launched with 12 projects in November 2018.
“The ability to find basic information on networks and their underlying tokens will be essential to responsible growth in the industry; and we’re thrilled to be working with such a great group to move the industry forward,” Ryan Selkis, Messari’s founder, told CoinDesk.
Bitcoin (BTC) price faced fresh bearish sentiment Aug. 21 after a rejection of $11,000 sent markets tumbling hundreds of dollars in minutes..
$9K Levels on horizon for Bitcoin price
Data from Coin360 shows BTC/USD topping out at just under $10,900 before reversing. Hours later, a sudden loss of support saw the pair dip to below $10,100 before bouncing slightly higher*
“Launch of a campaign to attract international organizations from 67 countries in the field of wildlife protection, improvement of…”
STEEM Trading Update by my friend @cryptopassion
Here is the chart of yersterday :
Here is the current chart :
Today, we validated the testing of the resistance line at 0.18$ but we failed to break it and so we are currently having a rejection. Except if the BTC is starting a new correction, I think we should try soon to break this line again in the coming hours. The worst case would be that we go test the support line related to the previous low around 0.165$.
According to recent data from GoodRX, an app tracking drug prices, only 3% of insurance claims for Eli Lilly’s insulin were for the half-price version that the company revealed shortly before being questioned by Congress on soaring insulin prices.
According to the article, many pharmacists do not know that a cheaper version is available or it cannot be accessed because it wasn’t added to individual patient’s list of drugs that are covered.
The company said it was aggressively working to increase awareness as well as access to the cheaper diabetes drug.
Analysis and Comments
Best Healthcare analysts expect a strong downward pricing pressure and slowing volume growth for the previous classes of drugs such as DPP4 and basal insulins.
This will likely result in a slowdown in the sales growth for the global pharmaceutical market. We project the global diabetes pharma market to grow at only 3% CAGR to reach $46bn by 2025.
While the overall diabetes pharma market is set to slow, GLP1 and SGLT4 are likely to experience rapid growth.
The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) is almost ready to launch its government-backed digital currency, official sources say.
An Aug. 20 report from the CPC-owned English-language news portal China Daily further revealed that the central bank digital currency (CBDC) may have been influenced by the unveiling of Facebook’s planned cryptocurrency, Libra.
‘Inspiration from Libra’
After five years of research and system development work since 2018, the PBoC is almost ready to launch its CBDC, the deputy director of the bank’s payments unit Mu Changchun revealed at a forum last week.
Trials for the currency have been ongoing and the institution is reported to be testing multiple approaches for the project. If things proceed smoothly, the PBoC expects it could launch the currency sooner than Libra.
The latter’s recent announcement is notably reported to have influenced the PBoC’s original design for its planned CBDC. Yang Dong — director of the Research Center of Finance Technology and Cyber Security at Renmin University of China — told China Daily that the announcement of Libra had sparked debate among Chinese regulators and motivated the project’s designers to involve more non-governmental institutions in the currency’s development and issuance process.
He stated: “Further testing is needed before officially launching the Chinese CBDC, gaining inspiration from the Libra.”
The World Bank has issued a second round of its landmark blockchain bonds.
The international financial institution raised another $50 million AUD ($33.8 million U.S.) by selling the “blockchain-operated debt instrument” (bond-i), according to Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CommBank), which managed the sale jointly with RBC Capital Markets and TD Securities.
Both new and existing investors participated, CommBank said.
All told, the World Bank has issued $160 million AUD ($108 million U.S.) of these bonds, which run on a private version of the ethereum blockchain. It is “the first bond created, allocated, transferred and managed through its life-cycle using distributed ledger technology,” according to CommBank.
“We are happy to see the continued, strong support and collaboration from investors and partners,” Andrea Dore, the World Bank’s head of funding, said in a press release. “The World Bank’s innovation and experience in the capital markets is key to working with our member countries to increase digitization to boost productivity in their economies and accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.”
The New York State Supreme Court has ruled that the New York Office of the Attorney General (NYAG) has jurisdiction over cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex.
According to a court filing on Aug. 19, this will allow the NYAG to continue its investigation of the exchange over allegations of fraud and misleading investors.
In the filing, Judge Joel Coehn dismissed a motion by Bitfinex to terminate an action by the NYAG that would prosecute Bitinex under a New York law — the Martin Act. The NYAG originally alleged that Bitfinex and associated stablecoin firm Tether covered up an $850 million loss and in doing so, misled investors in the state of New York.
The allegations have resulted in a protracted legal battle between Bitfinex and state prosecutors, with the exchange claiming that it spent $500,000 and hired over 60 lawyers in order to comply with documentation requests by the NYAG.
INX Limited, a crypto exchange startup, plans to raise up to $129.5 million through an IPO, in the first security token sale registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
No, that’s not a typo for “ICO,” the initial coin offerings that tested the limits of securities law during the go-go days of 2017. IPO means IPO here: INX, which is domiciled in Gibraltar, filed a draft F-1 (the SEC’s prospectus form for foreign issuers) with the agency on Monday and will market the tokens to retail and institutional investors through the initial public offering.
As such, it’s a major milestone since to date, token sales have been unregistered. Some issuers confined their marketing to wealthy investors so they’d be exempt from the registration requirement and filed notices with the SEC. Most didn’t even bother to tell the regulators what they were up to, and over the last year, the agency has brought a slew of cases against ICO teams for illegally selling unregistered securities.
Metallicus, the startup behind the peer-to-peer payments platform Metal Pay, received an undisclosed angel investment from the youngest bitcoin millionaire, Erik Finman.
In partnership with Metal Pay CEO Marshall Hayner, the two look to develop the first “all-in-one” cryptocurrency banking platform, which includes a 17 digital asset exchange, a digital bank and a payments application with social features similar to Venmo.
Founded in September, Metal Pay has processed approximately $11 million in total payments from nearly 130,000 registered users across 38 states. On a monthly basis, the company processes $1 million in crypto or fiat for around 30,000 active users, according to Hayner.
Finman staked a modest amount of bitcoin to finance the development of the banking and exchange ecosystem, he said, which currently holds approximately $2 million in crypto and fiat on the platform. Though Finman is willing to put in his entire “400 something” bitcoin fortune to fund Metal Pay’s growth, the 20 year old told CoinDesk.
“The trading will open at UTC 4:00, August 20th .”
STEEM Trading Update by my friend @cryptopassion
Here is the chart of yersterday :
Here is the current chart :
We are currently testing the resistance line at 0.18$ but till now we are not able to break it. Most of the altcoin are not doing a so big UP with the bounce from the BTC so I don’t expect that STEEM will do better. We need a second bigger UP on the BTC to help us to break that resistance line and confirm that the low at stort term has been touched on the STEEM.
US-based electric bus maker Proterra, which may be looking to go public, is planning another fundraising round that is likely to push the company to a unicorn-class valuation of US$1bn.
The company supplies transit buses to cities across the US and employs a number of former Tesla engineers and executives.
The private equity sale (which the company registered on August 2nd) could raise up to US$75m in support of the company’s planned expansion beyond transit buses and into a new business unit aimed at selling EV components such as its batteries and motors.
Analysis and Comments
The bus sector is the easiest to electrify because of the predetermined nature of the driving routes which makes it easier and less costly to set up charging points. This explains why 60% of the bus fleet in Chinese cities is already electric.
The bus sector contributes 10% to road related emissions despite being less than 1% in terms of the vehicle fleet. Electrification of bus fleets in Europe and the US will likely speed up over the next 5 years.
Chinese companies such as BYD will likely capture the bulk of the international electric bus market,especially short range city buses (also called transit buses). This will be because of their clear cost advantage versus western OEMs. Companies like Proterra are hence focussing on higher value longer range electric buses.
Spanish megabank Santander Group is expanding its use of Ripple’s technology.
The bank is building a “payment corridor” that would let customers in Latin America send money to the U.S. instantly for free via One Pay FX, a mobile app that uses Ripple’s xCurrent software, officials told CoinDesk.
Currently, only customers in the U.K. and Spain can send money to the U.S. over One Pay FX. While the bank would not reveal how many Latin American countries it plans to connect to the corridor, Santander serves Brazil, Uruguay, Chile and Mexico.
Telegram’s long-awaited blockchain, Telegram Open Network, is said to be scheduled to launch Oct. 31, but the yet-to-be-issued gram tokens are already trading in an unauthorized secondary market.
Telegram has yet to publicly or formally acknowledge the project, but investors in last year’s $1.7 billion token offering, widely publicized in the press, are selling their gram allocations via OTC desks, exchanges and special-purpose vehicles.
Purchasing tokens this way might be risky, investors warn, as Telegram specifically prohibited investors from re-selling their allocations under penalty of terminating the purchase contract. Secondary buyers may end up with nothing.
Top cryptocurrency exchange Binance is launching an open blockchain project “Venus” focused on developing localized stablecoins worldwide.
In an announcement published today, Aug. 19, the exchange argues it is well-positioned to launch such a currency ecosystem in light of its existing public chain technology, Binance Chain, wide user base and already established global compliance measures.
Leveraging existing know-how
The exchange says it is seeking partnerships with governments, corporations, technology firms, and other cryptocurrency and blockchain projects in order to develop a new currency ecosystem that will empower both developed and developing countries
Bitcoin (BTC) price was returning to bullish form on Aug. 19 as markets look to break out from last week’s sideways trading.
Bitcoin price builds on $10K support
Data from Coin360 revealed Bitcoin challenging $11,000 in morning trading as Monday delivered almost 5% gains. Markets appeared to be reacting to news cryptocurrency exchange Binance was planning to release its own version of Facebook’s Libra digital currency, in what is also a direct response to China’s central bank. At press time, BTC/USD was circling $10,650, capping daily gains of 4.9%, while weekly progress still totalled 5.5% losses.
On Aug. 18, the developers of ZenGo, a non-custodial keyless cryptocurrency wallet solution, announced that their app now supports Facebook’s Libra testnet.
Experimenting with Libra
According to the announcement, now users “can send and receive Facebook’s new cryptocurrency, Libra, just like any other cryptocurrency in ZenGo.” The developers also noted that the “testnet funds don’t hold any real value and are only for testing purposes.” The post explains:
“If you would like to experiment with Libra, you can turn on Libra testnet from the Account tab in the wallet. Once you turn on the feature, make sure your wallet is backed up, and we’ll send you your first Libra. Facebook is developing its own wallet Calibra, but it’s not publicly available yet. When it does become available it will be a custodial wallet, meaning that Facebook will have full control over the funds stored in it. But that will not be the only option. That’s why we’re offering Libra in ZenGo a non-custodial that people will have the option to choose.”
“PegNet Mining goes live Monday August 19th 17:00 UTC!”
STEEM Trading Update by my friend @cryptopassion
Here is the chart of yersterday :
Here is the current chart :
Nothing really new for the STEEM, as the BTC, the moves are very limited and we didn’t even touched the resistance line at at 0.18$. We are closed of it so I would be really interested to see if we can try to break it or not. The worst scenario would be a touch on that line foloowed by a new drop. Let’s hope it won’t happen.
