Activision Blizzard has announced Kellogg Company as a new multi-year partner of its esports Overwatch League (OWL).
The deal will last through 2021 and includes co-marketing initiatives with the company’s Pringles and Cheez-It brands, which will be the presenting sponsors of the halftime show and the highlights segments during this year’s OWL finals.
Analysis and Comments
The deal is a further sign of the growth on eSports monetisation, showcasing the rapidly increasing number of non-endemic brands that are willing to put marketing dollars into eSports.
eSports, while still under-monetised, continues to be one the most high profile platforms for games companies to advertise and broaden their audiences, enabling key beneficiaries such as Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft, EA etc. to increase engagement and publicity for their games.
Given recent structural changes within high-profile eSports such as League of Legends and Overwatch (franchising, home and away games, regular season play etc.), we think we could see eSports becoming a profit generator for the games developers (rather than just a marketing tool) sooner than expected.
Notably, MTG Esports, one of the largest US based businesses, recently reported huge growth in its eSports league (ESL). Over the course of the first seven months of 2019, ESL’s data shows that unique users (+90%), hours watched (+190%) and video views (+55%) all significantly increased as a result of fans tuning into properties such as ESL One, Intel Extreme Masters and ESL Pro League tournaments, shattering the numbers recorded in 2018.
It is possible that we could see an professional (multi-game) eSports teams/organisations become sufficiently profitable that they could look to go public, which could materially change industry dynamics.
On Tuesday the Fed Powell will discuss US monetary policy and on Weds will announce whether he is keeping interest rates on hold or dropping them. In July Fed Powell lowered interest rates for the first time in a decade. Wall Street is expecting the same on Weds, pricing in an 86% chance of a quarter-basis point cut. If Fed Powell doesn’t continue to cut rates, many on Wall Street (and Trump) are saying the Feds will cause the next recession.
Interest rates and bond prices move in opposite directions. When interest rates fall, bond prices rise and when market interest rates rise, bonds fall (which is known as interest rate risk).
Lets say a treasury bond offers a 5% coupon rate, and one year later, interest rates fall to 4%. The bond will still pay a 5% coupon rate, making it more valuable than new bonds paying just a 4% coupon rate. If you sell the 5% bond before it matures, that bond will be in demand, so that bond will sell at a higher price. But what if interest rates rise from 5% to 6% If you sell the 5% bond, it will be competing with new treasury bonds that offer a 6% coupon rate. That 5% bond will be in less demand and will sell at a lower price.
The iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) is seeks to track the investment results of an index composed of U.S. Treasury bonds with remaining maturities greater than twenty years.
So, if Treasury yields are about to fall, that should mean that bond prices are about to rise. Similarly to the downtrend in place for yields that has yet to be broken, the 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) – despite selling off last week – is still above the uptrend that has been in place for most of the past year.
As Worth pointed out, each time the TLT has come close to that trend line, it has bounced off of it to the upside, and he’s wagering on it happening again.
“The betting is that TLT is going to be good for a bounce. So, I don’t see rates going more than about 1.95%, we’re close enough at this point. I think one wants to start rebuying TLT,” Worth said.
So based on the monthly chart Cart Worth’s trendline is just below the Gap Fill. However, the chart suggests to wait for price to come down to the monthly demand at $131.50 and go long.
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.
As I wrote in previous blog posts, I reinvested in STEEM ahead and after the HFs.
After cruising, interacting and curating Steemians posts, I can say now I like the #newsteem better than the old one. This is a feeling but I believe people came back to the platform and interractions / payouts are less skewed thanks to some bots switching to curation and some whales “playing the game”.
Below I am going to share with you some datas that I believe should make us optimistic about STEEM future.
The number of Bitcoin (BTC) wallet addresses holding a minimum of 10 BTC — worth over $100,000 to press time — has hit an all-time high, multiple data sources reveal.
According to BitInfoCharts’ Bitcoin Rich List, as of Sept. 17, there are 157,210 addresses holding between 10 and 1,000,000 BTC.
Earlier this month, Coin Metrics’ State of the Network report had plotted the latest data historically to reveal that these mega-holders are at an all-time high for the network.
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance, the world’s largest by trading volume, has made a strategic investment in Chinese media and data source Mars Finance.
According to a report from Bloomberg citing a press release, the investment amount was not disclosed, but values the company at $200 million.
Aside from Binance, which reportedly made its first strategic investment in China with the round, Beijing-based Mars Finance was also backed by Ceyuan Ventures and Matrixport, a financial services startup founded by co-founder of bitcoin mining firm Bitmain, Jihan Wu.incorrectly applied.
The United States Army Contracting Command (ACC) of New Jersey has issued a pre-solicitation notice for cryptocurrency investigation service providers.
As a pre-solicitation, posted on July 25, the notice and the ACC’s responses do not bind ACC to solicit or award a contract.
For use in criminal investigations
According to the ACC, the cryptocurrency analytics solution is being sought for use by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command (USACIDC) for use in criminal investigations and other missions.
The notice outlines that the contractor must provide a cloud-based, online service — not reliant on hardware or software — that can assist law enforcement in identifying and pursuing actors using cryptocurrencies for illicit purposes such as fraud, extortion and money laundering.
“We are proud to announce that BiblePay will be listed on TOKOK on September 17th!”
STEEM Trading Update by my friend @cryptopassion
Here is the chart of yersterday :
Here is the current chart :
Today, we tested and broke the support line at 0.155$ during some hours but it looks like the market want come back upper than this line. We need to check now if this is not a pull back before the continuation of the drop or if that break was just a trap from the market to buy some steems at a very good prive. Let’s see if the current candle will close upper or lower than the support line at 0.155$.
The month of September had been constructive for ETH. If you look at the chart you will see three positive things occurred with price.
Break of Down Trend (descending triangle)
As you can see from the blue down trend line when price pushed down to support in that 168 area it was open to hold and then push the descending line.
This led to a modest bounce before a retest.
Retesting of Support/Down Trend Line
After the modest little bounce, two things happened: price testes the support line and tested the down trendline, which both happen to be at about the same price.
Anytime you get a break of a trend, a successful retest of it is always welcomed and considered positive price action.
Higher Low Formed
After the retest price pushed higher into the mid 180s or so and then had a small pullback briefly dipping into the 170s. At which point price has pushed higher the past few days.
This is important because in order to have an uptrend you need to see price create higher lows. Which just got one now we need more.
Price needs to stay above 180 for this recent price action to keep it’s positive tone, in my opinion.
The next upside target would be around 200. We shall see what happens the rest of the week.
As I wrote in previous blog posts, I reinvested in STEEM ahead and after the HFs.
After cruising, interacting and curation Steemians posts, I can say now I like the #newsteem better than the old one. This is a feeling but I believe people came back to the platform and interractions / payouts are less skewed thanks to some bots switching to curation and some whales “playing the game”.
Below I am going to share with you some datas that I believe should make us optimistic about STEEM future.
As seen in @penguinpablo ‘s statistics (link here)
Accounts transacting are increasing steadily since last week to reach 39,647 on week 36 of 2019 (vs 34,958 the previous week)
STEEM Power up !
Most importantly, the Net Power up was STRONGLY positive last week at +977,939 ! Something we didn’t see for months !
As shown in the tables below, Week 33 saw the biggest net power up at 363,873 STEEM over the past 8 weeks.
To add to these great numbers, other Steemians (as myself) have been BUYING STEEM on Exchanges ! More than 1,145,000 STEEM have been purchased FROM exchanges
In addition, do not forget that @steemit inc. announced they would pause their power down for a few weeks which should help STEEM prices.
Daily Users
Looking into @arcange statistics I could also some good news, Active users remain stable and sit at the top range of the past weeks (c.40k daily). If we continue to promote and curate good contents, these numbers could be finally increasing and sit passed 50k as it used to a few months ago
Transactions
Transactions on the STEEM blockchain are also healthy and should remain high as many projects continue to onboard users (@steemmonsters, @actifit, @steemhunt, @appics, @esteem …)
Inflation
As stated by @jrcornel, STEEM inflation is quite reasonable versus other altcoins and is supposed to decrease below 8% in 2020 to reach 0.95% in 2037.
Current Price and Market Cap (53,472,257 USD). Sits at Rank 80
Maybe we are sitting at the bottom, only time will tell, but overall I want to emphasize that this #newsteem as much higher changes to go up than before for all the points mentionned above.
I know that you all probably believe in STEEM if you read this, we have to continue to get the words out as some of us are doing on Twitter or other social medias.
What do you think?
I would love to hear your opinion on this subject. I will set a 10 STEEM @steem-bounty to open the discussion.
History looks to be repeating itself in the bitcoin market, as a key indicator’s bullish turn could mark the beginning of the next meteoric price rally.
The world’s most valuable cryptocurrency’s price action seen over the last eight months is very similar to the moves seen in 2015, according to Bitstamp data. For instance, the bitcoin bear market ended near $3,100 in mid-December 2018 and prices built a base below $4,000 in the following three months before breaking into a bull market on April 2.
Notably, the bear market drop ran out of steam two months before the 50- and 10-week moving averages confirmed a bearish crossover (in February 2019).
The CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Binance has dispelled fears a bad actor had attacked its newly-launched Bitcoin futures platform.
Technical error crashed Bitcoin price
In a series of tweets on Sept. 16, Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ, initially warned that the exchange’s futures were under attack from one of its own market makers.
The perpetrator allegedly crashed the BTC/USD order book from $10,324 to $10,024, in what Zhao said was the second such attempt at an attack.
Binance launched its futures platform in invite-only mode following a user testing period earlier this month. Two platforms were originally available, with users voting for their preferred choice.
The computing power dedicated to mining bitcoin has hit yet another new high, suggesting that more than 600,000 powerful new machines may have come online in the last three months.
According to data from crypto mining pool BTC.com, bitcoin’s two-week average hash rate has crossed another major threshold, reaching 85 exahashes per second (EH/s) around 19:00 UTC last Friday. Meanwhile, mining difficulty also adjusted to a new record of nearly 12 trillion.
Notably, both figures have jumped 60 percent since June 14, the data shows.
Bitcoin’s mining difficulty – a measure of how hard it is to create a block of transactions – adjusts after 2,016 blocks, or roughly every two weeks. This is to ensure the time to produce a block remains around 10 minutes, even as the amount of hashing power, deployed by machines around the globe competing to win freshly minted bitcoins, fluctuates.
Most of us think we understand the term “volatility.”
We digest headlines about tense political situations around the world; we are wary of explosive chemical compounds; some of us have had relationships with their fair share of ups and downs.
“Volatility” implies sharp and unpredictable changes, and usually has negative connotations. Even when it comes to financial markets, we intuitively shy away from investments that would produce wild swings in our wealth.
But volatility, in finance, is usually misunderstood. Even the most commonly accepted calculation is often incorrectly applied.
The South Korean arm of cryptocurrency exchange OKEx is removing support for five major altcoins due to new international regulations.
FATF rules halt privacy coins trading
According to crypto news outlet The Block on Sept. 16, OKEx’s Korea unit will halt trading of Monero (XMR), Dash (DASH), Zcash (ZEC), Horizen (ZEN) and Super Bitcoin (SBTC) on Oct. 10.
The reason, says the exchange, is that as since they are focused on privacy, the coins fall foul of new guidelines set out by the intergovernmental body the Financial Action Task Force, or FATF.
As Cointelegraph reported, the sweeping changes to crypto transaction rules demand businesses to identify the two parties sending funds to each other if a transaction is worth more than around $1,000.
“I would like to inform you regarding the upcoming hard fork. I have decided to implement it on block 216000 (approx 16th of sept).”
STEEM Trading Update by my friend @cryptopassion
Here is the chart of yersterday :
Here is the current chart :
Today, we continued the bounce started yesterday. We have higher lows so the trend is not broken, even we have a low volatility. I think most of altcoins are also waiting to see the direction that the BTC will take and this is why most of coins are very quiet these last hours. However, there is nothing negative for the STEEM today, exactly like yesterday, se we can again enjoy about these positive news.
On Tuesday the Fed Powell
will discuss US monetary policy and on Weds will announce whether he is keeping
interest rates on hold or dropping them. In July Fed Powell lowered interest rates for
the first time in a decade. Wall Street
is expecting the same on Weds, pricing in an 86% chance of a quarter-basis
point cut.
If the US equity markets are going to continue their climb higher, the Russell 2000 must fall inline. The Russell 2000 index represents the largest 2000 small cap public companies in the US. But in recent months the Russell 2000 have been stubborn to rise with the DOW, NASDAQ and S&P 500 as indicated by the green line.
Usually towards the end of the business cycle, rising interest rates hurt smaller companies the most because they have a higher debt to earnings ratio and lower free cash flow relative to much larger companies. Also, smaller companies are more volatile and tend to react and respond to changes in economic conditions and changes in investor sentiment first. However, if rates are going to continue to get cut, that should help the Russell 2000 to finally join the party. And based on the Russell 2000 outpacing its friends last week, I think it things a rate cut is already “money in the bag.”
The iShares Russell 2000 ETF, which tracks the Russell 2000 Index of stocks with smaller market capitalizations, saw its largest weekly inflows in nearly a year during the week that ended September 6. Those inflows totaled $1.5 billion and followed a $340 million inflow during the final days of August. Since bottoming out on August 27, the iShares ETF has rallied nearly 9% compared to the S&P 500’s gain of 5% over the same period.
There is the possibility that the resurgence could be longer lasting if the Federal Reserve’s interest rate cut at the end of July is more than just a one-off and marks the beginning of a rate-cutting cycle.
Judging by history, further rate cuts would be supportive of small-cap equities. During the first year following the start of a Fed rate-cut cycle, small caps have risen on average 28% compared with just 15% for large caps, according to investment banking firm Jeffries, per the FT.
Fracking and horizontal drilling technology (which has created access to the once inaccessible shales of oil and gas) in the last 10 years has made the US a major player in the world of oil production.
The technology has bee so beneficial to the US, that in 2018, the US become the number one producer of oil in the world. However, I can’t leave Saudi Arabia out of this conversation. They are the number two producer of oil in the world at 12.4 millions barrels/day. As you know, the price of oil is probably one of the clearest examples of supply and demand. So say the oil rig count goes up in the US or Saudia Arabia increases oil production, the price of oil is surely to go down. However, if the oil rig count goes down or if the oil pipelines are sabotaged, supply will take a hit and oil prices will rise. This past Sat, drones attacked Saudia Arabia oil pipelines.
Drone strikes on key Saudi Arabian oil facilities, among the world’s largest and most important energy production centers, have disrupted about half of the kingdom’s oil capacity, or 5% of the daily global oil supply.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Saturday took responsibility for the attacks, saying 10 drones targeted state-owned Saudi Aramco oil facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais, according to the Houthi-run Al-Masirah news agency.
In a statement on Sunday, Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said that 5.7 million barrels a day of crude oil and gas production have been affected. The latest OPEC figures from August 2019 put the total Saudi production at 9.8 million barrels per day.
Saturday, Sept. 14 — The top 20 cryptocurrencies are reporting mixed movements on the day while Bitcoin’s (BTC) price hovers over the $10,300 mark by press time.
The price of Bitcoin is currently up by 0.13% on the day, trading at around $10,313 at press time, according to Coin360. Looking at its weekly chart, the coin is down by about 0.46%.
eToro, an Israel-based exchange platform, revealed a new programming language designed to simplify derivatives trading.
Speaking ahead of the Ethereal Summit Tel Aviv 2019, on Sunday, chief blockchain specialist Omri Ross said the language, dubbed Lira, will reduce the risks involved in settling financial contracts and enable the creation of new derivative products from assets on the ethereum blockchain.
A demo trading platform, built by eToroX Labs, was also revealed to enable retail and institutional investors to begin trading derivatives. The platform uses Lira to test a full range of contract experimentation. The language opens up the possibility to set varying time limits on trades, trustlessly swap different cryptocurrencies and write complex settlement terms.
United States-based major cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced that its professional trading platform Coinbase Pro will launch support for DASH token next week.
According to a Medium post published by Coinbase on Sept. 12, Coinbase Pro will start accepting DASH deposits starting Monday “for at least 12 hours prior to enabling full trading.” The launch of DASH trading, on the other hand, is planned for 9 AM Pacific Standard Time on Sept. 17. The company also noted:
“Once sufficient supply of DASH is established on the platform, trading on the DASH/USD, and DASH/BTC order books will start in phases, beginning with post-only mode and proceeding to full trading should our metrics for a healthy market be met.”
United States Treasury undersecretary Sigal Mandelker stated that cryptocurrencies could become “the next frontier” in the war on terrorism. According to a press release published on the U.S. Treasury’s website on Sept. 11, Mandelker made her remarks during the 19th annual international conference on counterterrorism.
Cash is still predominant
While Mandelker admitted that most terrorist organizations still rely on various traditional means of financing such as cash, she also said that she believes crypto could become “the next frontier”:
“Terrorist organizations and their supporters and sympathizers are constantly looking for new ways to raise and transfer funds without detection or tracking by law enforcement. While most terrorist groups still primarily rely on the traditional financial system and cash to transfer funds, without the appropriate strong safeguards cryptocurrencies could become the next frontier.”
There’s now an underground service catering to criminals that lack the skills or nerve to hack into online accounts to steal funds.
According to a September report from security-as-a-service firm Armor, hackers on dark markets are now selling fiat cash for fractions of its worth to avoid the risk of dealing with the money themselves.
Armor’s Threat Resistance Unit (TRU) research team said in the report:
“There are plenty of hackers willing to simply transfer stolen funds to the bank account or PayPal account of your choice or send you the funds via Western Union.”
“#Aeternity Universe One #Haeckathon starts on Saturday and guess who will be mentoring the participants?”
STEEM Trading Update by my friend @cryptopassion
Here is the chart of yersterday :
Here is the current chart :
Today, we had a new bounce from the low around 0.154$. This is validating again this support line and showing that sellers have difficulties to go under this support. It could finish to give a nice opportunity for the buyers to start a nice move on the STEEM. Let’s stay positive and enjoy every little bounce on the STEEM.
I feel as I have been one of the most critical steemians regarding the possible negative consequences concerning the deployment of the HF21 but now I have to say that I like what I see, despite the evident reduction on the number of posts we can see in our FEED page.
The truth is that, putting aside the controversy of what I think is a very drastic Rewarding Algorithm which penalizes posts that do not reach a certain threshold of upvotes (see chart below), the downvote solution is really fixing the blockchain from abusers and also the number of spamming posts has dramatically reduced as well.
Threshold is currently at $3, below you are getting less in author and curation rewards
It’s a fact that big stakeholders are doing now greatly but also is a fact that if you are a consistent steemian I am sure you have benefitted as well for the whole update.
Take my example, now that we are more or less close to the equator of the month.
Before HF21, I used to get 8 SP a week in Curation while in Author Rewards the value was around 60 SP a week…
Today, without changing my overall posting and upvoting behaviour, things are going much better in overall for me.
My curation rewards have increased to around 15 SP a week, which is almost double the old rewards.
My Author Rewards are dancing around 62 SP a week as well so, no reduction on this aspect or even getting a little more than before…
To tell you the truth, I don’t know how I managed to sustain those Author Rewards… I have powered up around 700 STEEM lately but this cannot explain this good value. Certainly, the huge reduction of the number of posts published has something to do with this. There are less content to be discovered and so there are a higher likelihood to be nicely upvoted by bigger stakeholders. Also, the downvoting effect is returning STEEM to the rewarding pool so, if you are an active steemian you have more chances to be rewarded too.
Redistribution of power have not finished yet
The market is hitting STEEM and the rest of the altcoins very hardly, that’s for sure. We have less activity at the blockchain not only due to the effects of the past HF but also because the permanent decay of the STEEM price.
But, you know, I am totally sure now that the problem is not STEEM. The problem is the situation of the whole market itself which is cyclic.
It’s really painful to see day after day how we loss price…but also it is a fact that as soon as we get out from the bears, not only BITCOIN but the whole cryptosphere will resume the uptrend…
…and then, it will be very difficult for everyone to “build” the STEEM POWER you need in order to take profit of the uptrend conditions of the market. I am sure many will then try to buy STEEM again at any price and so, we will have another SUPER FUD PUMP there.
The best we can do now is…
To keep posting, publishing your thoughts, amazing ideas, photos and creations
Try to do your best to engage with the audience. Work on your network. Buy some BEER token and provide them to your best commenters and followers for instance.
Build your STEEM POWER as much as “morally” possible… I am buying small quantities every now and then at the lowest prices we have seen during the last 2 years. Remember 50 Euros = 350 STEEM at BITVAVO , PEANUTS!!!! I have bought the same quantity at more than double that price 1 year ago!!!
Invest on TRIBES that you like in a wisely manner. For instance, If you are a sport lover, use #sportstalk as a tag, check the trend page and your wallet account at https://www.sportstalksocial.com/ , use the voter (@sportsvoter) there in order to “burn” SPORTS token there and obtain some STEEM in your sport related posts… The same for other tribes, LEO, PALNET, NEOXIAN…all of them are here to help us.
Share your best posts at other social media as Tweeter, FB and the like
These are only a few things you can do, I am sure there are many things and ways to keep growing at the STEEM blockchain but the most important is always related with your level of ENGAGEMENT.
