Cryptocurrency

[Mercer]

@abrasivesaintI'd suggest opening a metamask wallet.

 

You're going to need a minimal amount ETH in it to play around.

[Guest]

[Hua Guofang]

Maybe its my noobism but I can't see how blockchain can be dead but cryptos going well. Don't cryptos rely on blockchain ledgers?

 

It's always the way though, everyone sees a new disruptive tech and expects it to change the world in the next ten years. If people in the 1950s were right, we'd all be living under big glass domes on the moon with robots mowing our lawns and bringing us lemonade. It's usually the tech you don't see coming, like personal computing and the internet that has the big and fast changes. People just expect too much, too quickly and then act like it was all a dud when things didn't blow up akin to their unrealistic expectations.

 

 

 

'Blockchain is dead': Crypto enthusiasts losing faith in technology

By Vildana Hajric

November 14, 2019 — 8.02am

https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/blockchain-is-dead-crypto-enthusiasts-losing-faith-in-technology-20191114-p53ag0.html

 

 

For a technology that was supposed to transform and solve seemingly every problem in the world, the enthusiasm is fading pretty quickly.

Blockchain, the underlying technology that powers cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, is getting its last rites read at the Consensus Invest conference in New York, where hundreds of crypto true-believers have gathered  to discuss the latest trends in the still-nascent digital assets market.

The decentralised technology records and verifies transactions and has been adapted by companies including Walmart and Microsoft. But after only a decade in use, some are already saying it's perishing.

"Blockchain is dead," Meltem Demirors, chief investment officer of CoinShares Group, said on the sidelines of the conference in Times Square.

 

"After two, three years of spending a lot of money on this and a lot of investment dollars going into this, I think the bigger question as an investor is: What's the scalable revenue model and is there equity value that's created in these businesses? And arguably the answer is: not yet."

For evidence, Demirors points to early adapters including R3, Digital Asset Holdings and Chain, which she says are pivoting into new business models. "Most of the companies that raised massive amounts of capital in 2016, 2017 to build blockchain, they don't exist anymore or they've pivoted into cryptocurrency and tokenisation," she said.

As cryptocurrencies caught fire in 2017 and early 2018, a raft of firms - including cigar manufacturers and sports-bra makers - cashed in on the market's love affair with the underlying blockchain technology, often using the ledger as an antidote for lacklustre stock returns. But the sudden pops often didn't last long and many of them lost steam as the price of bitcoin and other digital assets subsequently crashed.

Data trends also show that blockchain's been losing its fizz. In a big turnaround from years prior, the flow of cash into blockchain start-ups has dropped, according to data compiled by CB Insights. Businesses focusing on blockchain are on pace to draw $US1.6 billion ($2.3 billion) this year, down from a record $US4.1 billion in 2018, the firm said recently.

 

Hassan Bassiri, a portfolio manager at asset manager Arca says blockchain's limitations are being recognised.

"Slowly what people are starting to realise is that blockchains are basically public ledgers and it's not an efficient system. Really, there's very few things that belong on a public blockchain," he said on the sidelines of the conference.

"Anything that needs efficiency or speed operating probably doesn't belong on the blockchain. And it's crypto so everything goes through a hype cycle and we sometimes put the cart in front of the horse."

However not everyone is convinced. Digital Assets Data co-founder and chief executive officer Mike Alfred said the technology is too entrenched in the market.

 

"Blockchain is the foundation of what makes the entire ecosystem work. Bitcoin's blockchain has been running for more than 10 years without interruption. In no way is that dead," he said.

"The current state - it feels like fatigue, it feels like trading fatigue, it feels like a lot of people are tired because we've been in this space and everybody is waiting for the space to grow up and for good things to happen. And it's just taking longer than most people expected but in no way does that mean the space is dead."

Bloomberg

 

[Hua Guofang]

On 10/26/2019 at 1:27 AM, misteraven said:

Freedom comes with consequences. Not that you're expressly saying it, but I'm not okay with them tracking the entire world under the premise that its required in order to keep us safe. Evil is a part of the human condition and will always exist. Only thing we can hope to do is confront it when it presents. Can't be legislated away and its a very slippery slope when you start implementing systems that are intended to be 'for the greater good'.

I understand what you're saying and agree to a point - I just don't know what that point is. But to illustrate the reality of it, one of Australia's big 4 has been busted not holding up its end to implement regulation and they have allowed millions upon millions of international money transfers to go unchecked. When the authorities did their forensic work they find large amounts moving to places such as the Philippines in ways that fit previous identified patterns of child trafficking and exploitation (they've identified some of the people and they are known to be involved, etc. etc.)

 

Then you've got to consider the potential for jihadi/terror groups to be fund raising and financing operations elsewhere in the world (Hezbollah were caught doing this in Australia in the late 90s, early 2000s), corrupt officials moving money off shore and espionage operations occurring that undermine national security.

 

Again, I agree, a financial panopticon is not desirable, but the costs for absolute freedom are very high and are often paid by the less fortunates around the world.

 

 

 

I've underlined the most relevant bits and have deleted irrelevant parts of this article.

 

Westpac CEO pushed out amid child exploitation scandal

Brian Hartzer has become the first casualty of the money laundering and child exploitation scandal that has engulfed the major bank.

https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/banking/westpac-ceo-resigns-amid-child-exploitation-scandal/news-story/a1b785b735053246572609d567eb6ebd

 

Westpac chief executive officer Brian Hartzer has been pushed out as the major lender battles an investigation by Australia’s financial intelligence agency over a money laundering and child exploitation scandal.

The bank’s leader will step down on December 2 with a hefty golden handshake of 12 months’ pay, which amounts to $2.7 million.

Westpac chairman Lindsay Maxsted said this morning the board accepted the “gravity” of the issues raised by AUSTRAC.

 

“As was appropriate, we sought feedback from all our stakeholders including shareholders and having done so it became clear that board and management changes were in the best interest of the bank,” he said in a statement released to the Australian Securities Exchange.

Mr Hartzer said he was “ultimately accountable for everything that happens at the bank”.

“It is clear that we have fallen well short of what the community expects of us, and we expect of ourselves,” he said in a statement issued by Westpac.

It comes after a report in The Australian revealed Mr Hartzer attempted to lobby support from Westpac’s senior leaders by saying the scandal “was not playing out as a high street issue”.

 

“We all read the Fin (The Australian Financial Review) and The Australian, and we all read that and think the world is ending,” he said, according to the newspaper’s two sources.

“But actually for people in mainstream Australia going about their daily lives, this is not a major issue so we don’t need to overcook this.’’

Mr Maxsted will also bring forward his retirement to early 2020, while Director Ewen Crouch — who is in charge of risk and compliance — will not stand for re-election at the Westpac annual general meeting on December 12.

AUSTRAC chief executive Nicole Rose told reporters last Wednesday the major lender failed to report more than 19.5 million international funds transfers over five years.

The transfers amounted to $11 billion, which Ms Rose said resulted in a “significant loss of intelligence” for the financial crimes agency.

“Westpac failed to pass on information about the origin of international funds transfers and keep records as required,” she said.

 

The most staggering indictment in AUSTRAC’s bid to investigate Westpac was less than $500,000 that a dozen of its customers allegedly paid to the Philippines and South East Asia.

The agency says these types of payments are consistent with transfers made to those who are involved with child exploitation.

“Westpac failed to introduce appropriate detection scenarios to detect known child exploitation typologies, consistent with AUSTRAC guidance and their own risk assessments,” Ms Rose said.

Current chief financial officer Peter King will serve as acting chief executive from December 2 until a new boss is appointed.

Mr Maxsted said the interim chief has been tasked with implementing the Westpac Response Plan in the face of the child exploitation scandal.

“Peter has had a long and distinguished career at Westpac and has been the CFO since 2014,” Mr Maxsted said. “He is the right choice to provide stability and direction to the bank and its

people.

“He is an executive of exceptional integrity who is deeply respected by the market and

the entire Westpac team.”

 

[Hua Guofang]

jihadoScope

 

@JihadoScope

 

Islamic State supporters experiment with presence on BCM Messenger, an end-to-end encrypted messenger based on blockchain technology. In this example ISIS supporters share latest photo gallery showing a recent attack in Central Africa

 

 

[Mercer]

On 12/11/2019 at 4:38 AM, Hua Guofang said:

jihadoScope

 

@JihadoScope

 

Islamic State supporters experiment with presence on BCM Messenger, an end-to-end encrypted messenger based on blockchain technology. In this example ISIS supporters share latest photo gallery showing a recent attack in Central Africa

 

 

I feel like these stories are misleading in nature. On one hand, sure, it's 100% feasible someone used BCM to post some ISIS shit. On the other hand, ISIS shit is also posted on Facebook, Twitter,  Instagram, through email, text message etc.

 

That caption (and similar headlines) beg the question, what's the author's point? Get rid of BCM, encryption, or all these services? Does the government need total control over all communications?

 

This reminds me of people thinking crime can be reduced by eliminating cryptocurrencies, ignoring the fact 99% of terrorism, and black market activity is funded using cash, and traditional banking systems. My response response is underlined by your previous post's article.

 

We can engage in a technological whack a mole eliminating advances and encryption and privacy, but the underlying crime we're supposedly targeting isn't really effected. Meanwhile, the negative effects of crippling useful technology cascades indiscriminately across the rest of society, without actually targeting criminals specifically. A net loss.

 

 

Edited December 14, 2019 by Mercer

[Mercer]

Also, if anyone's been following the news Ethereum just completed the Istanbul hard fork, aka major software upgrade. This upgrade is the first of many, and once this series of upgrades is done Ethereum will be transformed into ETH 2.0. The current upgrade improves the Ethereum network's processing speed measured in transactions per second (TPS). The Visa credit card system currently averages 2000 TPS's, compared to Ethereum's pre-hardfork max of 32 per second.

 

Here's Ethereums current throughput, and cost per transaction:

 

 

TPS is important, because it's the last technological hurdle that needs to be jumped before mass adoption of Ethereum is technologically possible. Combined with Ethereum's new ZK snark cryptographic functions (ZK rollup), this hardfork means we may have just crossed that hurdle last week with the upgrade.

 

https://u.today/expert-ethereum-can-easily-surpass-visa-with-this-feature

 

Quote

With the Istanbul Hard Fork behind us, numerous innovations are already being implemented into the post-hard fork Ethereum (ETH) network. One of these innovations may rapidly facilitate the throughput of Ethereum and increase the quantity of transactions per second (TPS) sixtyfold.

 

Zero Knowledge for Maximum Speed

 

Iden3, a startup that is partnering with the Ethereum Foundation, published a report on how the ZK-Rollup feature can increase the speed of the Ethereum network.

 

ZK-Rollup (ZK refers to Zero Knowledge) is a feature that allows one to unload the main blockchain by transferring some of the data about the transaction off-chain (out of smart contracts of the initial Ethereum).  This will result in a limited load on the main network and will start to operate much faster.

 

This technology is endorsed by the "Father of Ethereum" Vitalik Buterin as his favorite scalability solution. In accordance with Iden3, the ZK-Rollup feature will allow more transactions to be validated in every Ethereum block. Therefore, its capacity may skyrocket.

 

This upgrade is now possible because of two Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) that were included with the Istanbul Hard Fork - EIP-1108 and EIP-2028. Both of these EIPs will reconsider the gas pricing calculation, making the introduction of ZK-Rollup much cheaper.

 

Will Ethereum Leave Visa in the Dust?

 

To put this in context, 2000 TPS is what the Visa network currently averages. Ethereum currently supports around 30 TPS, but with the implementation of ZK-Rollup, this figure may surge 6300%. Therefore, the breakthrough doesn't seem impossible at all.

 

Furthermore, the calculations by Iden3 are a rough estimation. The true throughput of blockchain always depends on the performance of mining gear used by validators as well as based on the demand for its native token.

 

[Hua Guofang]

1 hour ago, Mercer said:

I feel like these stories are misleading in nature. On one hand, sure, it's 100% feasible someone used BCM to post some ISIS shit. On the other hand, ISIS shit is also posted on Facebook, Twitter,  Instagram, through email, text message etc.

 

That caption (and similar headlines) beg the question, what's the author's point? Get rid of BCM, encryption, or all these services? Does the government need total control over all communications?

 

This reminds me of people thinking crime can be reduced by eliminating cryptocurrencies, ignoring the fact 99% of terrorism, and black market activity is funded using cash, and traditional banking systems. My response response is underlined by your previous post's article.

 

We can engage in a technological whack a mole eliminating advances and encryption and privacy, but the underlying crime we're supposedly targeting isn't really effected. Meanwhile, the negative effects of crippling useful technology cascades indiscriminately across the rest of society, without actually targeting criminals specifically. A net loss.

 

 

I get your point but I don't think you need to be so defensive. You've inferred a huge amount of meaning into a simple statement of fact, which provided zero value judgement on anything at all.

 

These things have to be tracked and noted for many reasons other than criticising the platform it refers to.

[Mercer]

1 hour ago, Hua Guofang said:

I get your point but I don't think you need to be so defensive. You've inferred a huge amount of meaning into a simple statement of fact, which provided zero value judgement on anything at all.

 

These things have to be tracked and noted for many reasons other than criticising the platform it refers to.

Agree, didn't mean to come off defensive at all.

[Hua Guofang]

Bottom line is anyway, that it ain’t going away, but still the new new!

[Mercer]

Kid racks up over 1 million in crypto by SIM swapping. Another reason why you should never keep your funds on an exchange, and if so never let anyone know you hold. This attack has been around forever yet people still get got daily.

 

1. Hacker finds out your phone number
2. Hacker knows you've got crypto on an exchange
3. Hacker calls your phone carrier, gets your number switched to a SIM card they hold
4. Hacker then requests a password reset for your email account, and gets access using your phone as 2nd factor authorization
5. Then hacker can request password reset at your exchange and passes the 2 factor auth with your phone/email access.

If you've noticed, this attack isn't sophisticated and requires almost no technical skills to pull off.

 

 

Teen crook hacked into 75 phones and stole $1M in cryptocurrency: 

 

 

https://nypost.com/2019/12/18/teen-crook-hacked-into-75-phones-and-stole-1m-in-cryptocurrency-authorities/?utm_source=reddit.com

 

 

[KILZ FILLZ]

The stolen $1 million came from just two victims, authorities said. Selassie was arrested Dec. 5 in Corona, California, and extradited to New York.

 

got two whales

is that a common last name?

ive been to corona a couple times and driven through it many times. Not much good goin on there

[NightmareOnElmStreet]

I check Coinbase all the time still. Why is ethereum going down so low and should I buy the 130$ worth ?  

[Mercer]

No idea, I'd say 2020-2021 is looking overall good for Ethereum in general. If anything the price could dip come Jan 1st but by March we're going to hit a bull market due to the halvening.

 

[Dirty_habiT]

@Mercer- what is your prediction for Litecoin and why?  I bought in when the price was way high and now I've just been sitting on what I have waiting for the price to at least get back to close to what it was so I can cash out.  Right now it just feels like I got kicked in the nuts.

[Mercer]

15 hours ago, Dirty_habiT said:

@Mercer- what is your prediction for Litecoin and why?  I bought in when the price was way high and now I've just been sitting on what I have waiting for the price to at least get back to close to what it was so I can cash out.  Right now it just feels like I got kicked in the nuts.

I'd trade it in for Bitcoin/Ethereum. There's still a chance it could exceed it's previous all time high during a major bull run, but compared to Bitcoin/Ethereum, and quite frankly most other alt coins it's not going to outperform them.

 

Litecoin is old 1st generation tech like Dogecoin, it's supposed to be used as an actual currency but zero retailers are adopting it, that market is being crushed by DIA/SAI stablecoin right now. I made a long rant before on how shady I felt Charlie Lee was but with all the BS aside, there's just no real use case, or practical reason for people to buy it moving forward. It may surpass it's all time High if we hit another bull run like in 2017, but if that's the case, you might as well go with the real deal and get more profits.

 

On 1/18/2018 at 12:44 PM, Mercer said:

 

I use an iPhone app called crypto pro on my phone. I basically enter in my trades/buys/sells and it shows me what my portfolio looks like in real time without holding any keys/personal info on the phone. I use Exodus's "Eden" wallet, and whatever single use wallets are needed by other coins I hold like Monero, ect.

 

 

So with Litecoin:

 

When Litecoin first came out, it kind of made sense. BTC blocks took 10 minutes, Litecoins took 2.5 minutes. Charlie Lee also multiplied the supply by 4 times, and switched the hashing algorithm so the ASIC's used to mine bitcoin wouldn't work for Litecoin, all good. Cheap Chiness knockoff at best, back then fees were almost non-existant. No red flags, like a pre mine or unfair distribution, the coins were fairly distributed and no one held a superwhale majority, or enough coins to singlehandedly crash the market.

 

Strike 1

 

Flash forward to when Charlie Lee is working for coinbase as an engineer. He somehow got Coinbase to list LTC, keep in mind there was almost zero demand for it, while other more useful/reputable coins weren't listed. Charlie Lee tweeted something like "Hey Brian, why don't we add Litecoin to coinbase?", and Brian Armstrong (CEO of Coinbase) tweeted back something like "Sure @charlielee, why not". Pretending to make this decision on twitter was cute. There were credible rumors of insider trading (scooping up as much LTC as possible just before announcing LTC would be listed on Coinbase) then once the data was analysed, it pretty much proved there was, in fact, insider trading. Not a big deal, niggas gotta eat, but insider trading is a shady move when a cryptocurrency's point man is tainted by it.

 

Strike 2

 

That brings me to the "Litecoin is the Silver to Bitcoin's Gold" mantra. Sure, transactions are cheaper now, and take 25% less time to confirm, but there are other coins out there like Ethereum (15 second blocks) and Dash that make Litecoin look like a joke. So how much merchant adoption do you think Litecoin has achieved? Obviously they're not attempting alchemy here to be a "digital gold" store of value like Bitcoin right? Zero adoption, or efforts made to do so, not a single merchant was partnered with to create a use for Litecoin. Charlie Lee never intended to make good on the promises of digital silver. As it stands right now, the only use for Litecoin is moving crypto out of Coinbase, and onto Binance so you can trade for altcoins with an actual future (BTC fee's are to high). I personally prefer ETH for that.

 

Strike 3

 

Charle Lee is an outspoken Crypto Superstar, I follow his twitter and it's quite entertaining. He's positioned himself as a "Bitcoin Maximalist" Meaning he trash talks other coins by saying Bitcoin is king, blah blah, blah. Dude made a fucking altcoin himself though. Half the shade he's tried to throw at other coins is unsubstantiated bullshit he parrots from Bitcoin Maximalists. When the scaling debate heated up he positioned himself on the side of bitcoin core, offering to use Litecoin as a live testnet for Segregated Witness, and Lightning. If Segwit x Lightning lives up to the lofty claims by it's supporters, it would basically make Litecoin obsolete. Bitcoin transactions would be instant, fees would be almost non existent.

 

So on the other side of the scaling debate are people who support the BCH hardfork (whom Charlie likes to mock). In my opinion they've solved the scaling debate, and have been catching up to BTC's market cap since forking. "Coincidentally", right before they're listed on Coinbase Dec. 20th, there are signs of insider trading again, someone is scooping up massive amounts of BCH. Also, at the EXACT same time, this motherfucker announces he's cashed out of all his Litecoin holdings. While it's at an all time high. Brazen as fuck. His excuse "I wanted to be able to argue on the internet without people thinking I'm shilling for Litecoin" Yea right.

 

For me, a coin needs more than a catchphrase, it needs at least the potential for a use case.

 

[abrasivesaint]

Ok, how do i transfer all this BAT i’ve been earning into somewhere i can manage it? I have a etherscan account and all that, how do i transfer these Brave rewards into there? 
 

@Mercer

 

edit: whats the deal with BAT? There any expectancy these will ever be worth something? Been hearing a lot of Brave ads on podcasts lately. 

Edited January 10, 2020 by abrasivesaint

[Mercer]

@abrasivesaintYou have to set up an account with uphold exchange, and attach that to your Brave account.

 

BAT can only be transferred out of Brave into Uphold for now. From there you can transfer into any Ethereum wallet, USD, or anything really.

 

 

If you keep your funds in the BAT card, you can set up automatic payments to 12oz through the browser. It was broken for me for so long until I stashed them in my "BAT card" in uphold, then Raven received his first payment. They only told me that the I had made a payment out of the blue and I got spooked and withdrew all funds to my Metamask wallet not knowing if my account got hacked.

Edited January 10, 2020 by Mercer

[Dirty_habiT]

40 minutes ago, abrasivesaint said:

Ok, how do i transfer all this BAT i’ve been earning into somewhere i can manage it? I have a etherscan account and all that, how do i transfer these Brave rewards into there? 
 

@Mercer

 

edit: whats the deal with BAT? There any expectancy these will ever be worth something? Been hearing a lot of Brave ads on podcasts lately. 

How much are we talking about in USA $$$ have you earned by browsing?  Just curious....  Trying to get a realistic number to understand if this is worth doing or not.  (i'm not super interested in switching from firefox because i've been using it since it was netscape and was the first browser i ever used).

[abrasivesaint]

In the past few months using it.. between mobile and on my Mac, about $10. Nothing too wild. I also dont spend a ton of time on my Mac. 

[abrasivesaint]

Correction, i had unclaimed rewards.. so like $15-20

[abrasivesaint]

Edit: never mind. I thought it was trying to direct me to Uphold but it was not. 

Edited January 11, 2020 by abrasivesaint

[abrasivesaint]

Anyone know how to transfer the BAT on mobile? I’ve been able to do it on my Mac but having trouble figuring it out on mobile. 

[misteraven]

On 1/10/2020 at 10:45 AM, Dirty_habiT said:

How much are we talking about in USA $$$ have you earned by browsing?  Just curious....  Trying to get a realistic number to understand if this is worth doing or not.  (i'm not super interested in switching from firefox because i've been using it since it was netscape and was the first browser i ever used).

Probably about $90 so far.

[NightmareOnElmStreet]

Crypto on the rise again? Shoulda bought up that ethereum when it was barely over a hundred . Now it’s 223. 

[Bianca K]

On 12/22/2017 at 4:20 AM, theprotester said:

Rule one

 

You've made nothing until you cash out

 

Rule two

 

Fifty percent is tax

50% is tax? So is there any tax benefit for the tax?

[Dirty_habiT]

On 12/19/2019 at 7:05 AM, Mercer said:

Kid racks up over 1 million in crypto by SIM swapping. Another reason why you should never keep your funds on an exchange, and if so never let anyone know you hold. This attack has been around forever yet people still get got daily.

 

1. Hacker finds out your phone number
2. Hacker knows you've got crypto on an exchange
3. Hacker calls your phone carrier, gets your number switched to a SIM card they hold
4. Hacker then requests a password reset for your email account, and gets access using your phone as 2nd factor authorization
5. Then hacker can request password reset at your exchange and passes the 2 factor auth with your phone/email access.

If you've noticed, this attack isn't sophisticated and requires almost no technical skills to pull off.

This attack is easily defeated by using an application like "google authenticator" or "authy".  Having text/call based 2FA is where people fuck up.  If my phone got smashed today I'd have a hard time getting back into my stuff.... but I've been smart about saving my recovery codes in a secure location.

 

But yeah.... I really dislike that paypal forces you to use text/call based 2FA.... it's garbage for the exact reason you outlined above.

[where]

Couldn’t find anything about it in the Jekyll island group so I’ll post it here.

 

As many of you are aware within the next week BTC is about to go through it’s 3rd halving, which is when the mining reward rate per block is cut in half. This has generally resulted in price increases caused by decreased supply. Things are looking really good right now for another bull run, and after the past week of taking some profits and consolidation way above  support levels it looks like a good time to go long on top tier alts and buckle up. This is obviously all speculative as myself nor 12oz or anyone affiliated are financial advisors but just wanted to say I hope everyone that is with the shits has their bags packed!

 

[NightmareOnElmStreet]

Sooooo. What you're saying is buy btc? I fell off hard from the topic but I check my one little coinable app daily. I watched eth go from like 50bucks back up to 200. Still haven't bought anymore than the 100 I have from ages ago. Also wondering if crypto is where I should be looking to invest. How do you feel about index stocks??

[where]

27 minutes ago, NightmareOnElmStreet said:

Sooooo. What you're saying is buy btc? I fell off hard from the topic but I check my one little coinable app daily. I watched eth go from like 50bucks back up to 200. Still haven't bought anymore than the 100 I have from ages ago. Also wondering if crypto is where I should be looking to invest. How do you feel about index stocks??

Indexes have higher fees and are generally for long positions, so if you think all this turmoil right now is temporary and things are about to go back to normal they could have a good return given you had an exit plan that could be executed when the  market satisfied your desire for profit and stop loss to be triggered if things go south. 

 

For growth stocks, shares of companies acquired with the hope of them increasing in value, right now wouldn’t be a bad time to take long positions, buying a stock at a speculative dip in the cycle and holding it as it corrects and hopefully breaks resistance levels, in companies heavily disrupted by the virus like airlines or any ones without a ton debt.

 

As far as buying BTC, probably not a bad idea to get in before it hits 9,500, which is currently a heavy resistance point, that exit point of long positions taking profit. The support level is around 8,775 which is the  price point where investors have a significant position they won’t impulse sell below which influences the markets confidence levels and is the driving force in the overall health of an asset. This position was initially played by early adopting whales but is now playing by institutional investors, and this is the first halving since the shift in the dynamic happened 2 years ago, so understanding the psychological motivation behind how big banks will treat crypto is definitely an uncertain science now more than ever. If it hits 9,500 before halving, 9,320 at the moment,  smaller resistance at 9,800 but if it gets there expect things to be bullish. 

 

Alt coins are higher risk but they’re also attractive, like ETH because of its high trading volume and the fact most alt coins run on the ether block, or XRP because of its industrial adoption and history of following BTC. Having a somewhat diverse portfolio in top tier alts can help you leverage the exchange in the pump of an alt coin that follows price correction of BTC testing a new resistance point into a discount. This is usually around 4-7am eastern standard time because it’s evening in Korea which is where the alt coin whales are and they try to catch Americans snoozing.

 

It seems like if BTC doesn’t break 9,500 before halving with its low volume, and everything happening in the overall economy with the uncertainty of reopening, it could correct all the way back to 5,000 or lower in a few days. I’m not a financial advisor I just play one on tv but I hope that gives a partial update to you or anyone else who managed to make their way through my ramblings and is interested in the subject.