Covering Bitcoin, the Blockchain, Altcoins, and Fintech
The rumor became fact just a bit ago: Digibyte has activated Segwit.
If you’re new to this concept, we suggest you head over to this post – Four that Could Quadruple – and read the description of DGB and LTC, and learn about Segregated Witness in the links on that post.
Coin price so far up a little – but volume appears heavy.
We’ll continue following this as closely as we can…but watch for a pop or two later today as rumor becomes news.
DISCLOSURE: We own some DGB and are long.
The cryptocurrency chatrooms and websites were abuzz yesterday with a double whammy of potentially good news: the SEC (the US Securities and Exchange Commission) was considering two separate exchange-traded fund (ETF) applications, one for Ether (Ethereum) and one for Bitcoin.
You can read more about it – and you may want to bookmark these sites, too – as other sites that cover the space were discussing the implications for the crypto community, blockchain developers, and traders as well:
Funny how the crypto space moves lightning fast. While it may seem like “way back when” that the SEC ruled against the Bitcoin ETF, it was actually only on March 10, 2017. That’s not quite seven weeks ago.
The price of Bitcoin did some crazy things in the weeks leading up to the announcement (“buy the rumor, sell the news,” though the rumor was that there was a chance of it being approved), then saw a precipitous drop once the news was announced.
You don’t have to be a wizard to see that this type of rumor – and the subsequent news – can drive prices north. Here’s a 24-hour chart (from Poloniex) detailing what’s up with ETH:
Bitcoin has moved up, too – though not at a double-digit rate over the past day – and now trades on Poloniex at a shade above $1400. (This, too, can change in an instant.)
These things take time, though: rumors of a BTC ETF were rampant for months before the announcement, and you would expect the SEC to take its time on the ETH ruling. (You can also read the SEC’s document, from January 13, here: SEC notice.)
Really, price speculations in any market are nothing new. For every cry of “bubble,” there’s someone else with a lofty prediction that might seem preposterous.
And the Bitcoin and Ether markets really aren’t any different in that regard to the gold market: Warren Buffett supposedly hates gold, while speculator Doug Casey thinks gold could double this year.
Of course, we’ll be watching this very closely. Our bet, though, is that FOMO will win big once either, or both, ETFs get approved. The flow of legitimate capital into a market that is perceived to be part of the underground is just the beginning.
If you have followed this site for the past month (and THANK YOU for doing so), you know that we have been talking about two sides of the “coin” when it comes to cryptocurrency. One the one side, the big behemoths, led by Bitcoin, which soared to north of $1400 US this morning. (NOTE: we realize there are some…issues? questions? with Tether and the USDT price on some sites. We’re going with Poloniex’s numbers from a little before noon Central time today.) On side two: the little guys, be they altcoins or ICOs.
AND YES…there are three sides to every coin, o wise one. Side three is the edge of the coin, where many of you might currently be. Reminder to get started with Coinbase, buy some Bitcoin or Ethereum, and get rolling! They’ll give you a bonus and we’ll get a bonus for referring you.
Back to the tooting of our horn: we believe we’re onto something with the BRED portfolio.
When we first came up with the concept, we picked four of the coins with the highest market cap, but also four that could fall into different buckets. The same way that Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google make up FANG – with each bringing a different dish to the table – Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, and Dash all have something a little different about them:
Simple enough, can fit this on a napkin. So we thought, let’s create a portfolio of just these four, give them 1/4 each of our investment, and leave it alone.
Here’s what it would look like right now:
Yes, you read that correctly. A $10,000 investment, spread equally between these four coins, made on January 1, would be worth more than $51,995.12 today.
Oh, and if you sat on the edge of the coin and waited until April 1 to buy, you’d still be up 22% THIS MONTH.
But what if you’re waiting for an ICO?
While some of this could be the start of a bubble – and our pal Roger Aitken talks about that in this post on GNO – ICOs are on a tear, too. Well, some of them…
* We are participating in Exscudo’s “bounty program” and have purchased a small stake. Also, we wrote about it in more detail over here.
If you think things are just getting going, you may very well be right. Bitcoin’s market cap is above $20b, but, with fixed supply and companies still scrambling to get involved in blockchain technology, the four members of the BRED portfolio seem to be hitting the gas pedal.
And these four ICOs, each with their own different angle and spin, could also be poised to make serious news of their own – I mean, in addition to the news they’ve made already.
What about both?
We’re going back to basics today. And we thought we’d use this opportunity to share our Coinbase link – so, in the interest of full disclosure, we could be compensated if you sign up with this link. But, once you spend $100 worth on Bitcoin or Ethereum, you’ll get $10 worth of Bitcoin, too. Win-win.
Veterans of this space might be surprised when they realize that Coinbase has been around since June 2012. Here’s how they describe themselves.
Founded in June of 2012, Coinbase is a digital currency wallet and platform where merchants and consumers can transact with new digital currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. We’re based in San Francisco, California.
And, oh my goodness do they have a foothold on this digital wallet space, having raised more than $117m from leading tech investors and venture capital firms. You can see a complete writeup on Crunchbase, one of our favorite tech info sites.
It might seem obvious, but it’s worth a mention nonetheless: a wallet is where you store your coins. Read this from Coindesk if you’re looking for more advanced info, but, for now, just think of the basic idea as an old school wallet, like the one you’d put in your pants pocket or purse.
In the typical American wallet, you’re likely to find cash – FIAT CURRENCY! – identification, and maybe some credit cards. Some of what’s in a physical wallet is innocuous, right? I mean, everyone holds onto a fortune from their last trip to the Chinese restaurant, don’t they? But it’s that other information that you guard carefully – your ID card is a pain to lose, and you wouldn’t just give out your credit card number or the CVC code on the back to any random stranger.
Your digital wallet can be looked at the same way – in fact, some of the information that moves Bitcoin (or Ethererum, we’ll use Bitcoin throughout this article as a catch-all for the digital currencies on the Coinbase system) back and forth is better thought of as in a safety deposit box or a safe.
The public component to your wallet is the Bitcoin address, and this is something you can give out to anyone and everyone. This is INBOUND. You can use it as a tip jar, you can ask your Uncle to send you that five bucks worth of Bitcoin he promised for your birthday (ha!).
Here’s our Bitcoin address:
1G8Ayc15sqoyGzN4DFUeheRkgFeS9t6oSW
And our Ethereum address:
0xf0940C79d93E88450aA366238ef8C298Da11EB74
Note that those two look different. Because they’re completely different languages and sets of code.
Here’s where the FIAT CURRENCY comes in: you’ll need to send money to your account using one of a couple methods. One is to link a bank account, and then your Bitcoin will appear in a few days, once the banking systems talk to each other and confirm your account. The other method is to use a credit card. There’s a fee attached – as there is to the bank account method – but the upside is that your Bitcoin will appear almost instantaneously.
If you’re brand new to Bitcoin, you can totally use Coinbase as your online hub, your gateway to the vast world of cryptocurrency. As you see above, you can get the current price quote, you can buy and sell – trade – your Bitcoin, you can send Bitcoin to folks you owe money to, and request it from folks who owe you money.
Here’s a snapshot of some of our recent activity.
But, as you might have guessed from some of our other posts here, this is only scratching the surface of our cryptocurrency activity. You can use your account to send money into one of the trading platforms, like Poloniex or Bittrex – two of the ones we use. Or you can invest in an ICO, such as the Exscudo or Sikoba coin offerings we have talked about here.
Despite what the rumor mill might tell you, right now only two coins are on the Coinbase platform: Bitcoin and Ethereum. So if you want to get into other coins, you’ll have to convert them via a trading platform (or an ICO; Gnosis used Ethereum tokens yesterday to raise a crazy amount of capital in their auction). But that’s pretty simple to do.
Yes, the fine folks at Coinbase have actually made this dummy-proof. Which is one reason they’ve raised so much capital and they’re the wallet of choice here. (It’s not just from that link up there that can score you a Bitcoin bonus with a qualifying purchase, and will also score us a Bitcoin bonus with your qualifying purchase. There’s that “win/win” again.)
This was mentioned by leading VC Fred Wilson the other day, and, given the growth of Ethereum as the backbone of blockchain applications, it’s probably worth checking out. Token launch from Coinbase.
Last month, we covered the GDAX launch from Coinbase – it’s an important institutional investment milestone for the company.
We’ll keep an eye out for other coins added to the Coinbase site, too.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We learned on April 22, by examining the terms for the TaaS ICO, that investment is prohibited in the United States. In addition to being bolded in the document, you must affirm that you are not a United States citizen before continuing. As of this writing, 9 a.m. CDT in the US on April 24, TaaS has raised US$5.5m.
If you’re new(ish) to the crypto space, you might be wondering: “How do I get in on some sweet ICO action?” And if you’re really new to the crypto space, you might ask: “What’s an ICO?” We’ll try to (figuratively) kill two birds with one stone, er, post by talking a little about a rather interesting ICO we bumped into: TaaS.
Here’s a term that is pretty straightforward. IPO – “Initial Public Offering” – makes total sense in the investment vernacular, and is a pretty commonly used phrase. A company, having proved its worth over time, decides to raise money by, for the very first time, offering its shares to the public over one of the bigger stock markets (NYSE or Nasdaq).
Initial Coin Offerings work the same way, but the twist is that an ICO isn’t traded over a stock exchange. And, these coins are often the opposite of proven – in fact, many ICOs are trying to get enough capital to get their idea/coin/token off the ground.
First of all, we’ll admit it’s a pretty slick webpage – though the logo, frankly, leaves a lot to be desired. Also, there’s a bit of a Soviet connotation in the name – remember “TASS,” the Soviet news agency? (Nyet? You’re probably not old enough.)
But let’s talk about the technical aspects of this, and whether or not this idea is worthy of your investment dollars (or coins, as it were). From the website (which is the first one we’ve seen with the TLD extension of “.fund”):
TaaS is a tokenized closed-end fund designed to reduce the risks and technical barriers of investing in the blockchain space. Built on a profit-sharing smart contract, TaaS introduces an innovative Token-as-a-Service business model, allowing investors to subscribe to the fund’s income stream. TaaS built an innovative Cryptographic Audit technology to become the first, truly transparent fund dedicated to cryptocurrencies and tokens.
Sounds a little like a cross between a mutual fund and a venture capital fund.
We’ll go with that: here appears (at least to our eyes, which, while not “untrained,” aren’t experts in the fund space) to be the closest thing to a Fund of Funds that you’ll find. At least so far. Fund of Funds invest in, well, a bunch of funds. They’re like hedge funds but they just spread themselves around various mutual funds.
Or this could, if you read the materials on the site, appear to be closer to buying into a trading desk or flash trading firm. Except they’re just going after blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.
Darn good question: we’ve only got a few more weeks before the ICO is done and you can’t buy the tokens directly. Instead, you’ll have to rely on trading them on the open markets – and, as of this writing, only two exchanges are going to have the TaaS tokens as part of their mix: Livecoin and Kuna (the largest exchange in the Ukraine). (Read more here from Cointelegraph.)
So we’ll be watching closely.
By the way, if you want us to write up your ICO, send us a note: info – at – metacoin – dot – co.