Saturday, October 5, 2019

Wealth Formula Episode 179: Buy, Borrow and Die: Bitcoin Style

Catch the full episode: https://www.wealthformula.com/podcast/179-buy-borrow-and-die-bitcoin-style/

Buck: Welcome back to the show everyone. Today my guest on Wealth Formula Podcast is Zack Prince. He's Founder and CEO of BlockFi. BlockFi bridges the gap between blockchain and the basic financial products that you're used to including interest-bearing accounts and loans. Zack, welcome to Wealth Formula Podcast. I think you we might have had you on before as a Consensus Network replay but first time on Wealth Formula Podcast specifically, so welcome.

Zac: Yeah, excited to be here, Buck. Thanks for having me. And it's good to chat with you again

Buck: Yeah so remind me how you got into this you know Bitcoin stuff in the first place, I mean you were as I understand you were a traditional finance guy right so where did the blockchain part come in?

Zac: Sure so I was I was working at a company in the FinTech world that provided data and technology solutions to institutional investors that wanted to participate in some of the new online lending platforms, whether they were real estate platforms or consumer lending platforms, and I kind of became the FinTech guy amongst my friend group and people would ask me you know should I invest in these real estate deals on fund rise or buy loans from Lending Club and I started writing a blog to share the information more efficiently with my friends basically and I started expanding a little bit writing about Robo advisory and some other things that were going on in the FinTech space and that's what led me to Bitcoin, and this is back in early 2015. I didn't start BlockFi until 2017 because I started following the market in the background, still working in traditional financial services in FinTech and then in early 2017 it started to feel like mainstream adoption was starting to happen in the crypto ecosystem. I'm started going to some meetups in New York City because at a certain point my wife said Zac, you're talking about crypto all the time and you're talking to me about it and I don't want to talk about it so you should find some other people to talk about this with. And the meetup composition started to change and in 2016 when I started going to these meetups it was the early crypto adopters you know libertarians, computer scientists and then in early 2017 I started to see some venture capitalists, some guys who had just left their job at Wall Street still wearing a suit, some more entrepreneurs and it was a really exciting time in the ecosystem, things like the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance were getting announced which had participation microsoft and a lot of other you know fortune 500 companies and I had started to believe in it. I was drinking the kool-aid a little bit so I decided to find a way to get involved in the space full-time and that's what led me to start BlockFi.

Buck: So I have to imagine that the response you got from the traditional finance people around that time when you started talking about the blockchain space and when you started being more and more involved with that was probably not a very positive response initially or did you did you experience some of that sort of you know rejection initially to what you were doing?

Zac: Yeah absolutely. But you know throughout my career this is now kind of the third emerging technology industry that I've worked in. I was originally an advertising technology starting like you know 15 years ago and I was in FinTech specifically the online lending side of FinTech which in its early days was called peer-to-peer lending and now in crypto. So having to do a lot of education explain it you know why something isn't crazy and it might work and here's why and here's the value proposition and here's what it is, I've gotten very used to that and comfortable with it. But yeah there were a lot of people who are like you know I've heard Bitcoin is only used by drug dealers and money launderers. I've heard that I'm supposed to care about blockchain and not Bitcoin. And you know at BlockFi we’re providing financial products into the market so it's a heavily regulated business so we also had to communicate with regulators. We had to explain to state regulators, federal regulators why what we were doing with Bitcoin and other cryptos than when you're doing these same types of things with assets that they're more familiar with.

Buck: So when you were talking to people back in, I don't know I guess 2016/17 and it's not a long time ago, it's only two years ago, but I have to imagine that the response or the you know the approach that people take to you when you speak to investors is very different. Has it become more mainstream in that regard for you know for big money investors?

Zac: It's absolutely become more mainstream you know the end of 2017 Q3/Q4. Point was going on that parabolic run it started to get covered everywhere, I mean it was on CNBC every day it was in Bloomberg New York Times Wall Street Journal. If you were paying attention to the financial industry and markets you heard about Bitcoin at that time if you hadn't heard about it before. So from a baseline of awareness perspective it got a lot better and then in 2018 you had a number of positive developments for the sector including one that I think is probably the most noteworthy which is that Bitcoin futures were listed on the CME the institutional investor perspective that's massive. You now have a well regulated well known super trustworthy venue where you can get exposure to this asset class, you also had companies like Grayscale bringing products to the market which are accessible to certain types of investors and their low bridge accounts and you started to see some adoption from companies like FinTech companies like Robin Hood and Square making Bitcoin available on their platforms. So the conversation has absolutely changed a lot and it's become less about whether or not this is something that's going to continue to exist whether or not it's something that was just a bubble and is going to die and now it's more about ok how is it going to get used how big could it get what are the interesting applications of it and what could have potentially disrupt in the traditional financial ecosystem.

Buck: So you know we had obviously following this you know pop in 2017, you know I actually like you kind of really got into this early 2017 so timing was pretty good I guess now regards. Good or bad depending how you look at it but I was there before before the parabolic move. And then we have you know then we followed this up with a crypto winter and and you know who knows if we're done with it, I guess we certainly are much better off than we were. You know a unit buddy it's funny Zac I don’t know if you remember this but I was about to, we'll talk about BlockFi specifically in a minute but, I was about to use BlockFi for borrowing because I like this idea of borrowing you know collateralized debt and collateralized debt on assets and buying something else. So I was about to do it and then Bitcoin lost a clip and I was like literally and I remember I was just emailing with somebody somebody over there and I was like sorry dude I guess I just sold it, I just sold all that Bitcoin I had and you sent one email back to me and it said “capitulation” but it you know and so now we're looking back at these we go down from 3,000 back up you know been sort of flirting around this 10,000 and it seems like we're kind of maybe that we're stuck there, maybe we're kind of out of winter, maybe we're in a holding pattern but it seems like to me that since that two years not only is the awareness increase but the development of the ecosystem itself is so much further advanced than it was in 2017. Is this an unusual case where the technology and maybe even the infrastructure is actually outpacing the price?

Zac: You know it's really hard to say. I would argue that in some ways it's typical. In other industries that showed a lot of promise where investors could you know participate maybe a little bit ahead of the adoption curve you saw crazy price run ups with the tech bubble and you know ‘99-2000 being the one that's kind of top of mind in recent memory and then on the other side of things, are we behind where the price should be now? It's really hard to say because this is kind of like a commodity type asset built on a payment network and valuing that is challenging and there's not a perfect model for for doing it today. It's not as easy as something that's cashflow producing but I'm incredibly bullish. I'm on record as saying at the beginning of this year that Bitcoin has only had one year in its 10-year existence where it had a lower low than the year before and parted this year around the low price for 2018 and I predicted that we would in the year had a higher price than where we started the year pretty soon and now we're up and you know around 300 percent from where we started the year. As that happens in investing is people frequently look at things on a year-to-year performance basis and when people are looking at Bitcoin even if all we do is stay around 10 K from here when they're looking at how Bitcoin performed rather than other relative to other assets at the end of 2019 it's probably going to look fantastic. And you also have an event coming up and in the summer of next year called The Halvening where basically the supply that's produced by miners is going to get cut in half and so if you believe in the stock the flow type models of valuation for Bitcoin that is usually a very big driver of price appreciation.

Buck: I believe May of 2020, right?

Zac: That's right.

Buck: In May of 2020. Can you just talked a little bit about that just so people know because people hear about it, I've been talking about it but I don't think that it really explained it.

Zac: Yeah and you know I'm not I'm not a computer scientist so I can explain it in a you know in a very simple…

Buck: No one else here is either.

Zac: So basically the way that new Bitcoin is created is through this process called mining. And it's analogous to mining gold except instead of finding a place in the earth where gold exists and then getting your trucks and mining equipment and digging it out of the ground, the way bitcoin is mined is using this computer program and there is now specialized computer hardware that's built specifically and optimized for mining Bitcoin. And you have this network of machines around the world where the input is energy into the mining hardware and the output is new Bitcoin and those miners are what provides the power for the payment network a Bitcoin to run and when we say that there is this event called The Halvening, what that basically means is that the output that's built into the Bitcoin program that the miners are receiving as their payment for contributing energy to the network, is going to get cut in half. So the miners are going to have the same you know relative input but the amount that they're receiving is going to get cut in half for that input. This should, if the demand side for Bitcoin remains equal, it should drive up the price and historically Bitcoin has had three of these Halvening events in its lifetime so far I believe and around each Halvening you have seen you know six months before or six months after a pretty material run up in price.

Buck: Yeah so it also goes along with that sort of that the entire idea that Bitcoin unlike you know other assets including gold is it's a deflationary asset ultimately and and that's one of the things that makes that happening really significant. Apart from and I have one more question before we get to block five which is apart from the Halvening, you know thing that's happening, what is maybe the biggest development or upcoming thing that's coming up that makes you the most bullish on the future of Bitcoin or blockchain in general?

Zac: Sure so I think I wouldn't actually point to any one specific thing, I would point to two broad trends. So one is institutional adoption and participation in the asset class and the other is better ramps for retail participation into the asset class and just focusing here you know on the US market because it really is an international story but just in the US market. In September we should have Bakkt launching their futures platform. Bakkt is owned by ICE, the Intercontinental Exchange, and there's a big core difference between their futures and the current futures that are available on the CME in that futures on Bakkt platform are going to be physically settled so that means that actual Bitcoin is going to be needed to facilitate the trading on Bakkt’s platform which does not happen on CMEs exchange so that's that should be a very positive catalyst in terms of demand for physical Bitcoin that could have an impact on the price. Also on the institutional side this year I believe earlier this year, the first pension fund made an investment into an asset management vehicle that was focused on investing in Bitcoin and private equity opportunities in the Bitcoin and blockchain sector. So that will be a trend.

Buck: Which pension fund was it?

Zac: It was in North Carolina so I think it was like the North Carolina Firefighters and the group that raised the money from them was Morgan Creek Digital it’s actually invested in BlockFi by Anthony Pompliano Twitter and Mark Yusko so that's on the institutional side. And then on the retail side you've seen FinTech companies like Square and Robin Hood offer Bitcoin trading to their users. But soon you will also have companies like TD Ameritrade E-Trade and others offer Bitcoin to their users sometimes be a partnership sometimes because they've built it directly. You also at some point might see progress made in terms of an ETF getting approved that would give retail investors in the US market exposure to Bitcoin in a really easy and familiar way. All of those things are tremendously positive catalysts and the caliber of people working on them only continues to increase. Talent was attracted into the sector very, very rapidly these days.

Buck: You know one question that leads me to is that all of this is happening with Bitcoin for the most part. Are alt coins in your opinion is that market coming back or is that something that we're gonna see probably select you know group of tokens projects emerge and then the rest will kind of just get left in the dust, what do you think?

Zac: I mean I'll tell you exactly what I'm doing with my portfolio and then I'll provide a bit more color. So my asset allocation in the crypto side of my investing is I'm like 90% Bitcoin 5% Ethereum and 5% B&B; which is the Binance right. So I'm super bullish on Bitcoin. I think that you know there's a chance that Ether makes a comeback specifically I think that a lot of the stable coins that have been launched have been built on Ethereum if you're not familiar with stable coins it's basically the concept of a dollar but on a blockchain which could be really really powerful because it creates the opportunity for the delivery of US dollar denominated financial services at a global scale not using the traditional banking rails. And then B&B; I mean Binance is the biggest and most successful exchange they have a history of innovating, creating new products, going fast and so I'm taking a bit of a flyer with them but I'm 90% Bitcoin. I don't think that I'm not bullish on any of the other all coins frankly I struggle to see you know the big upside I have heard whispers in the community that there's kind of like a new wave of altcoins 3.0 might emerge, you know could see some some good returns similar to what some of the ICOs did in 2017 but it's not an area of focus for me. So that's my view.

Buck: Yeah let's talk about BlockFi. Remind us exactly what BlockFi is.

Zac: Sure so we're a wealth management platform for crypto investors. Today we have two products that we offer. One product is analogous to a savings account from a traditional bank where you're able to earn interest on your holdings except on BlockFi, the assets instead of being dollars are bitcoin and Ether and we don't have FDIC insurance so it's not exactly the same risk profile as a savings account at a bank, but conceptually you're able to hold Bitcoin and an account with BlockFi and earn interest on it paid in Bitcoin every month. That's one product that we have. The second product that we have which you are alluding to earlier offers our clients the ability to borrow dollars secured by the value of their cryptocurrency and it's analogous to a securities backed loan or a liquidity access line in the traditional world except instead of securities we're taking Bitcoin or other digital assets as collateral and lending it rates as low as four point five lending USD that rates as low as four point five percent a year.

Buck: I wanna pick these apart a little bit if you don't mind. In terms of this savings account first of all is it just bitcoin or is it bitcoin, Ethereum?

Zac: We actually support three assets in the interest account currently Bitcoin, Ether and GUSD which is the stable coin from Gemini.

Buck: Got it. And talk about the interest because it's not one flat interest rate right it's different depending on how much cryptocurrency actually is held?

Zac: Correct so there's a tiered interest rate structure. Currently on Bitcoin for balances up to ten Bitcoin, we offer a six point two percent annual yield and for balances above ten Bitcoin it's a 2.2 percent annual yield. On Ether, for balances up to two hundred Ether it's a 3.3 percent annual yield and balances above two hundred Ether is 0.5% annual yield and for GUSD the stable coin it's an eight point six percent interest rate with no tier so yeah those are the different rates.

Buck: Why did, I mean was it just a matter of like an issue with people dumping like a thousand Bitcoin and trying to get six you know 6% of that, was it just too hard to you know make that a long-term part of the business model or why did the higher levels end up changing to a lower rate?

Zac: Sure so I wanted to function of market conditions and to it's a function of supply and demand. So we launched the interest account in March of this year. We were just starting to come out of the bear market and one of the things that happened as we switched from being in a bear market to being in a bull market is the futures switched from being in backwardation to contango which basically means that our institutional borrowers the groups that we lend to that enable us to pay the rate to depositors had less of a need they had less demand to borrow and they were willing to pay lower rates to borrow crypto than they were when we were building and planning to launch this product. The second thing that happened is we were surprised to the upside in terms of the level of interest that we received from depositors and especially depositors with very large sums of cryptocurrency. So to give you an example you know within a day or two of making the product available publicly, we had a number of groups that were depositing 5, 10, 15, 20 million dollars worth of Bitcoin and so the supply-demand that we have to manage is, the amount that we have on deposit relative to the size of this market that will borrow Bitcoin size of the market that will borrow Bitcoin is partially a function of market sentiments partially a function of number of trading venues and the liquidity profile and it's partially a function of you know BlockFi’s efforts in terms of sales and client development relationship management. So the supply side got a little bit ahead of the demand side on deposit and how much there was available to borrow so we made a few tweaks. We want to keep the 6%, 6.2% rate on Bitcoin available to as many people as possible for as long as possible so that's why we went with the tiered structure where we made it available on balances up to 10 and reduced it for balances above that.

Buck: Got it and the interest on that, when you say 6.2 percent that six point like it's all denominated in Bitcoin, you're not paying cash out right?

Zac: Correct so to use round numbers to provide an easy example you start on January first with a hundred Bitcoin in an account, by the subsequent January first you will have 106 point 2 Bitcoin in your account.

Buck: Yeah and that that's kind of neat too because then you're you know you're also getting potentially the upside of that you know I mean they made 6% but if you if you're really bullish on the market you could be potentially looking at a lot more than 6% on your money. How about in terms of the, is there like a you know do you do it sort of a month-to-month or six month or month you know year-long contracts for these things?

Zac: It's month-to-month. So the rates are subject to change on a monthly basis. We provide notifications at least a week in advance before the end of one month on what the rates will be for the subsequent month and people are able to you know withdraw any time without penalty. We reserve up to 7 days to process withdrawals but we've never taken more than one business day to process a withdrawal so they're pretty quick but not instant for security reasons and yeah it's pretty flexible.

Buck: How about the lump in the lending side how does how does that work? So now I've got like 10 Bitcoin and so I would deposit that I guess and you guys I understand that maybe that that goes into like a Gemini account or something, is that still how it works?

Zac: Correct so we have a partnership with Gemini for custody. So when you log into a BlockFi account you'll have a deposit address. When you send Bitcoin to that deposit address it actually goes directly into storage with Gemini. Gemini was the first custodian in the crypto sector to receive insurance against cyber hacks on their platform. They were also the first custodian to get to complete a SOC 2 compliance audit and they have a really long track record of custody billions of dollars worth of crypto without ever having any issues. So it goes directly to Gemini and then you're able to interact with block-wise platform to take any actions that you might deem necessary. So you can view your interest payments you can withdraw you can deposit more you can also take out a loan. So in terms of taking out a loan, if you have ten Bitcoin that's worth roughly a hundred thousand US dollars at this point in time, you can borrow up to fifty percent of that value in a US dollar loan which can be funded be a wire or stable coin and then the structure of those loans is that you make interest-only payments on the amount that you borrowed throughout the duration and you can prepay at any time without penalty.

Buck: And what's the typical you said it was four point six.

Zac: We have interest rates as low as four point five. The interest rates on borrowing USD vary according to your initial loan to value ratio. So if you have a hundred thousand dollars worth of Bitcoin we actually have three loan-to-value ratio options. You can borrow at a 50 percent initial loan-to-value ratio which would mean you're borrowing 50k, the interest rate on that will be eleven point two five, if you borrow thirty five percent of the value so 35k the interest rate is seven point nine, and if you borrow twenty five percent of the value of the interest rate is four point five percent per year.

Buck: Got it. In terms of you know the technical, so you basically pay that on a month-to-month basis and then in terms of contracts, are those also month-to-month loans or how does that work?

Zac: Those are one-year term loans well now it's the ability to renew without repaying the principal at the end of the term at current rates and our rates for those loans have always come down so far. So it's a one-year term loan BlockFi committed for a year at that rate your payments stay the same but you can prepay at any time without penalty.

Buck: Right. When do you do when would you do an actual sort of I guess a cap will call like what loan-to-value because you can go up to say you're borrowing at you know you're borrowing at the lowest rate you know you're at 4.5% you're borrowing see you know just for round numbers 100 Bitcoin you borrowed or you said 10 Bitcoin hundred thousand dollars but you only borrowed twenty-five thousand dollars at four point five percent, what if Bitcoin you know loses 50 percent of its value then what happens?

Zac: Well you wouldn't have a margin call based on on that example. If your loan to value ratio hits 70 percent that's when we have a margin call and the way the margin call works is our clients have the option to either post more collateral, pay down the loan using USD or some of the collateral that's posted for the loan or take no action. If they take no action there's a 72-hour window where we'll wait to see if the price recovers, if it does then no action is required, if the price keeps going down further then we will initiate a partial collateral sale to rebalance that LTV to a healthy level at the end of that window.

Buck: So in terms of the clients that you see doing this kind of stuff, I mean who are you seeing borrowing because you don't have a cap I mean you can on the borrow side, I mean and the rates don't really change like if you're depositing a hundred Bitcoin you're getting the same rate differences as somebody who's depositing ten for borrowing right?

Zac: That's right.

Buck: So who are the people who are putting I mean what are these businesses that are putting are using these loans who are the typical clients?

Zac: Sure so it's a mix of retail and corporate. On the retail side we actually did a survey recently on use cases and the number one use case about a third of our borrowers expressed is that they were using the funds that they borrowed to start a business, which we were really excited about. So the other popular use cases were investing in real estate, investing in other types of traditional assets like stocks and bonds, home improvement, larger purchases, vacations were all used cases, paying down higher cost debt was another use case, and then on the corporate side the loans are used for operating capital. So we have some mining companies that borrow from BlockFi. Other types of companies who you know maybe have crypto denominated inventory like exchanges or crypto ATM businesses our frequent borrowers from BlockFi and our loan sizes rearranged from you know as low as five thousand dollars all the way up to seven figures. So it's a pretty diverse group of borrowers.

Buck: So recently it sounds like you guys partnered with another company called Casa. What is Casa and I guess how does that benefit both companies?

Zac: Sure. So Casa is a leader in fighting self sovereign storage solutions for cryptocurrency owners so if you're alone that owns Bitcoin and to use a gold analogy. If you want to own gold but you keep it in your vault or in your backyard you want to have physical possession of it yourself if you want to do that same type of custody with Bitcoin. Casa has a solution that makes that really easy. Our partnership with Casa provides mutual benefits to clients on either side. So Casa clients are able to receive some discounts in terms of accessing BlockFi products and vice-versa BlockFi clients are able to receive discounts in terms of accessing kasam products and over time we'll build some things in to the user experience specifically on Casa’s platform that will make it you know a bit more seamless to interact with BlockFi products while you're on their platform. In general that partnership strategy is something that you'll see more of we think there are in the ecosystem that are specializing in areas that BlockFi's not focused on and doing things where we can provide benefits to clients on both sides is a win-win for us then and our clients.

Buck: Last thing I want to ask you about, last time I spoke to you, you had talked about the idea of potentially Bitcoin backed credit cards meaning like you know getting Bitcoin back instead of miles or dollars back. You guys any closer to that, because I definitely want one of those cards.

Zac: I'm so glad you brought it up. We're definitely closer, but we're not you're not going to have the card until like Q3 of next year probably. It's getting worked on, these things you know for better or worse they take a long time launching a credit program is no small feat you know we're working on it. We've identified some of the key partners that we'll be working with to bring that product to market it is going to happen and I share your sentiment like I wish I had it now.

Buck: Yeah seriously that'd be great. Well listen it was great talking you. So it's BlockFi.com and it's spelled like block and then fi and tell us you know tell us the process of doing is pretty simple okay how long does it take to apply for these things…

Zac: Yeah I mean nothing takes any time really. So you could come in and start earning interest and get a loan from us all in under five minutes. And we also have a client service team that's super responsive in in terms of communication however you want to communicate with them, over email, over the phone, over text message so you know don't don't hesitate to reach out to us. We're also on twitter. My twitter handle is BlockFiZac and our company twitter handle is @therealBlockFi so we're very active on those platforms and happy to chat with you there as well.

Buck: Zac Prince, thank you very much for being on Wealth Formula Podcast today.

Zac: Thanks for having me, Buck, I appreciate it.

Buck: We’ll be right back.


Consensus Network EP36: Buy, Borrow and Die: Bitcoin Style

Catch the full episode: https://www.consensusnetwork.io/podcastepisodes/2019/10/5/ep36-buy-borrow-and-die-bitcoin-style-1

Buck: Welcome back to the show everyone. Today my guest on Wealth Formula Podcast is Zack Prince. He's Founder and CEO of BlockFi. BlockFi bridges the gap between blockchain and the basic financial products that you're used to including interest-bearing accounts and loans. Zack, welcome to Wealth Formula Podcast. I think you we might have had you on before as a Consensus Network replay but first time on Wealth Formula Podcast specifically, so welcome.

Zac: Yeah, excited to be here, Buck. Thanks for having me. And it's good to chat with you again

Buck: Yeah so remind me how you got into this you know Bitcoin stuff in the first place, I mean you were as I understand you were a traditional finance guy right so where did the blockchain part come in?

Zac: Sure so I was I was working at a company in the FinTech world that provided data and technology solutions to institutional investors that wanted to participate in some of the new online lending platforms, whether they were real estate platforms or consumer lending platforms, and I kind of became the FinTech guy amongst my friend group and people would ask me you know should I invest in these real estate deals on fund rise or buy loans from Lending Club and I started writing a blog to share the information more efficiently with my friends basically and I started expanding a little bit writing about Robo advisory and some other things that were going on in the FinTech space and that's what led me to Bitcoin, and this is back in early 2015. I didn't start BlockFi until 2017 because I started following the market in the background, still working in traditional financial services in FinTech and then in early 2017 it started to feel like mainstream adoption was starting to happen in the crypto ecosystem. I'm started going to some meetups in New York City because at a certain point my wife said Zac, you're talking about crypto all the time and you're talking to me about it and I don't want to talk about it so you should find some other people to talk about this with. And the meetup composition started to change and in 2016 when I started going to these meetups it was the early crypto adopters you know libertarians, computer scientists and then in early 2017 I started to see some venture capitalists, some guys who had just left their job at Wall Street still wearing a suit, some more entrepreneurs and it was a really exciting time in the ecosystem, things like the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance were getting announced which had participation microsoft and a lot of other you know fortune 500 companies and I had started to believe in it. I was drinking the kool-aid a little bit so I decided to find a way to get involved in the space full-time and that's what led me to start BlockFi.

Buck: So I have to imagine that the response you got from the traditional finance people around that time when you started talking about the blockchain space and when you started being more and more involved with that was probably not a very positive response initially or did you did you experience some of that sort of you know rejection initially to what you were doing?

Zac: Yeah absolutely. But you know throughout my career this is now kind of the third emerging technology industry that I've worked in. I was originally an advertising technology starting like you know 15 years ago and I was in FinTech specifically the online lending side of FinTech which in its early days was called peer-to-peer lending and now in crypto. So having to do a lot of education explain it you know why something isn't crazy and it might work and here's why and here's the value proposition and here's what it is, I've gotten very used to that and comfortable with it. But yeah there were a lot of people who are like you know I've heard Bitcoin is only used by drug dealers and money launderers. I've heard that I'm supposed to care about blockchain and not Bitcoin. And you know at BlockFi we’re providing financial products into the market so it's a heavily regulated business so we also had to communicate with regulators. We had to explain to state regulators, federal regulators why what we were doing with Bitcoin and other cryptos than when you're doing these same types of things with assets that they're more familiar with.

Buck: So when you were talking to people back in, I don't know I guess 2016/17 and it's not a long time ago, it's only two years ago, but I have to imagine that the response or the you know the approach that people take to you when you speak to investors is very different. Has it become more mainstream in that regard for you know for big money investors?

Zac: It's absolutely become more mainstream you know the end of 2017 Q3/Q4. Point was going on that parabolic run it started to get covered everywhere, I mean it was on CNBC every day it was in Bloomberg New York Times Wall Street Journal. If you were paying attention to the financial industry and markets you heard about Bitcoin at that time if you hadn't heard about it before. So from a baseline of awareness perspective it got a lot better and then in 2018 you had a number of positive developments for the sector including one that I think is probably the most noteworthy which is that Bitcoin futures were listed on the CME the institutional investor perspective that's massive. You now have a well regulated well known super trustworthy venue where you can get exposure to this asset class, you also had companies like Grayscale bringing products to the market which are accessible to certain types of investors and their low bridge accounts and you started to see some adoption from companies like FinTech companies like Robin Hood and Square making Bitcoin available on their platforms. So the conversation has absolutely changed a lot and it's become less about whether or not this is something that's going to continue to exist whether or not it's something that was just a bubble and is going to die and now it's more about ok how is it going to get used how big could it get what are the interesting applications of it and what could have potentially disrupt in the traditional financial ecosystem.

Buck: So you know we had obviously following this you know pop in 2017, you know I actually like you kind of really got into this early 2017 so timing was pretty good I guess now regards. Good or bad depending how you look at it but I was there before before the parabolic move. And then we have you know then we followed this up with a crypto winter and and you know who knows if we're done with it, I guess we certainly are much better off than we were. You know a unit buddy it's funny Zac I don’t know if you remember this but I was about to, we'll talk about BlockFi specifically in a minute but, I was about to use BlockFi for borrowing because I like this idea of borrowing you know collateralized debt and collateralized debt on assets and buying something else. So I was about to do it and then Bitcoin lost a clip and I was like literally and I remember I was just emailing with somebody somebody over there and I was like sorry dude I guess I just sold it, I just sold all that Bitcoin I had and you sent one email back to me and it said “capitulation” but it you know and so now we're looking back at these we go down from 3,000 back up you know been sort of flirting around this 10,000 and it seems like we're kind of maybe that we're stuck there, maybe we're kind of out of winter, maybe we're in a holding pattern but it seems like to me that since that two years not only is the awareness increase but the development of the ecosystem itself is so much further advanced than it was in 2017. Is this an unusual case where the technology and maybe even the infrastructure is actually outpacing the price?

Zac: You know it's really hard to say. I would argue that in some ways it's typical. In other industries that showed a lot of promise where investors could you know participate maybe a little bit ahead of the adoption curve you saw crazy price run ups with the tech bubble and you know ‘99-2000 being the one that's kind of top of mind in recent memory and then on the other side of things, are we behind where the price should be now? It's really hard to say because this is kind of like a commodity type asset built on a payment network and valuing that is challenging and there's not a perfect model for for doing it today. It's not as easy as something that's cashflow producing but I'm incredibly bullish. I'm on record as saying at the beginning of this year that Bitcoin has only had one year in its 10-year existence where it had a lower low than the year before and parted this year around the low price for 2018 and I predicted that we would in the year had a higher price than where we started the year pretty soon and now we're up and you know around 300 percent from where we started the year. As that happens in investing is people frequently look at things on a year-to-year performance basis and when people are looking at Bitcoin even if all we do is stay around 10 K from here when they're looking at how Bitcoin performed rather than other relative to other assets at the end of 2019 it's probably going to look fantastic. And you also have an event coming up and in the summer of next year called The Halvening where basically the supply that's produced by miners is going to get cut in half and so if you believe in the stock the flow type models of valuation for Bitcoin that is usually a very big driver of price appreciation.

Buck: I believe May of 2020, right?

Zac: That's right.

Buck: In May of 2020. Can you just talked a little bit about that just so people know because people hear about it, I've been talking about it but I don't think that it really explained it.

Zac: Yeah and you know I'm not I'm not a computer scientist so I can explain it in a you know in a very simple…

Buck: No one else here is either.

Zac: So basically the way that new Bitcoin is created is through this process called mining. And it's analogous to mining gold except instead of finding a place in the earth where gold exists and then getting your trucks and mining equipment and digging it out of the ground, the way bitcoin is mined is using this computer program and there is now specialized computer hardware that's built specifically and optimized for mining Bitcoin. And you have this network of machines around the world where the input is energy into the mining hardware and the output is new Bitcoin and those miners are what provides the power for the payment network a Bitcoin to run and when we say that there is this event called The Halvening, what that basically means is that the output that's built into the Bitcoin program that the miners are receiving as their payment for contributing energy to the network, is going to get cut in half. So the miners are going to have the same you know relative input but the amount that they're receiving is going to get cut in half for that input. This should, if the demand side for Bitcoin remains equal, it should drive up the price and historically Bitcoin has had three of these Halvening events in its lifetime so far I believe and around each Halvening you have seen you know six months before or six months after a pretty material run up in price.

Buck: Yeah so it also goes along with that sort of that the entire idea that Bitcoin unlike you know other assets including gold is it's a deflationary asset ultimately and and that's one of the things that makes that happening really significant. Apart from and I have one more question before we get to block five which is apart from the Halvening, you know thing that's happening, what is maybe the biggest development or upcoming thing that's coming up that makes you the most bullish on the future of Bitcoin or blockchain in general?

Zac: Sure so I think I wouldn't actually point to any one specific thing, I would point to two broad trends. So one is institutional adoption and participation in the asset class and the other is better ramps for retail participation into the asset class and just focusing here you know on the US market because it really is an international story but just in the US market. In September we should have Bakkt launching their futures platform. Bakkt is owned by ICE, the Intercontinental Exchange, and there's a big core difference between their futures and the current futures that are available on the CME in that futures on Bakkt platform are going to be physically settled so that means that actual Bitcoin is going to be needed to facilitate the trading on Bakkt’s platform which does not happen on CMEs exchange so that's that should be a very positive catalyst in terms of demand for physical Bitcoin that could have an impact on the price. Also on the institutional side this year I believe earlier this year, the first pension fund made an investment into an asset management vehicle that was focused on investing in Bitcoin and private equity opportunities in the Bitcoin and blockchain sector. So that will be a trend.

Buck: Which pension fund was it?

Zac: It was in North Carolina so I think it was like the North Carolina Firefighters and the group that raised the money from them was Morgan Creek Digital it’s actually invested in BlockFi by Anthony Pompliano Twitter and Mark Yusko so that's on the institutional side. And then on the retail side you've seen FinTech companies like Square and Robin Hood offer Bitcoin trading to their users. But soon you will also have companies like TD Ameritrade E-Trade and others offer Bitcoin to their users sometimes be a partnership sometimes because they've built it directly. You also at some point might see progress made in terms of an ETF getting approved that would give retail investors in the US market exposure to Bitcoin in a really easy and familiar way. All of those things are tremendously positive catalysts and the caliber of people working on them only continues to increase. Talent was attracted into the sector very, very rapidly these days.

Buck: You know one question that leads me to is that all of this is happening with Bitcoin for the most part. Are alt coins in your opinion is that market coming back or is that something that we're gonna see probably select you know group of tokens projects emerge and then the rest will kind of just get left in the dust, what do you think?

Zac: I mean I'll tell you exactly what I'm doing with my portfolio and then I'll provide a bit more color. So my asset allocation in the crypto side of my investing is I'm like 90% Bitcoin 5% Ethereum and 5% B&B; which is the Binance right. So I'm super bullish on Bitcoin. I think that you know there's a chance that Ether makes a comeback specifically I think that a lot of the stable coins that have been launched have been built on Ethereum if you're not familiar with stable coins it's basically the concept of a dollar but on a blockchain which could be really really powerful because it creates the opportunity for the delivery of US dollar denominated financial services at a global scale not using the traditional banking rails. And then B&B; I mean Binance is the biggest and most successful exchange they have a history of innovating, creating new products, going fast and so I'm taking a bit of a flyer with them but I'm 90% Bitcoin. I don't think that I'm not bullish on any of the other all coins frankly I struggle to see you know the big upside I have heard whispers in the community that there's kind of like a new wave of altcoins 3.0 might emerge, you know could see some some good returns similar to what some of the ICOs did in 2017 but it's not an area of focus for me. So that's my view.

Buck: Yeah let's talk about BlockFi. Remind us exactly what BlockFi is.

Zac: Sure so we're a wealth management platform for crypto investors. Today we have two products that we offer. One product is analogous to a savings account from a traditional bank where you're able to earn interest on your holdings except on BlockFi, the assets instead of being dollars are bitcoin and Ether and we don't have FDIC insurance so it's not exactly the same risk profile as a savings account at a bank, but conceptually you're able to hold Bitcoin and an account with BlockFi and earn interest on it paid in Bitcoin every month. That's one product that we have. The second product that we have which you are alluding to earlier offers our clients the ability to borrow dollars secured by the value of their cryptocurrency and it's analogous to a securities backed loan or a liquidity access line in the traditional world except instead of securities we're taking Bitcoin or other digital assets as collateral and lending it rates as low as four point five lending USD that rates as low as four point five percent a year.

Buck: I wanna pick these apart a little bit if you don't mind. In terms of this savings account first of all is it just bitcoin or is it bitcoin, Ethereum?

Zac: We actually support three assets in the interest account currently Bitcoin, Ether and GUSD which is the stable coin from Gemini.

Buck: Got it. And talk about the interest because it's not one flat interest rate right it's different depending on how much cryptocurrency actually is held?

Zac: Correct so there's a tiered interest rate structure. Currently on Bitcoin for balances up to ten Bitcoin, we offer a six point two percent annual yield and for balances above ten Bitcoin it's a 2.2 percent annual yield. On Ether, for balances up to two hundred Ether it's a 3.3 percent annual yield and balances above two hundred Ether is 0.5% annual yield and for GUSD the stable coin it's an eight point six percent interest rate with no tier so yeah those are the different rates.

Buck: Why did, I mean was it just a matter of like an issue with people dumping like a thousand Bitcoin and trying to get six you know 6% of that, was it just too hard to you know make that a long-term part of the business model or why did the higher levels end up changing to a lower rate?

Zac: Sure so I wanted to function of market conditions and to it's a function of supply and demand. So we launched the interest account in March of this year. We were just starting to come out of the bear market and one of the things that happened as we switched from being in a bear market to being in a bull market is the futures switched from being in backwardation to contango which basically means that our institutional borrowers the groups that we lend to that enable us to pay the rate to depositors had less of a need they had less demand to borrow and they were willing to pay lower rates to borrow crypto than they were when we were building and planning to launch this product. The second thing that happened is we were surprised to the upside in terms of the level of interest that we received from depositors and especially depositors with very large sums of cryptocurrency. So to give you an example you know within a day or two of making the product available publicly, we had a number of groups that were depositing 5, 10, 15, 20 million dollars worth of Bitcoin and so the supply-demand that we have to manage is, the amount that we have on deposit relative to the size of this market that will borrow Bitcoin size of the market that will borrow Bitcoin is partially a function of market sentiments partially a function of number of trading venues and the liquidity profile and it's partially a function of you know BlockFi’s efforts in terms of sales and client development relationship management. So the supply side got a little bit ahead of the demand side on deposit and how much there was available to borrow so we made a few tweaks. We want to keep the 6%, 6.2% rate on Bitcoin available to as many people as possible for as long as possible so that's why we went with the tiered structure where we made it available on balances up to 10 and reduced it for balances above that.

Buck: Got it and the interest on that, when you say 6.2 percent that six point like it's all denominated in Bitcoin, you're not paying cash out right?

Zac: Correct so to use round numbers to provide an easy example you start on January first with a hundred Bitcoin in an account, by the subsequent January first you will have 106 point 2 Bitcoin in your account.

Buck: Yeah and that that's kind of neat too because then you're you know you're also getting potentially the upside of that you know I mean they made 6% but if you if you're really bullish on the market you could be potentially looking at a lot more than 6% on your money. How about in terms of the, is there like a you know do you do it sort of a month-to-month or six month or month you know year-long contracts for these things?

Zac: It's month-to-month. So the rates are subject to change on a monthly basis. We provide notifications at least a week in advance before the end of one month on what the rates will be for the subsequent month and people are able to you know withdraw any time without penalty. We reserve up to 7 days to process withdrawals but we've never taken more than one business day to process a withdrawal so they're pretty quick but not instant for security reasons and yeah it's pretty flexible.

Buck: How about the lump in the lending side how does how does that work? So now I've got like 10 Bitcoin and so I would deposit that I guess and you guys I understand that maybe that that goes into like a Gemini account or something, is that still how it works?

Zac: Correct so we have a partnership with Gemini for custody. So when you log into a BlockFi account you'll have a deposit address. When you send Bitcoin to that deposit address it actually goes directly into storage with Gemini. Gemini was the first custodian in the crypto sector to receive insurance against cyber hacks on their platform. They were also the first custodian to get to complete a SOC 2 compliance audit and they have a really long track record of custody billions of dollars worth of crypto without ever having any issues. So it goes directly to Gemini and then you're able to interact with block-wise platform to take any actions that you might deem necessary. So you can view your interest payments you can withdraw you can deposit more you can also take out a loan. So in terms of taking out a loan, if you have ten Bitcoin that's worth roughly a hundred thousand US dollars at this point in time, you can borrow up to fifty percent of that value in a US dollar loan which can be funded be a wire or stable coin and then the structure of those loans is that you make interest-only payments on the amount that you borrowed throughout the duration and you can prepay at any time without penalty.

Buck: And what's the typical you said it was four point six.

Zac: We have interest rates as low as four point five. The interest rates on borrowing USD vary according to your initial loan to value ratio. So if you have a hundred thousand dollars worth of Bitcoin we actually have three loan-to-value ratio options. You can borrow at a 50 percent initial loan-to-value ratio which would mean you're borrowing 50k, the interest rate on that will be eleven point two five, if you borrow thirty five percent of the value so 35k the interest rate is seven point nine, and if you borrow twenty five percent of the value of the interest rate is four point five percent per year.

Buck: Got it. In terms of you know the technical, so you basically pay that on a month-to-month basis and then in terms of contracts, are those also month-to-month loans or how does that work?

Zac: Those are one-year term loans well now it's the ability to renew without repaying the principal at the end of the term at current rates and our rates for those loans have always come down so far. So it's a one-year term loan BlockFi committed for a year at that rate your payments stay the same but you can prepay at any time without penalty.

Buck: Right. When do you do when would you do an actual sort of I guess a cap will call like what loan-to-value because you can go up to say you're borrowing at you know you're borrowing at the lowest rate you know you're at 4.5% you're borrowing see you know just for round numbers 100 Bitcoin you borrowed or you said 10 Bitcoin hundred thousand dollars but you only borrowed twenty-five thousand dollars at four point five percent, what if Bitcoin you know loses 50 percent of its value then what happens?

Zac: Well you wouldn't have a margin call based on on that example. If your loan to value ratio hits 70 percent that's when we have a margin call and the way the margin call works is our clients have the option to either post more collateral, pay down the loan using USD or some of the collateral that's posted for the loan or take no action. If they take no action there's a 72-hour window where we'll wait to see if the price recovers, if it does then no action is required, if the price keeps going down further then we will initiate a partial collateral sale to rebalance that LTV to a healthy level at the end of that window.

Buck: So in terms of the clients that you see doing this kind of stuff, I mean who are you seeing borrowing because you don't have a cap I mean you can on the borrow side, I mean and the rates don't really change like if you're depositing a hundred Bitcoin you're getting the same rate differences as somebody who's depositing ten for borrowing right?

Zac: That's right.

Buck: So who are the people who are putting I mean what are these businesses that are putting are using these loans who are the typical clients?

Zac: Sure so it's a mix of retail and corporate. On the retail side we actually did a survey recently on use cases and the number one use case about a third of our borrowers expressed is that they were using the funds that they borrowed to start a business, which we were really excited about. So the other popular use cases were investing in real estate, investing in other types of traditional assets like stocks and bonds, home improvement, larger purchases, vacations were all used cases, paying down higher cost debt was another use case, and then on the corporate side the loans are used for operating capital. So we have some mining companies that borrow from BlockFi. Other types of companies who you know maybe have crypto denominated inventory like exchanges or crypto ATM businesses our frequent borrowers from BlockFi and our loan sizes rearranged from you know as low as five thousand dollars all the way up to seven figures. So it's a pretty diverse group of borrowers.

Buck: So recently it sounds like you guys partnered with another company called Casa. What is Casa and I guess how does that benefit both companies?

Zac: Sure. So Casa is a leader in fighting self sovereign storage solutions for cryptocurrency owners so if you're alone that owns Bitcoin and to use a gold analogy. If you want to own gold but you keep it in your vault or in your backyard you want to have physical possession of it yourself if you want to do that same type of custody with Bitcoin. Casa has a solution that makes that really easy. Our partnership with Casa provides mutual benefits to clients on either side. So Casa clients are able to receive some discounts in terms of accessing BlockFi products and vice-versa BlockFi clients are able to receive discounts in terms of accessing kasam products and over time we'll build some things in to the user experience specifically on Casa’s platform that will make it you know a bit more seamless to interact with BlockFi products while you're on their platform. In general that partnership strategy is something that you'll see more of we think there are in the ecosystem that are specializing in areas that BlockFi's not focused on and doing things where we can provide benefits to clients on both sides is a win-win for us then and our clients.

Buck: Last thing I want to ask you about, last time I spoke to you, you had talked about the idea of potentially Bitcoin backed credit cards meaning like you know getting Bitcoin back instead of miles or dollars back. You guys any closer to that, because I definitely want one of those cards.

Zac: I'm so glad you brought it up. We're definitely closer, but we're not you're not going to have the card until like Q3 of next year probably. It's getting worked on, these things you know for better or worse they take a long time launching a credit program is no small feat you know we're working on it. We've identified some of the key partners that we'll be working with to bring that product to market it is going to happen and I share your sentiment like I wish I had it now.

Buck: Yeah seriously that'd be great. Well listen it was great talking you. So it's BlockFi.com and it's spelled like block and then fi and tell us you know tell us the process of doing is pretty simple okay how long does it take to apply for these things…

Zac: Yeah I mean nothing takes any time really. So you could come in and start earning interest and get a loan from us all in under five minutes. And we also have a client service team that's super responsive in in terms of communication however you want to communicate with them, over email, over the phone, over text message so you know don't don't hesitate to reach out to us. We're also on twitter. My twitter handle is BlockFiZac and our company twitter handle is @therealBlockFi so we're very active on those platforms and happy to chat with you there as well.

Buck: Zac Prince, thank you very much for being on Wealth Formula Podcast today.

Zac: Thanks for having me, Buck, I appreciate it.

Buck: We’ll be right back.


[uncensored-r/BitcoinMarkets] [Daily Discussion] Sunday, October 06, 2019

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[uncensored-r/Bitcoin] Why Bitcoin could Fail

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Below in my opinion are three legitimate reasons why Bitcoin could fail.

  1. Cryptography becomes insecure. If cryptography can be broken we're all screwed. Since 2009 people have planned for and reviewed what would happen when quantum computers come, or what would happen if computers millions of times more powerful are developed, but I'd categorize this as "known unknowns". There still remains "unknown unknowns" that could end digital security. A Black swan event or whatever you want to call it can absolutely happen, and it it could take 100 years before the puzzle makers jump ahead of the puzzle breakers again.
  2. Governments make it illegal. P2p music sharing has effectively been destroyed. The technology still exists but the rule of law and informal pressure that governments have makes it too hard for most citizens to bother. Why risk breaking the law, when a good enough alternative exists for a small fee. For those that argue that Bitcoin is not breaking any laws in the United States, that really doesn't mean anything as new laws can always be written. Anthony Scaramucci (of all people) articulated this point well on the Off The Chain Podcast. In a situation that is deemed a crisis, the United States government is going to do whatever it wants to keep citizens ""safe"".
  3. The most scary, most concerning threat to Bitcoin is apathy. What if people just don't care enough. The average person doesn't get hyped about decentralized currency. The masses care when the price goes up, but the market is a game that just can't be predicted, and it can't go up forever. To get the masses on board they pretty much have to be forced to. The world uses cell phones because the benefits are so so great even the homeless are forced to go out and obtain one. Unless new technology is a necessity, the average person does not want to jump through new hoops. There are so many products out there looking to gain a userbase, they put thousands/millions of dollars into marketing and strategy and endorsements, teams of people working round the clock to figure out "how do we please the customer" and how many of those products ultimately end up failing. There's a push and pull with Bitcoin to please the customers while at the same time remaining decentralized. How many humans are willing to work on a project and receive no money or recognition in return?

So that's what I got. Any thoughts or feedback welcome. Thanks.


[Daily Discussion] Sunday, October 06, 2019

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[Altcoin Discussion] Sunday, October 06, 2019

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Why Bitcoin could Fail

Below in my opinion are three legitimate reasons why Bitcoin could fail.

  1. Cryptography becomes insecure. If cryptography can be broken we're all screwed. Since 2009 people have planned for and reviewed what would happen when quantum computers come, or what would happen if computers millions of times more powerful are developed, but I'd categorize this as "known unknowns". There still remains "unknown unknowns" that could end digital security. A Black swan event or whatever you want to call it can absolutely happen, and it it could take 100 years before the puzzle makers jump ahead of the puzzle breakers again.
  2. Governments make it illegal. P2p music sharing has effectively been destroyed. The technology still exists but the rule of law and informal pressure that governments have makes it too hard for most citizens to bother. Why risk breaking the law, when a good enough alternative exists for a small fee. For those that argue that Bitcoin is not breaking any laws in the United States, that really doesn't mean anything as new laws can always be written. Anthony Scaramucci (of all people) articulated this point well on the Off The Chain Podcast. In a situation that is deemed a crisis, the United States government is going to do whatever it wants to keep citizens ""safe"".
  3. The most scary, most concerning threat to Bitcoin is apathy. What if people just don't care enough. The average person doesn't get hyped about decentralized currency. The masses care when the price goes up, but the market is a game that just can't be predicted, and it can't go up forever. To get the masses on board they pretty much have to be forced to. The world uses cell phones because the benefits are so so great even the homeless are forced to go out and obtain one. Unless new technology is a necessity, the average person does not want to jump through new hoops. There are so many products out there looking to gain a userbase, they put thousands/millions of dollars into marketing and strategy and endorsements, teams of people working round the clock to figure out "how do we please the customer" and how many of those products ultimately end up failing. There's a push and pull with Bitcoin to please the customers while at the same time remaining decentralized. How many humans are willing to work on a project and receive no money or recognition in return?

So that's what I got. Any thoughts or feedback welcome. Thanks.


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https://www.onehash.com/?ap=3718529d7ad14afe849219

MLB-NBA-NFL-All Sports Mutual Betting with BTC on an established Gambling Platform- You can even bet on events such as Elections and the process of Bitcoin!-

https://www.onehash.com/?ap=3718529d7ad14afe849219

Captain of Industry laments "Why is it so fucking hard to set up a node? I've been trying to set up a node for almost a month now and I don't know why I keep getting so many errors." ---> MASS ADOPTION AAAAAAAAANY DAY NOW !!! 💪💪💪

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/ddldhp/why_is_it_so_fucking_hard_to_set_up_a_node/

Posted by u/nerviosus 16 hours ago

Why is it so fucking hard to set up a node?

I've been trying to set up a node for almost a month now and I don't know why I keep getting so many errors. This is the guide I've been using: https://stadicus.github.io/RaspiBolt/raspibolt_20_pi.html

If anyone could help me out, I'd appreciate it

Yep, so easy even grandma and uncle Joe can do it !



Stacking Sats: The Cheap Bastard’s Guide To Buying More Bitcoin

https://cryptobriefing.com/stacking-sats-cheap-bastards-guide-to-buying-more-bitcoin/

Roll your own bitcoin USB hardware wallet step by step guide with screenshots (VeraCrypt Mentioned)

https://www.publish0x.com/everything-cryptocurrency2/roll-your-own-bitcoin-usb-hardware-wallet-step-step-guide-sc-xevlzj

Complete Guide to Bitcoin & Ripple Futures Trading

DOWNLOAD LINK: megafile3.top/file/Complete Guide to Bitcoin & Ripple Futures Trading



Daily analysis of cryptocurrencies 20191005(Market index 31 — Fear state)

https://i.redd.it/oly12rv9rqq31.png

Attorney General Barr Signs Letter To Facebook From US, UK, And Australian Leaders Regarding Use Of End-To-End Encryption
The Department of Justice published an open letter on October 3 to Facebook from international law enforcement partners from the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia in response to the company’s publicly announced plans to implement end-to-end-encryption across its messaging services.
The letter is signed by Attorney General William P. Barr, United Kingdom Home Secretary Priti Patel, Australia’s Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton, and Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan.
Addressed to Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, the letter requests that Facebook not proceed with its end-to-end encryption plan without ensuring there will be no reduction in the safety of Facebook users and others, and without providing law enforcement court-authorized access to the content of communications to protect the public, particularly child users.

Coincheck Launches New Service That Rewards Gas Users With Bitcoin
In an attempt to bring crypto to the mass audience, Japanese crypto exchange Coincheck inked a partnership deal with E-net Systems to reward gas users in the Tokyo Gas area, the company announced Oct 4. Under the partnership agreement, the two companies will start offering Coincheck Gas with two crypto-related plans for its customers. The gas service by the crypto company will offer a Bitcoin Rewards Plan under which customers will receive Bitcoin as rewards for the usage of gas. In addition, customers can also pay their gas bills using Bitcoin under the Bitcoin Payment Plan.

Libra Association: 1500 Entities Have Indicated Enthusiastic Interest To Join Libra
After PayPal announced to withdraw their support for Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency, Libra posted a series of tweets in response to the striking news. Libra Association tweeted: “Building a modern, low-friction, high-security payment network that can empower billions of financially underserved people is a journey, not a destination. This journey to build a generational payment network like the Libra project is not an easy path.” “We recognize that change is hard, and that each organization that started this journey will have to make its own assessment of risks and rewards of being committed to seeing through the change that Libra promises,” they continued.
The final tweet read: “We look forward to the first Libra Council meeting in 10 days and will be sharing updates following that, including details of the 1,500 entities that have indicated enthusiastic interest to participate.”

Prysmatic Labs Team Unveils Updates On The Ethereum Serenity Roadmap
Prysmatic Labs team has unveiled biweekly updates on the Ethereum Serenity roadmap via Medium. According to the article, the testnet has been restarted for everyone to experience staking and becoming a validator. This testnet includes beacon chain spec v0.8.4, various performance improvements, faster BLS paring library, new syncing strategies and more RPC end point support.

Japan: Using Virtual Currency To Make Donations To Politicians Is Legal
Citing Yomiuri Shimbun, the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, a cabinet-level ministry in the Government of Japan, indicated that the use of virtual currency to donate to politicians is not illegal. According to Japan’s Political Fund Control Law, it is prohibited to conduct donations to politicians in principle, but virtual currency is not in the category of “money and securities” which are covered by law.

Encrypted project calendar(October 05, 2019)

Ontology (ONT): Ony Ji will attend the blockchain event in Japan on October 5th and explain the practical application based on the ontology network.
BNB/Binance Coin: The Binance Coin (BNB) Oasis Game Hackathon will be held on October 5th in Bangalore, India, and will be hosted by Binance Labs, Matic Network, Cocos-BCX, Celer Network, Marlin Protocol.

Encrypted project calendar(October 06, 2019)

SPND/ Spendcoin: Spendcoin (SPND) will be online on October 6th

Encrypted project calendar(October 07, 2019)

GNO/Gnosis: Gnosis (GNO) will discuss the topic “Decentralized Trading Agreement Based on Ethereum” will be held in Osaka, Japan on October 7th. Kyber and Uniswap, Gnosis and Loopring will attend and give speeches.

Encrypted project calendar(October 08, 2019)

BTC/Bitcoin: The 2nd Global Digital Mining Summit will be held in Frankfurt, Germany from October 8th to 10th.

Encrypted project calendar(October 09, 2019)

CENNZ/Centrality: Centrality (CENNZ) will meet in InsurTechNZ Connect — Insurance and Blockchain on October 9th in Auckland.

Encrypted project calendar(October 10, 2019)

INB/Insight Chain: The Insight Chain (INB) INB public blockchain main network will be launched on October 10.
VET/Vechain: VeChain (VET) will attend the BLOCKWALKS Blockchain Europe Conference on October 10.
CAPP/Cappasity: Cappasity (CAPP) Cappasity will be present at the Osaka Global Innovation Forum in Osaka (October 10–11).

Encrypted project calendar(October 11, 2019)

OKB/OKB: OKB (OKB) OKEx series of talks will be held in Istanbul on October 11th to discuss “the rise of the Turkish blockchain.”

Encrypted project calendar(October 12, 2019)

BTC/Bitcoin: The 2019 Global Mining Leaders Summit will be held in Chengdu, China from October 12th to 14th.

Encrypted project calendar(October 14, 2019)

BCH/Bitcoin Cash: The ChainPoint 19 conference will be held in Armenia from October 14th to 15th.

Encrypted project calendar(October 15, 2019)

RUFF/RUFF Token: Ruff will end the three-month early bird program on October 15th
KAT/Kambria: Kambria (KAT) exchanges ERC20 KAT for a 10% bonus on BEP2 KAT-7BB, and the token exchange reward will end on October 15.
BTC/Bitcoin: The Blockchain Technology Investment Summit (CIS) will be held in Los Angeles from October 15th to 16th.

Encrypted project calendar(October 16, 2019)

BTC/Bitcoin: The 2019 Blockchain Life Summit will be held in Moscow, Russia from October 16th to 17th.
MIOTA/IOTA: IOTA (MIOTA) IOTA will host a community event on the theme of “Technology Problem Solving and Testing IoT Devices” at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles on October 16.
ETH/Ethereum: Ethereum launches Istanbul (Istanbul) main network upgrade, this main network upgrade involves 6 code upgrades.
QTUM/Qtum: Qtum (QTUM) Qtum main network hard fork is scheduled for October 16.

Encrypted project calendar(October 18, 2019)

BTC/Bitcoin: The SEC will give a pass on the VanEck/SolidX ETF on October 18th and make a final decision
HB/HeartBout: HeartBout (HB) will officially release the Android version of the HeartBout app on October 18.

Encrypted project calendar(October 19, 2019)

PI/PCHAIN Network: The PCHAIN (PI) backbone (Phase 5, 82 nodes, 164, 023, 802 $ PI, 7 candidates) will begin on October 19.
LINK/ChainLink: Diffusion 2019 will be held in Berlin, Germany from October 19th to 20th

Encrypted project calendar(October 21, 2019)

KNC/Kyber Network: The official online hackathon of the Kyber Network (KNC) project will end on October 21st, with more than $42,000 in prize money.

Encrypted project calendar(October 22, 2019)

ZRX/0x: The 0x protocol (ZRX) Pantera blockchain summit will be held on October 22.

Encrypted project calendar(October 23, 2019)

MIOTA/IOTA: IOTA (MIOTA) IOTA will host a community event on October 23rd at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles with the theme “Connecting the I3 Market and Experiencing Purchase and Sales Data.”
BTC/Bitcoin: The WBS World Blockchain Summit (Middle East) will be held in Dubai from October 23rd to 24th.

Encrypted project calendar(October 24, 2019)

BCN/Bytecoin: Bytecoin (BCN) released the hidden amount of the Bytecoin block network on October 24.

Encrypted project calendar(October 25, 2019)

ADA/Cardano: Cardano (ADA) The Ada community will host a community gathering in the Dominican Republic for the first time on October 25.

Encrypted project calendar(October 26, 2019)

KAT/Kambria: Kambria (KAT) Kambria will host the 2019 Southern California Artificial Intelligence and Data Science Conference in Los Angeles on October 26th with IDEAS.
BTC/Bitcoin: CoinAgenda Global Summit will be held in Las Vegas from October 26th to 28th

Encrypted project calendar(October 28, 2019)

LTC/Litecoin: Litecoin (LTC) 2019 Litecoin Summit will be held from October 28th to October 29th in Las Vegas, USA
BTC/Bitcoin: Mt.Gox changes the debt compensation plan submission deadline to October 28
ZEC/Zcash: Zcash (ZEC) will activate the Blossom Agreement on October 28th

Encrypted project calendar(October 29, 2019)

BTC/Bitcoin: The 2nd World Encryption Conference (WCC) will be held in Las Vegas from October 29th to 31st.

Encrypted project calendar(October 30, 2019)

MIOTA/IOTA: IOTA (MIOTA) IOTA will host a community event on October 30th at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles on the topic “How to store data on IOTA Tangle.”

https://i.redd.it/jfxnwvgcrqq31.png

On the chart, we can see that the price made a break of the lower resistance boundary of the “triangle with a flat bottom” formation in the zone of $9560–9580. At the same time, 157 SMA was broken, which confirmed the dominance of sellers. Now the price is trading around $8100–8250, at the border of the resistance of descending channel. Consolidation of the price indicates the current period of accumulation, interest of buyers and a potential return to the upper boundary of the descending channel to $9100–9200 zone. After the middle of the month, the price may rebound from the support level of the descending channel and return to the area of $​​8900–9300, where there is a strong resistance. Also, the other day, the level of 8200 was traded and once again protected. The common mood is to fall, and we know that often the market goes against the majority. A lot of people are in shorts and this is an excellent point for growth (their stops and liquidation of positions, as was the case recently with longsters)

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Bitcoin Halving: a Harbinger of a Bull Market or Coincidence?

In this article, we will talk in detail about the Bitcoin halving, find out what it is, analyze how this event affected the market previously, study the theories of top traders and try to understand what to expect in the future. So, first things first.

https://i.redd.it/58uagqpscqq31.jpg

Inflation?

The mysterious Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto was a real genius, as he came up with a rather smart solution to maybe the most important problem of any currency - inflation. The current Bitcoin rate inflation is 4% per year, while the US dollar 1,91%, the Indian rupee 5,24%, the Russian ruble 4,33%, etc. However, Bitcoin inflation will continue to decrease until it reaches 0% in 2140.

To begin with, the Bitcoins issue is limited, in total, 21 million coins will be issued. As you know, Bitcoins are not issued by any single centralized authority - they are mined. And by analogy with precious metals, the mining complexity will constantly increase, while the reward for the work done will decrease. The whole thing is the correct implementation of source code, as well as the so-called halving, which means that the miners get half as many coins every four years. Thus, by rough estimates, the last Bitcoin will be mined in May 2140.

What is halving and how does it work?

To explain what halving is, let's first understand how Bitcoin works. So, this digital coin is based on blockchain technology, which is a decentralized data accounting book, exact copies of which are located on miner computers around the world.

As you know, each book consists of pages, in our case these are blocks. Each block has its own unique serial number. Miners solve complex mathematical equations to form a new block and receive a reward in the form of coins for the work done. The size of this reward is halved every 210 thousand blocks. Considering that about 144 blocks are mined per day, this event occurs approximately once every four years. This is what is called halving. The short Bitcoin history includes two halvings:

  1. 11/28/2012 the reward for the found block was reduced from 50 to 25 BTC.
  2. 07/09/2016 the award halved again from 25 to 12.5 coins.

The next halving should happen on May 23, 2020, then the reward will again decrease by half and amount to 6.25 BTC.

A brief analysis of the first halving

On the day when the first decrease in the reward for the found block happened, the BTC rate showed a slight movement - the price increased by only 1.7%. But if you look at the big picture, you can see that the asset began to grow several months before this event, and just continued to move up after halving. Thus, the BTC rate increased from 13 to 260 US dollars in just four months.

https://i.redd.it/89x4xdmvcqq31.png

This was followed by a rollback in price up to $80, but later a real bull race started and lasted until December 2013. At that time, the asset grew to unimaginable values, its rate reached the level of 1150 US dollars. Well, and of course, after such an increase, a tight correction of the price and a protracted bear market followed.

Pay attention to the complexity of the Bitcoin network during this event. The chart below shows, that the hash rate began to increase rapidly a few months before the halving, and the growth did not stop after it.

https://i.redd.it/ljb35j7xcqq31.png

A brief analysis of the second halving

The second halving occurred in less than four years - on July 9, 2016. This time, the reward for miners fell to 12.5 BTC. It is important to note that the time between the first and second halvings was 1316 days or 3.6 years. Moreover, if to analyze the data, you can see that the market started an upward movement about 9 months before the event. During this period, the BTC rate rose by 112%, and after the Bitcoin halving, it continued to grow till December 2017 and stopped at around $20,000 per coin.

We can also see how the hash rate increased against the background of the second halving. The chart below shows that the complexity of the Bitcoin network throughout the bear market in 2014-2015 was about the same value, but this figure began to grow rapidly about six months before the halving.

https://i.redd.it/wylqu1wycqq31.png

Therefore, the miners' interest in Bitcoin has grown significantly a few months before the event. And just like the previous time, the hash rate of the network continued to grow after halving.

In the run-up to of the third halving

As we all remember, a rather encouraging 2018 followed the euphoria of 2017, and the rates of all coins fell down to 90% of their peak values. According to technical indicators and the general mood in the market, we can say that the bear flag lasted until April 2, 2019. On this day, the Bitcoin exchange rate rose from $4,100 to almost $5,000, then an upward movement began. Note that this happened 13 months before the upcoming halving.

Further, the BTC rate continued to grow rapidly and reached the level of $14,000 at the end of June, followed by a rollback and the price held at around $10,000 for a long time. But on September 24, 2019, there was a fairly powerful price drop, the rate fell by $1,500 in less than a day, and at the time of this writing, the market price of one BTC coin is $8,200.

Note that the resumption of BTC growth this year was again accompanied by a significant increase in the hash rate. The complexity of the network from April to September has more than doubled, and it continues to increase.

https://i.redd.it/dnivyfm0dqq31.png

How will halving 2020 affect the price?

Many market participants are wondering how will the third halving affect the market situation? Unfortunately, we can’t know the future, we can only analyze the current situation, compare it with historical data and draw certain conclusions.

In this article, we take the theories of two famous traders - Bob Lucas and Sunny Decree. They both analyzed in detail previous halving and made their forecasts regarding the market reaction to the next halving.

Sunny Decree Theory

He believes that the expectation of a halving will lead to Bitcoin price rise, as it was in previous times. He uses the BLX index to confirm this theory - this is the most complete history of the BTC price on the Internet, this is data actually from its very foundation.

The first cycle until November 2012 (before the first halving) is not so important for us since at that time Bitcoin was still a fairly new concept. Almost no one knew about its existence, and there were not many exchanges where it could be traded. However, we can use the second cycle as a projection for the third, in which we are now. The key role in the formation of new cycles is not in the reduction of inflation itself (that is, the Bitcoin halving), but trading activity in anticipation of it.

https://i.redd.it/4kczz6a2dqq31.png

Each of these cycles can be divided into several phases:

  • The first phase, which is not highlighted in color, is the bull market when the price forms a parabolic upward movement and market participants are in euphoria
  • The second phase is highlighted in red - it is a bear market that afflicts traders and most investors.

  • The third phase is highlighted in orange - it is an accumulation that begins after reaching the bottom.

  • The fourth phase is marked in yellow - this is a parabolic movement after accumulation, which occurred throughout all three cycles.

  • The fifth phase is highlighted in gray - this is the continuation of accumulation until halving and a new bull rally.

It to look attentively at the current cycle (that is, the third) we can see:

  • the first phase is a bullish trend up to $20,000.
  • the second phase is a drop to $3200.
  • the third phase is flat, which did not differ in increased volatility, at that moment the whales accumulated coins.
  • the fourth phase - a sharp increase, up to $14,000.
  • the fifth phase - a new correction to $8,200 and the continued accumulation of assets.

This theory tells us about the continuation of accumulation until the next halving in May 2020, which should be followed by a new bullish trend.

Now let's move on to the price forecast. The difference between the high of the first and second cycle is about 3600%, between the second and third - 1600-1700%. That is, each time the profit as a percentage goes down, so the third cycle was approximately half weaker than the second. As a result, according to Sunny Decree's theory, projecting the estimated percentage of growth proportionally, we can expect that the next BTC high will be at around $185,000. Using the structure of the third cycle, we can suggest that the peak of the bull market will happen in the summer of 2021.

Bob Lucas theory

Next, let's look at the theory of professional trader Bob Lucas. He analyzes the so-called cycles. In his opinion, the last four-year cycle (which contained 52 weeks in the drop and 153 weeks in growth) came to its end, it took 205 weeks in total.

Bob Lucas believes that the price we saw on December 10, 2018, was the end of this cycle. It is important to understand that the video in which he tells this theory in detail appeared on his channel on April 2, 2019 - on the very day when the market began to grow, so six months later we can notice that he was right in many ways, but not in everything.

So, Bob Lucas says in his video that at the beginning of a new cycle we will see the incredible power that will rapidly push the price to new levels. Lucas noted that at the time of recording the video, a lot of people are beginning to actively buy BTC in hope on rapid growth.

He believed that in April the market was not yet at the stage of the final bull race. He said that there will be growing up to plus or minus $6,000 in the near future, followed by a tough correction that will unsettle many weak investors. In his opinion, during this correction, the price may even update the December bottom, and only after that, a new cycle will begin, which will last about 150 weeks in growth. As for the final price, he does not have a specific figure, but he believes that the rate of the first cryptocurrency will be more than 100 thousand US dollars.

He stated that a hard correction should happen around August 2019, but in fact, it did not happen. Even though he made a mistake with the time frame and the estimated rate of BTC, he predicted the vector of the development of the situation quite correctly. Recent events are an excellent confirmation of this when on September 24, 2019, the BTC rate fell by $1,500 in less than a day. It was the correction Bob Lucas spoke about, but it happened a month later than he expected. Yes, it`s not likely that the rate falls to $3,000, but in current conditions, it is quite realistic to imagine a BTC rate of $6,000. Indeed, many analysts and experts agree that the “bloody Tuesday”, September 24th was not the final fall, it caused the next phase of accumulation of assets, which will take some time.

Neironix research department opinion

Let's drop someone else’s opinion and do what professional investors usually do - just take the facts we have and analyze them with a cold head.

  1. If to take a look at the BTC chart for its entire history, you can see certain patterns that have been repeated in a cyclic form several times.
  2. These cycles are conditionally divided by halvings, according to the principle of one halving - one parabolic growth.
  3. Even after shocking price kickbacks, the BTC rate never again fell to the values ​​that were before the start of the parabolic growth.
  4. Each subsequent halving increases the cost of mining BTC, which plays an important role in increasing the value of the coin.
  5. Bitcoin Halving 2020 is a very hype event, so in any case, this will affect the price.

Can we predict the future based on this? Of course, we cannot know for sure what surprises the cryptocurrency market is preparing for us. But no doubt that the cryptocurrency market, moreover Bitcoin, has great prospects. Bitcoin should be considered only as a long-term asset, which has always shown huge returns for a long period of time.

But it is important to understand that this article is not a guide to action since the digital coin market is quite unpredictable and it is a rather difficult task to foretell any outcome in advance. Do not invest in cryptocurrencies more than you can afford to lose. If you spend more money than you can effort, then you will not be able to think rationally and survive often storms in this young market. Treat your investments with a cold mind, and then you will succeed.

Conclusion

Bitcoin has already survived two halvings during its short history, and in less than nine months, we will see another decrease in the reward for miners. If you carefully study the charts, you can see that the BTC rate always grows before the halving. And after it, the market goes into a phase of parabolic growth, it lasts about a year, and then comes the correction and a protracted bear market.

A similar scenario has already been repeated twice and many traders believe that we will see a similar picture in the future, since the next halving should take place in May 2020. We observed a significant increase in the hash rate, the number of wallets, transactions and an increase in the rate of the main cryptocurrency 13 months before this event.

Earlier that we carried a detailed analysis of the current state of the Litecoin cryptocurrency, and also analyzed its behavior against the background of the recent halving that took place on August 5, 2019. If you are interested in this topic, here is a link to our study.