Ep24: Weekly Cryptocurrency News 12/12/18

Consensus Network: Cryptocurrency News & Education

Consensus Network Weekly Crypto News 12/12/18

Cryptocurrency Market Cap: $111 Billion

Bitcoin Price (Coinbase): $3463

SEC Decision on Bitcoin ETF Set for February

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has postponed their decision on a bitcoin ETF again to a final deadline of February 27, 2019.

The ETF in question is the one everyone was excited about because of the sponsors, the Chicago Board of Options Exchange (CBOE) and VanEck SolidX.

The big issue of concern voiced repeatedly by the SEC is that the market is exposed to manipulation and that not enough safeguards have been put into place.

Here’s the deal—it ain’t going to happen. That’s my prediction. The SEC is going to error on the conservative side. A lot of people have lost a lot of money lately and there is no rhyme or reason to the movement of bitcoin price right now. That makes market manipulation an easy argument to make.

That said, all markets are manipulated to some extent—especially the commodity markets that bitcoin would fall under.

I am convinced that this ETF will not get through by the deadline. I think that the SEC is seeing this market grow in real time and infrastructure getting put in place for it to become more transparent. But bitcoin is not ready for prime time…yet.

I hate to say this because I, like so many others, was so optimistic about this ETF going through virtually guaranteeing the existence of bitcoin for the next 100 years.

I still think it will happen but I would not get your hopes up for it to happen in the first quarter of this year as some of my fellow podcasters and newsletter writers have predicted. On the other hand, there is plenty of other institutional movements in bitcoin to look forward to including the launch of Bakkt in January and Fidelities involvement that could prove to be even more important.

Be ready for winter to last a while folks.

BlockFi raises $4 million to Help with Crypto Credit Cards

BlockFi, who’s founder and CEO Zac Prince was previously featured on Consensus Network scored another round of investments from some big money investors including Fidelity.

Part of the funds will be used to build out products including a crypto backed credit card and potentially a credit card that offers bitcoin rewards instead of miles or cash back.

BlockFi is also planning to offer an interest earning savings account for cryptocurrency. Of note, despite the bear market, BlockFi has grown substantially year over year activity.

I look at players like Fidelity still getting entrenched in this market and still see this as long term Bullish for Bitcoin.

Coinbase to Pivot Towards More Alt Coins

Coinbase is looking to add 31 new cryptocurrencies to its fiat exchange. Notably the list includes EOS, which ought to be given it is the primary competitor of Ethereum, and XRP. Now XRP (AKA Ripple’s cryptocurrency) is somewhat controversial because there is a strong case that it is a security so most exchanges that care about US regulatory laws are not really getting it involved in their projects—Gemini is a good example of that.

Certainly this is a way for there to be more growth an liquidity in the cryptocurrency markets and certainly a way for Coinbase to make more money. However, when I look at the list, a number of the projects qualify as what I not so eloquently describe as “shitcoins”.

So what am I doing? I’m doing nothing right now. I think bitcoin still has potentially 50 percent to drop before we hit the bottom. When that happens, I may start to buy. But we have not seen true capitulation yet in my opinion. We have not seen a quick and dramatic slide to bottoms that no one thought possible. That’s when we hit the bottom in my opinion.