What is smart contract? Before we come into that, we must first understand that smart contract is based upon blockchain technology. So it is something new. It is going to revolutionise how various industries are going to work. Being a cost saver as it skip “middle men”. More secure also than traditional systems. It is gaining in popularity with many institutes.

Smart contract is first mentioned by Nick Szabo. He is a renowned cryptographer and computer scientist based in United States. In 1994, Nick realise that decentralised ledger can be use for smart contracts. It is also call as self-executing contracts, blockchain contracts or digital contracts.

Smart contraction can convert to computer codes. They are then store and replicate on the system. The system is supervise by the network of computers that run the blockchain. Smart contracts are self-executing contracts. They have terms of the agreement between buyer and seller. It is being directly written into lines of code. In a smart contract, there can be as many stipulations. It is needed to satisfy the participants. That task will be complete in a satisfactory manner. Participants to a blockchain platform must determine how transactions and their data are represent to them. Then agree on the rules that govern those transactions, explore all possible exceptions. After that define a framework for resolving disputes.

Smart contract can be implement in many industries. From insurance premium to legal processes. Then to property law to crowdfunding agreements to financial derivatives. It can simplifying and automating routine. Also for repetitive processes. These are things which people currently pay lawyers and banks sizable fees.

For easier understanding: suppose you rent a factory from me. You can get it through blockchain by paying in cryptocurrency. In our virtual contract, you get a receipt. By a specified date, I give you the digital entry key. It will comes to you. The blockchain will releases a refund if the key doesn’t come on time. If I send the key before the rental date, the function holds it releasing both the fee and key to you and me respectively. This is when the date arrives.

It can be witness by hundreds of people. So you can expect a faultless delivery when the system works. If you send a certain amount in bitcoins, you receive the key. I give you the key and I’m sure to be paid.  The document is automatically canceled after that time. Which it means the code cannot be interfere by either of us. This is without the other knowing since all participants are simultaneously alert.

Anyone who dwell in cryptocurrencies like bitcoin will have heard of a bitcoin wallet. Function wise, it is a little like a physical wallet, just to store up your money. A bitcoin wallet, or simply a wallet for cryptocurrencies is a personal “item”. It is to have a high security for access. However, It mainly store the public or private keys used to store or spend cryptocurrencies.

Your cryptocurrencies are actually not inside the wallet. It is actually decentrally store or maintain in a public available ledger. So like bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency (or altcoin), it has a private key to write in the public ledger. Thus spending the associated bitcoin or other cryptocurrency.

The key to a cryptocurrency wallet is normally very long (can be more than 30 characters) with numeric, alphabetical combination. Keep another copy of the exact password in case you forgets or lost. There are many instances where the owner of bitcoins (that are worth millions of dollars) lose the key. This is equivalent to saying goodbye to his bitcoins forever.

There are always a lot of vulnerability regarding a bitcoin wallet. Before signing up, you need huge trust for the wallet provider. There has been cases of wallet provider losing the owners bitcoins. Having a bitcoin wallet with crypto-exchanges can be risky as there are high amount of hacks happening for these exchanges. For the receiving of cryptocurrency, you do not need to access the receiving wallet. In this case, the sending party only needs to know the destination address and anyone can send cryptocurrency to an address. Only the one who has the private key of the corresponding address can use it.

The bitcoin wallet can have backups in various forms. Like an encrypted file, like wallet.bin which contains the private keys. You can generate the root key with a mnemonic sentence. Then you can create the private keys. These words should be remembered or written down and stored on other physical locations. Of course, the last of all is the private key which contains a long sentence of alpha numeric combinations.

Now let us see the classification of these wallets:

First, there are the online wallets, where you can store your digital keys on the web. Your bitcoin wallet is store on a faraway server instead of on your computer desktop for this. As there are various types of online bitcoin wallets providers, so not all bitcoin wallets characters are the same.

Some bitcoin wallets got only a few features while other bitcoin wallets got full features. Online bitcoin wallets are very easy to start using. Security prove to be the greatest problem for online bitcoin wallet as there can be hacking on these servers. If you want to safeguard the bitcoins that is store online, you should create a so-called hybrid wallet. You can encrypt your private keys in your browser before sending them to the server. This is for this type of online bitcoin wallet. So there are only encrypted keys are stored. No one can get hold of your information, which is much safer.

Secondly is the mobile wallet. It is support by mobile device, but a little like the online bitcoin wallet. There is this Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) that is use here. So security of storing Bitcoins in mobile wallet comes in question. Mobile wallets are very useful if you wish to make payments when you are in the street and away from any computer. Or with perhaps your computer is elsewhere. The main advantage is convenience. It is possible to pay in stores at POS locations if there are merchants that supported this. Mobile wallets are not full Bitcoin clients if you ask.

Thirdly, the rather traditional method is the desktop wallet. This type of bitcoin wallet have the highest level of security with the widest number of features. You need to download all the blockchains which were created from the very beginning. Imagine downloading gigabytes of blockchains, it surely takes time. So unless you have very powerful hardware, then you might want to consider other types of wallet instead. The keys are sometime written even on a piece of paper. It is definitely high security so that you can prevent your private key from hacks by other people or through virus.

Lastly, the most nostalgic looking type is the hardware wallet. For those who wants to feel it with your hands. This type of bitcoin wallet stores the user’s private keys in a secure hardware device. It is good because the private keys are normally stored in a protected area of a microcontroller. So this key cannot be transferred out of the device in plain text. Storing your keys in a hardware device is really safe as it never need to touch potentially-vulnerable software. That also means that computer virus cannot steal from your device, which normally it is the software wallet that is vulnerable. The user can validate the entire operation of the device.

In conclusion, you should research more before choosing the right type of bitcoin wallet. There are various providers for each type wallet (online, mobile, desktop or hardware). Choose carefully before you regretted later on in case something happen to it.

There are many providers of bitcoin wallet:

BitGo

BitGo is a online wallet that is institutional-grade, multi-signature and multi-coin transactional. It can store and transact 75+ coins and tokens. It is a very secure wallet which use the (P2SH) and HD (BIP32) security for financial privacy.

CoinSpace

CoinSpace  is a online wallet that can store bitcoin, litecoin and ethereum. The wallet generates a passphrase for you that you can use as your seed to generate the rest of your addresses. It also come in mobile form. It is secure and is FREE.

Coinomi

This mobile wallet supports 64 cryptocurrencies and is very well known in the world. However, the down side is that it supports android device only.

mycelium

mycelium is a mobile wallet that can be use with iOS and android. The wallet is very easy to install and you will have 100% control over your private keys. It is trezor enabled. mycelium has been awarded the prestigious “Best Mobile App” award by Blockchain.info in 2014.

Exodus

It is a desktop wallet that let you store many kinds of cryptocurrencies beside bitcoins. Other coins like Litecoin, Qtum, Ethereum and so on.

Jaxx Wallet

It offers both mobile and desktop version. It can store Dash, Zcash and of course bitcoins. Also support other cryptocurrencies as well.

Electrum

It is a type of software wallet that is very easy to install. A phrase consisting of 12 words can be use for recover of bitcoins in case of computer failure. It is encrypted against hackers. Very suitable for beginners.

Trezor

It is a very high security hardware wallet which have a small display that can verify transaction content. It keeps private keys on its device and signs transactions through hooking up via USB. The risk of losing your private key is low even if attacked with malware.

Ledger

Ledger is a smartcard-based crypto asset wallet. It offers optimal protection level to your bitcoins, ethereums, ripple and many other cryptocurrencies.Ledger is a global leader on the market with 1,000,000 units sold in more than 165 countries.

Digital Bitbox

It is a hardware wallet that emphasise on security and privacy. It can be fully offline and with simplified backup. Also plausible deniability and multi-sig support. A native desktop app and a mobile app for verification & 2FA. Bitbox is a highly trusted wallet from Switzerland. Your private key will never touch your computer or internet.

Cloud wallet

Cloud wallet simply refers to storing your bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies online on exchangers. It is consider a risky move. However, if you put them on reputable exchanges like coinbase, gemini and the like, it is actually quite safe. This is due to the fact that these exchangers are insure with it’s various security.

Mining for bitcoin will allow the creation of new bitcoins. So what exactly is bitcoin mining?

Bitcoin mining is the process by which transactions are verified and added to the public ledger known as blockchain. New bitcoins are release like this. In the mining process, it involves compiling recent transactions into blocks and trying to solve a computationally difficult puzzle.  The participant who first solves the puzzle gets to place the next block on the blockchain to claim the rewards. The rewards incentivize mining. Transaction fees are associated with the transactions compiled in the block as well as for the newly released bitcoin. So that is what attracts people to bitcoin mining. In fact, anyone with access to the internet and with suitable hardware can participate in mining.

Bitcoin mining generally takes a high consumption of electricity and is noisy when in operation. The “miners” will use powerful computing chips to run the custom software day and night. Bitcoin operate differently from traditional currencies such that as it operates on the basis of public ledger system. Transactions to be confirmed to avoid the same Bitcoin from being spent twice. For example — a number of Bitcoin nodes, operated by miners around the world need to give it their seal of approval. This is how it works.

Despite a lot of mining work on bitcoins, there are still many more to make. Maximum number of bitcoins to make is 21 millions. It is a computationally intense process that is further hampered by deliberate increases in difficulty when increasing number of miners attempt to create the next block in the chain. That is why people join pools. It is also why only the most powerful of application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) mining hardware is effective at mining Bitcoins today.

They will continue to mine bitcoin until 21 millions had been mined. It is hard for individual person to take part of ming due to expensive hardware, electricity…etc. That is why now there is cloud mining. The more miners join in, the more difficult to solve the computing process. At the rate with which Bitcoin mining difficulty is increasing and with mining hardware is progressing, and rewards are decreasing. The  projections for the final Bitcoins being mined edge into the 22nd century.

Notable bitcoin mining company are Bitfury, Slush…etc

**Cloud mining is the process of buying CPU power from dedicated data centers who use their own equipment to mine cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on your behalf. Main advantage of this approach is that you don’t need to have in-depth knowledge of mining hardware. No need to buy expensive and hard-to-obtain devices. Renting ‘hash power’ (usually measured in Gigahertz per second or GH/s) also means you don’t have to deal with the heat and noise that comes with a DIY mining project.

A lot of these companies either source their own equipment or build it cheaply and have placed their data centers in countries like Iceland, Russia and China where electricity is cheap. This can pass the savings on to you.

We will explore five of the most reputable cloud mining companies. As there are many scam outfits posing as miners, where possible we’ve chosen cloud miners who can prove that their data centers exist or are endorse by a reputable firm. Please do your own research before investing at your own risk because this is your own money…

1. HashFlare

Looking for a professional cloud mining service with great pricing and great attitude? HashFlare mining company will be one of the best choice for you. So lets us check what is so good…

The company started about 4 years ago and is currently one of the oldest and most reputable cloud mining companies out there. It’s not just about money but spreading the cryptocurrency topic through the masses. While these people have already understood that cryptocurrency is the future of all banking system and globalization in general, you should not miss the chance to become a part of this great change. For inexperienced people, it has the chance for them to become a part of the cryptocurrency world. HashFlare has lowest entry price for the cloud mining service. It can start with even $2.00 in your pocket.

Just choose the contract with the cryptocurrency you want to mine and register your profile. HashFlare interface is very user-friendly. It works with popular algorithms and cryptocurrencies like bitcoin as well as Cash, Litecoin, Ethereum and Dash.

It’s works is very simple and is connect to every contract that the company offers. Litecoins and Bitcoins pools have special maintenance fees charged. It is due to their high electricity consuming. HashFlare is legitimate with fair terms and condition. Do sign ups now as it is so cheap!

2. Hashing24

The review on hashing24 helps people to understand whether it is a trustful service or scam. The platform exists since 2012, but they provide clue services around a year. Taking into account the pricing on the revenue, it doesn’t look like a scam. On the other hand, it is reasonable to check every checkpoint of precautionary measures to make sure the system is legit.

For clients who’re not crypto experts, cloud mining will be for them. You choose a plan, organize wallet maintenance, pay one time deposit and receive your tree year’s contract. For new clients, it is reasonable to review hashing24 promo code which grants a discount. Those clients who are not planning to have a long-term bitcoin investment may consider crypto trading. This requires more risks but can bring fast income. Trading requires more research not to lose money or a consultation with a reliable expert.

It is approve that the service is user-friendly and supported by a team of highly qualified support representatives. They made it a reliable service that offers a possibility of mining without buying the equipment. The company provides modern and powerful equipment to those who are using it for mining bitcoins.

3. Eobot

To know about Eobot, it is a cloud mining service  in operation since the year 2013. The company is based in California, USA. It states that  cloud mining is consider as a fun, recreational activity and not a source of income or investment”. It does make reasonable promises and does not try to make you believe you will ROI in no time. There are multiple options available: The standard cloud mining aside, it also offers cloud folding services. Also the ability to rent hashrate and point it to your on pool, or mine with your hardware in their mining pools. They even offer their own software for mining.

A built in faucet with small daily payouts built-in can help you to start even without investing your own money or coins in the service. Plus some awards to stimulate you to return often such as a daily DOGE reward just for logging in. You can choose to mine Bitcoin as well as Litecoin, BlackCoin, Namecoin, Dogecoin, Dash, Reddcoin, BitShares, CureCoin, StorjcoinX, Monero and many others. You do not mine the additional coins directly but probably your mined profit is exchanged for the crypto currency you choose.

Currently, the service has almost 230 thousand users registered, but apparently not that much of them actually have purchased a lot of hashrate for cloud mining. There are two options available in the form of 5 year contracts – GHS 1.0 sold at $0.20 USD per GHS with a maintenance fee of $0.00232/GHS/Day and GHS 2.0 available at a price of $0.50 USD with a lower maintanance fee of $0.00117/GHS/Day.

The first option offers cheaper price for the hashrate. But the profitability is much lower with the maintenance fee resulting in about 95% of what you mine. The GHS 2.0 contracts on the other hand are pricier, but with lower maintenance fee (apparently using AntMiner S5 as mining hardware) that is currently about 49% of what you mine. The mining break even time in months at the moment is almost 50 months for the GHS 1.0 and about 12 months for the GHS 2.0 cloud mining contracts according to the service stats. They sell Scrypt cloud mining contracts at some point. But these are no longer available.

You can purchase cloud mining hashrate or use the service as a form of crypto currency exchange. You need to be aware there is a 5% fee charge when using cryptocurrencies to buy hashrate or to exchange between them. Also, there is support for purchasing hashrate via PayPal. There is a rule that no withdraws can be made for 180 days after every PayPal purchase as apparently set as a precaution to avoid fraud. But not very convenient for honest miners. We have purchased about 100 GHS of GHS 2.0 Bitcoin cloud mining hashrate a few days ago to check out the service and so far everything seems to run smoothly and problem free. Interestingly enough with just about 100 GHS of hashrate the website ranks us in the top 150 users in terms of purchased hashrate from the 230K in total.

Eobot is in the cloud mining business since 2013 so it is definitely a good sign in our book. We can also see the pictures of their mining farms thats why we can eliminate the lack of profit-generation capacity like ponzi. We also have a generous user-feedback, confirming payouts.

4. Hashnest

Hashnest is a cloud mining service that has been around for many years. It has affordable contract and is transparent to its customers. Hashnest and Bitmain had something in common. Hashnest is from Bitmain. It is one of the world top provider of mining equipment. It currently has very good reputation in bitcoin mining, including unique mining algorithms and high-tech BitMain technology and equipment. Such as the latest currently employed BitMain Antminer S9 with ASIC chip based on the 16nm process node, which delivers 0.098 J/GHs.Apart from reliability, exquisite equipment, and the promise of high ROI.

Hashnest also offers great security because it employs the latest encryption technology and offers high-level site security with SSL and data protection with 2-factor authentication.

Hashnest is a company with various mining farms in china and iceland, mainly due to its cool environmental temperature and affordable electricity. You need to have an email and password to provide for registration. You also need a hashnest wallet so that you can mine and transfer upon. It only takes a few minutes to do this. Then you will choose the contract that best suit your needs and budget. There are standard or PACMiC contracts to choose from. After selection, you pay for the contract. When your order is send to the data mining center, this is when the actual bitcoin mining begins. Miners will be direct to Antpool which is a Bitmain corporation. You can also mine Litecoin beside Bitcoin.

You can withdraw your blocks the same day they are mine. This is for payout. Hashnest currently offers three payout options. You can choose to receive daily automatic payments or opt for the Profit Accumulation or the Reinvest option. Hashnest is very easy to use and allows its users to view detailed information about every block mined. Many experienced users welcome this type of transparency.

5. Genesis Mining

This company is found in 2013. It is one of the oldest Bitcoin companies around in the world. It is one of the most well known companies in cloud mining. They have facility in iceland. You can mine Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dash, Monero, Litecoin and Zcash. You pay someone to lease their hardware and keep the profits to yourself in this mining. The company that rents out the miners takes care of the maintenance and all of the hassle of setting them up. You need to pay a fee for their service.

The Bitcoin mining difficulty has been more than doubling itself every year for the past 3 years or so. Between 2016 and 2017 it tripled. This means that if you buy a certain package expecting a certain reward, in a year or so you’ll probably be getting anywhere between 33%-50% of that reward. Genesis mining seems legit but whether it is a good investment is up to your thinking. Maybe it is better to buy bitcoins instead of using it for cloud mining contracts.

Register with Genesis Mining is very easy:

1. Create an account and choose which cryptocurrency you would like to earn
2. Purchase the required Hashpower.
3. Get your first payout the next day.

You may want to get start now as it is so easy to mine bitcoins with Genesis Mining.

**Ok, now we see if it is still profitable to do bitcoin mining in 2019. In order to be profitable with Bitcoin mining you need to invest heavily in equipment, cooling and storage. It’s not possible to mine profitably with a PC or a GPU at home, for your info. You can calculate your profitability using a Bitcoin mining calculator. More will be discussed soon…

Bitcoin and altcoins replacing fiat currency? Fiat currencies have been dominating in the market. If the mind can remember. It is first used since AD1000. Today, it is facing challenges in the form of cryptocurrencies. Nobody has thought that this can happen. However bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies had changed the whole world. They dominated financial headlines all over. But does bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies be able to seriously challenge the fiat money?

The crypto-market only represent a very small portion of valuation. Compare to the entire financial market, which is less than 10%. It is still relatively new. It is also not yet mature. Regulations are still on coming for cryptocurrencies. To really replace fiat money will surely take many years to reach that.

However as of 2018, about 54 major companies are accepting bitcoin as payment. There will be more following this trend. There are generally wide acceptance of bitcoin and other altcoins.

First, we need to compare the financial model that bitcoin is based on. Then compare it to the traditional fiat money. There is a distinct advantage of the bitcoin financial model. It is neutral, borderless and frictionless system. These characteristics reduce operation cost. It also avoid corrupted government.

If bitcoin is to replace traditional money, its value must reach about $213,000 to replace the US dollars. This is according to a UBS report. It must be used like money as well. Truly, it is still in the infant stage. However it could possible replace fiat money in the future.

Bitcoin can perform the function of money and to achieve wide adoption. However, 3 main roles need to be addressed:

1. store of value
2. medium of exchange
3. unit of account

Currently, bitcoin is also a store of value. Numerous investors buy and keep both bitcoins and altcoins. They believe it has a value. They believe this value will increase in the future. Regarding the next 2 roles. Bitcoin and altcoins need to address scalability. Also they need to address design and regulation. Bitcoin is currently on its way in addressing scalability. Thats why you heard of bitcoin lightning network…etc. Bitcoin also gain so much popularity. It is self sustainable. It is just a matter of time for bitcoin to be on par with fiat money.

Though not in the short term. But perhaps about 8-10 years later. It will not replace fiat money. However, it will still count as an alternate important source of financial transaction as important as fiat currency. So what do you think? Can bitcoin replace fiat currency? Or how many years more to achieve that? Or decades?

Bitcoin forecast

**Note: All forecast on bitcoin will change according to the updates progressively

(9 August 2018)

What can we predict about bitcoin in 2018? Talking about bitcoin forecast here. Cryptocurrency market has slowed over the past months and bitcoin holding price levels within the mid $7,000s. Robert Sluymer and Tom Lee, from the market analysis firm believe that this will change very shortly. Tom Lee Reaffirms $25,000 Prediction Again, now on Bloomberg

If you might know by now, Tom Lee is by-far one of the most prominent cryptocurrency bulls out in the space right now. He always appears on mainstream media sources covering topics related to the cryptocurrency industry, including bitcoin. Till today, Tom has not wavered a bit in his belief. If you are to ask why, well, he hold strong on this prediction. It is because he strongly believes many traditional institutions are beginning to pile up as they see a lot of lucrative business opportunities. And that the regulatory side that is building around cryptocurrencies like bitcoin will only improve. It will make them reach higher heights in terms of institutional and retail adoption. He always noted that to mine bitcoin next year is like $14,000 which shows its difficulty.

For Robert Sluymer, he sees bitcoin bottoming. He believes that bitcoin is bottoming off key support around $7000. From there will star key support. He believes bitcoin is changing, challenging its downtrend. One thing he pointed is that bitcoin RSI is now at quite low level, same as levels seen before temporary movements to the upside seen earlier in the year.

Sluymer specifically say that at $7800 level, and it needs to get through that level to confirm that you are actually getting a trend reversal.

Now, Sluymer also say about the unlikely chance of a ‘worst comes to worst’ scenario. He said that if Bitcoin does not hold price levels at $7350 and $7000, that we could see further moves towards the downside.

Tom lee predict that bitcoin is going to reach almost $ 25,000 by the end of 2018. He even predict that it will rise to $ 125000 by 2022. These are bullish and the recovery in Bitcoin will be quite fierce as well. Then by the month of July, there will be a complete recovery. After that, Bitcoin will again be able to head to newer highs as well. This is the reason why many investors think that it will be able to hit new highs consistently during the next half of the year.

Tom lee says that bitcoin acceptance will grow more and more. Once Bitcoin crosses the older highs, the movement will be back. Then it will be able to create consistent new highs as well.

Tom lee feels that of all cryptocurrencies, bitcoin and ethereum are the blue chips. So it is recommended that nvestors should think about investing both bitcoin and ethereum. A lot of people are unsure when to invest in these, whether it’s now or in the future. The thing to note is, bitcoin has been gaining momentum and is returning again.There are also more and more people knowing about bitcoin.

In 2018, bitcoin prices is very volatile. It is hard to predict even by experts. Not forgetting google and Facebook initial ban on all cryptocurrency related ads which make bitcoin growth even harder. But bitcoin had been very resilient through the many low period in the past and had always survived. It is surveyed that many will still buy the coins in the hope that it will climbed tremendously again. Well, do expect a lot of fluctuation again. However, the future still looks bright for cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

(10 August 2018)

-More prediction below-

Several crypto-experts predict that bitcoin will double in value by the end of the year. e It is considered even with its recent price being stagnant. Last six months has seen bitcoin’s price fall from more than $19,000 in December 2017. Now the value is below $7,700. Because of uncertain regulation, crypto heist and several other problems contribute to the bitcoin’s price decline. The price of cryptocurrency do get more and more stable. But for the short term, it remains to be stagnant. For blockchain expert and CEO of Ultra, David Hanson, he believes that bitcoin’s price will fluctuate between $6,500 to $8,500 in coming weeks. He predict that the value of bitcoin will go up as more big institutions enter the cryptocurrency space. This will further legitimising the market.

Many believes that bitcoin price will reach $10,000 soon. This is because more regulatory measures applied to the crypto section. This result in more financial institutes willing to enter this sector. This will build up investors confidence in the crypto space. At any time, bitcoin might surge up in value.

Beside bitcoin, EOS also holds much promise, especially by David Hanson. He thinks that EOS is unique with scale it handles its ecosystem very differently. We should keep an eye for this.

(11 August 2018)

Bears

As of current bitcoin price, things doesn’t look promising. For bitcoin investors, the difficult week for bitcoin is going to become worst. This is according to Renaissance Macro Research. It is known that Jeff deGraaf, who is the firm head of technical research claim that he would recommend betting against bitcoin if the cryptocurrency broke through its key year-to-date support level. deGraaf states that “Parabolic moves are notoriously dangerous for short‐sellers . Usually a top develops that often appears as a descending triangle over months, with reduced volatility and little [fanfare],”

“Once the top is complete on the support violation, the security in question can often be considered permanently impaired or even ‘game‐over’. We are of course referencing Bitcoin as exhibit ‘A’ in today’s market.”

The price of bitcoin is down roughly 14 percent over the past week. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) delayed a decision on a proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund. Bitcoin is down about 50 percent so far this year, according to data from Coinbase.

As one of the most respected chart technicians on Wall Street over the last two decades, deGraaf, is ranked the No. 1 technical analyst by Institutional Investor Magazine for more than 10 years across his career. He was a member of Institutional Investor’s Research Hall of Fame in 2014

(14 August 2018)

The decline of cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin now had seen a rapid decline and even more so are the altcoins. Ever since the bitcoin ETF by winklevoss was rejected by SEC, everything went down hill. Critics of bitcoin and other crypto related coins are all out to bash it. With the common reasons for the volatile of bitcoin value, little regulations and the limited quantity of bitcoins that can be made available, it deters many investors from pouring their resources onto bitcoin. Though scalability had improved a little, the amount of electrical consumption in mining the bitcoins is so huge that it become unsustainable to a point of getting ridiculous.

The fear of price manipulations and the hordes of scammers are driving the investors nuts. It definitely will take some time before the general public can embrace it. Time will tell…

(17 August 2018)

Should you invest in cryptocurrencies if you are a novice investor?

Well, it really depends. If you have never invest in anything before, you are strongly discourage to invest in it. This is even if it is an established cryptocurrency like bitcoin. Through observation for the past few days, the cryptocurrencies market is highly volatile, full of scammers and people still struggle to find usefulness of it. People still find it hard to come out with ideas of why it can replaced fiat currencies. Most likely cryptocurrencies can only run side by side with fiat currencies. Definitely not within the next 3 years.

Novice investors with some experience in other investments (other than bitcoin and altcoins), will be good if they are more ready and engage with more experienced investors when trying to invest. This is so as to minimise the losses that can incurred at the beginning. There are many things to take note of like the high transaction fees, and the time it took to complete the transfer of the coins or to liquidate it. There are always many factors involved so please do your “home work” first

(13 September 2018)

New prediction for bitcoin

Bitcoin price has been moving like a rollercoaster in the past few months. But for one who have been observing the price, it is frequently fluctuating between $6000 ~ $8000. At the end of August, bitcoin price soared past $7,000 for the first time in nearly three weeks. Bitcoin extreme price volatility is seen again on September 5 when in just 10 minutes, it crashed 3 percent. It is triggered by Goldman Sachs withdrawing its planned crypto trading desk.

Actually for all the “die-hard” crypto investors, such drop in bitcoin value is as common as taking your breakfast everyday. They are simply unmoved in such price outcome, much less into panic selling. In fact over the past years, bitcoin price will always recovered after a drop in price. Digital Securities Exchange (DSX) CEO, Mike Rymanov doesn’t see this as a long-term problem. He said: “I expect the market will recover from this quickly, and Goldman’s exit will only serve to call for clearer and tighter regulation before the bigger players can enter with confidence.

He added: “Furthermore, and despite Goldman’s exit, we expect other financial institutions will continue to look for ways to provide robust custody solutions for cryptocurrencies.” Followed by: “Once these come into play, those investors who are currently sceptical or who have security concerns will be able to invest securely.”

The price rise lately had cryptocurrency expert buoyed and its ability to sustain it for a week. Many of these experts have very bullish prediction for bitcoin at the end of 2018. Several of them have some confidence that it can crash through the $10,000 price barrier as early as Christmas. They then predict a drop in price before using this momentum to soon reach $20,000.

Gabriel Francisco, a consultant at TMT Blockchain Fund once said that it is “inevitable” that the price will soon reach $20,000. He predict that because blockchain technology has become mainstream and and rapidly changing how businesses function. “Already Bitcoin and blockchain technology have passed the point of no return. Pandora’s box has been opened, the truth cannot be copyrighted, and is in fact, open source.”, he stated. Before adding: “Code, mathematics, is becoming the future of law, immutable, accessible to all and after 10 years it is becoming mainstream.”

For Maya Kumar, UK and Ireland head of Luno. She said that mainstream awareness around Bitcoin has only reached the tip of the iceberg, with more businesses, funds and rich people engaging with reputable cryptocurrency platforms to trade millions of dollars in Bitcoin.

For other experts view, Danny Scott, co-founder of CoinCorner is very confident in Bitcoin that he believes it will more than double in price to $15,000 over the next three months. Then proceed to go onto $20,000. He said: “I have no doubts that it will hit $10,000 again, with my most recent prediction being that we’ll hit the $15,000 mark just in time for Christmas – it is just a matter of time. “I believe Bitcoin will eventually become a world reserve currency, which will of course increase the price and take it far beyond the previous heights of $20,000,” he added.

For the Managing Director of Emerging Markets Investment Club, Devin Milsom. He is predicting a spike in Bitcoin’s price once it breaks through the $10,000 barrier because investors won’t want to miss out on a potential market boom. Well, talk about another FOMO again like at the end of 2017. He said: “Once we are above $10,000 again, human psychology will cause the many investors to have fear of missing out and it won’t be long before we attack the $20,000 levels again. He added: “If we do break above the $20,000 levels, the potential upside for not just Bitcoin but the entire market capitalisation could be in the trillions.”

For the co-founder of CryptoCurrencySimplified, Erica Stanford. She isn’t so optimistic adding a price rise could spark a massive market sell-off. She said: “There are many people who bought in at around $20,000, who will cash out the minute it gets back near there. Now these are the really “bear” comments you heard from well known people. She then added: “Also, many investors and institutions bought in around $6,000, these will be sitting on heavy profits and there will be a lot of selling off, realising these profits, realistically long before Bitcoin hits $20,000 again.

For Michael McCann, the senior economics lecturer at Nottingham Business School. He sees the current Bitcoin price growth pattern soon driving it to $10,000, but is forecasting the longer-term success of Bitcoin as a “risky business” due to the market volatility. He made some notable comments: “A trader who speculated on a rise in price on August 31 on the basis of news regarding the long-term value of Bitcoin and sold early on the 5th, they would have bought at $6,934 and sold at $7,368 – an increase of 6.88 percent over three days.

Then he added: “This is the pattern in the price of Bitcoin I expect to see repeated over the next few months. Followed by: “That may well drive Bitcoin above $10,000, but with its current volatility, it is hard to know. “It has been above $8,000 and below $6,000 in the last three months. Forecasting where Bitcoin’s price will move is a risky business.”

So what do you think? You may leave feedback for us to tell us your own prediction for bitcoin price in the near future.

(4 June 2019)

Prediction for bitcoin

Despite bitcoin still very new in the finance world, it has been making strides to bigger news. Bitcoin in 2019 is entirely different from 2018. In 2018, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies slowed and is very bearish in its value. In 2019, institutional FOMO is making cryptocurrencies more and more important today. bitcoin transaction will only gets faster and cheaper with better technologies. More places are accepting bitcoin as a mean of transaction (though still at “infant” stage, but surely making the right direction)

Prices of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies turned bullish from the start of 2019. Bitcoin once again moved up from USD 6000 and above valuation. It is predicted that it can moved beyond USD 10,000 in valuation within this year.

There has been more supporters than those who criticise this virtual currency. Only time will tell whether it really be a success.

(5 October 2019)

Bitcoin price at end of year

Despite all circumstances, the Bitcoin price do have a tremendous run in 2019. It is roughly tripling its price in U.S. dollars since the start of the year. That said, Anthony Pompliano, who is Morgan Creek Digital co-founder, thinks the party is just getting started. For him, he predicted that bitcoin price will reach $100,000 at the end of 2021. Is it just a fantasy dream?

A halving event in Bitcoin is when the amount of Bitcoin that are generated by miners every ten minutes is cut in half, so bitcoin’s monetary policy was set in stone, when the network went live back in 2009. The scheduled issuance of new Bitcoin is halved roughly every four years.

About Fundstrat chief’s $10,000 prediction came to pass in June 2019. Now we are talking about Tom Lee, so with the $10K mark attained, Lee believes this price milestone will trigger a FOMO-driven hype among retail investors taking BTC to $40,000 before the end of the year. But so far the $10,000 had been breached several times, it as rather quiet for the cryptocurrency space.

For year 2020

Bitcoins has total of 21 million bitcoins in circulation. These bitcoins are released through block rewards for miners at a pace that everyone predict. That reward will be halved every 210,000 blocks with each block found approximately every ten minutes. So halving causes the demand to exceed the supply, the value of bitcoin will then increases.Since bitcoin is still relatively young, and the crypto market doesn’t always behave according to what we are used to from other normal financial markets.

Lets take a look at previous block halvings. Bitcoin block halving has a direct effect on the price which can calculate that it takes four years to mine 210,000 blocks.  May 2020 is when bitcoin will half again, the reward will consist of 6.25 bitcoin. At first, miners received 50 bitcoin per mined block, four years later the reward was 25 bitcoin. Now a miner receives 12.5 bitcoin per block. If like this, less and less new bitcoin come on the market and there is a controlled and predictable deflation. Demand for bitcoin is expected to continue to grow, but the supply can’t grow proportionally. This will cause bitcoin value to skyrocket.

First halving took place in 2012. A year later, bitcoin reached an all-time high with the same happened in 2017. Then a year after the 2016 halving. So we can predict when bitcoin prices will surge upwards.

About bitcoin and the technology behind it

Bitcoin is one of the hottest topic in year 2017. Since it first begins in 2009, very few people had heard about bitcoin, lest terms like cryptocurrency and blockchain. People mentioned bitcoin in the early days and hardly anyone take notice of it. It was used as the virtual “currency” in computer games. Very few people actually bought bitcoin and most of them don’t buy it as an investment until quite some time later.

To cut it short, bitcoin is a new currency that was create in 2009 by an unknown person, or a group of developers using the alias Satoshi Nakamoto. All the transactions can be make without middle men – mean there are no banks. It is surely intriguing but this is real. Bitcoin at first can be use to book hotels on Expedia, shop for furniture and the likes and as well as to buy Xbox games. Nobody thought of it much until its value increase to thousands and more.

Anonymous buying is always related to bitcoin. Payments are easy and cheap especially in transnational payment. There are no credit card fees so many people like them. Imaging there is also no regulation and not tied to any country, which is simply amazing. Of course there are people who buy bitcoins as an investment, which seems to be increasing rapidly. Now almost everyone on earth heard about bitcoins and altcoins.

There are many bitcoin exchanges currently in the world. By market volume, Binance and Coinbase are most well known, while there are Kraken, Bitstamp, Coinrail…etc. You can buy bitcoins with currencies, but transaction fees are very high at the moment. There is also peer- peer buying and selling of bitcoin locally. Think about localbitcoins.com and paxful.com just to name a few. However, one need to take note of the high amount of scam cases involving with cryptocurrency. If misuse it, it can cause distress to people. Hackers are always there so anyone who buy bitcoins or altcoins need to be vigilant always and do your own research for their every decision made.

Bitcoin is not advisable to store at exchanges as it is not the proper way to do so. Instead, bitcoins are store in a “digital wallet,” which exists either in the cloud or on a user’s computer. There is passwords to these wallets, and never give the private key to anyone. The wallet is a kind of virtual bank account that allows users to send or receive bitcoins, pay for goods or save their money. Please note that bitcoin wallets are not insure by the FDIC unlike the banks.

Bitcoin is created by the blockchain technology which is rapidly being adopted by many sectors worldwide. Blockchain is also embrace by financial institutes rapidly. More information about blockchain shall be made available soon….

The technology behind bitcoin

Behind bitcoin is a revolution technology call blockchain, which is sure to take the world by storm. So how does blockchain comes about?

Lets go deeper into this technology. A block is the current part of a blockchain, which records some/ all of the recent transactions. For each completion, a block goes into the blockchain as a permanent database. Each time to complete a block, a new one is generate. There is a countless number of such blocks in the blockchain, connected to each other (like links in a chain) in proper linear, chronological order. Also, every block contains a hash of the previous block. The blockchain has complete information about different user addresses and their balances right from the genesis block to the most recently completed block.

What is interesting about it is, the blockchain was designe so these transactions are immutable, meaning they cannot delete. Then the blocks are add through cryptography, ensuring that they remain meddle-proof: So that means, the data can be distribute, but cannot copy. Now there is a problem in creating issues of storage and synchronisation. This is due to the ever growing size of the blockchain.

Why should we buy bitcoins?

(**Please note that any information related here are speculative and any investment made is to be done in your own research & diligence. Only invest an amount that you are prepare to lose) 

Let us know the investment risks of buying bitcoin. Surely you are intrigue by bitcoin and how the world react. You must have been wondering if you had purchased bitcoin just 8 years ago, today you will be so much richer. Just an example, if you had bought $1000 of bitcoin, now it will be worth about $39,000. It would be amazing how rapidly bitcoin value had escalated.

Well, at the present moment, buying bitcoins will be like buying lottery ticket. It’s value is so volatile that you can be much richer or poorer in a matters of hours. If you want to make a comparison about buying bitcoins, it is the same as an angel investor who put his money on startups. There are high chances of losing everything, but the only one that succeed could bring a profit a hundred folds. So only invest if you feel that you can lost everything you put in.

You will not know the future of bitcoin as there is many unknowns. There is no financial report to see and analyse as it is not own by any company. Well, it can be dangerous. You could lost everything you put in. Beside bitcoin, there are many altcoins (similar or rather similar technology to bitcoin) in the market today. But as it is still in the infant stage, many of these altcoins had “died” due to the people starting it who are not having enough experience or something just knock the project off. There are also many scams involves with ICO and uncountable number of pump & dump scheme by scammers which left the later stage investors to lose money. So we need to strike a balance here.

Ok, as a matter of fact, bitcoin isn’t the only cryptocurrency on market now. There are currently thousands of crypto-coins out there. Yes, currently most of these other coins (we call them altcoins) are no where as good as bitcoin, except a few like ethereum, bitcoin cash and a few more, but it is facing increased competition. It is no guarantee that it will always be the market leader. On any other day, a “fork” is being create with bitcoin code. So this is something to consider about bitcoin.

With more people knowing about bitcoin, it is no longer something that is relatively unknown. Bitcoin value can grow so exponentially is due to the fact that it is rather unknown some years ago. But now, most people heard about it: your family, neighbours, friends will have some how heard of bitcoin. With mass people knows it, the investment opportunity will be lesser.

So for the more conservative people, put your dollars on other funds as an advise if you are not prepare for the wild ride that bitcoin is going through. Bitcoin value is simply too volatile for most people to invest in. It is also highly risky right now.

Next, we will get to know about the good things regarding investing in bitcoin soon….

Ok now, the things everyone are waiting to read. The advantages of investing in bitcoin…

Firstly, instability is good for bitcoin. Political unrest is not good for the stock market where its value is tie up to companies and related to government services. Heard about venezuela? Well, bitcoin will be good for them at moment. It is resilient to political unrest as it is not own or back by government. So it might be attractive to invest in bitcoin in these countries. It is also easy to transact as there are few regulatory things there. Transaction cost is lower than banks too. So it can be fast and headache free to use it like a “currency”.

Next we will talk about the challenges for bitcoin ahead…