The bitcoin price took a southward turn on Monday, dropping beneath $6,300 as the cryptocurrency market experienced a jolt of volatility.

Bitcoin had been uncharacteristically stable in recent weeks, so much so that its price briefly became less volatile than major Wall Street stocks including Amazon and Netflix. However, trading volume began to tick up on Sunday, rising 20 percent to $3.5 billion, a data point that some analysts said could predicate a break into the high $6,000 region.

But while the bitcoin price did make a run on Monday, it was not to the upside.

On Coinbase, the flagship cryptocurrency — which had been trading at $6,400 earlier in the day — took a southward turn shortly after 11:15 UTC, dropping below the $6,300 mark and continuing to decline from there. BTC/USD slipped as far as $6,211 on the prominent US exchange before creeping back up to $6,273 at the time of writing.

Click here for a real-time bitcoin price chart. Stay tuned for detailed technical analysis on the latest market action.

SOURCE

Exchanger vs. Exchange. Which one to choose?

The main part of trading cryptocurrencies is made through the exchanges, but a good part of the cryptocurrency market is occupied by exchangers. Exchange services allow you to buy, sell or exchange the cryptocurrency. Sometimes it is a basic service, and sometimes it is an addition to the specific currency trading.

There are many differences in the technology and financial issues between exchanges and exchangers. But the main distinction between them is the fact that when referring to an exchanger, you conduct trading operations with it, while on the exchange you buy and sell cryptocurrency, not from the exchange itself (which only provides access to the trading market), but by working with the private owners of the cryptocurrency and fiat assets.

The main purpose of cryptocurrency exchanges is playing on the price of the asset, not the exchange operation of one coin to another . We are talking about trading signals, offering your asset prices. Having enough skill and analytical mind, you can not only exchange the funds to some currency but also augment them. However, it is connected with a large number of difficulties, starting with the registration on the exchange.

Most of these services require you to go through the full registration, including passport details, home address, and more. Cryptocurrency exchanges must be licensed in the countries where they work, and such detailed customer data is a requirement for regulators. But the trick is that none of the exchanges has perfect protection from hackers, and at any moment it can be cracked, and your personal and financial information will be in the hands of unwanted people.

In some exchangers, like ChangeNOW you are not required to register. All you need is to enter the amount of coins you want to exchange and the wallet address. The exchanger is not interested in your workplace and your real name — it is just a quick and easy option to buy or sell the cryptocurrency.

Another difference between the exchanger and the exchange is the speed of operations. On the exchange, you must first have a currency in the exchange account and then create a new ticket for the sale or purchase of the currency, and then wait until somebody replies or views the list of open tickets and reply to the finished proposals. Once the currency gets to your account for its further usage, you need to take another action — send the money to a cryptocurrency wallet or directly to your bank account. All this is accompanied by commissions. In the exchanger all you need is to specify the amount to be exchanged, then everything happens automatically and in a couple of steps. The commission is usually fixed.

Financial differences

In general, the distinguishing characteristics of the exchangers is characterized in this way: you buy and sell cryptocurrency directly from the service, which in turn determines the value of currencies, based on rates of exchanges. That is, you don’t have to deal with third parties. It is convenient and advantageous because you are protected from cases when big players on the exchange decide to “undermine” the cryptocurrency exchange, selling or buying cryptocurrencies in large batches, and artificially altering the rate.

Thus, changing cryptocurrencies through an exchange is advantageous only in case, if you are familiar with financial instruments and you do not need to exchange urgently — you are ready to wait for the best moment to earn on the rate. If you just need to change money, without delays, signups and dealing with large and complex website interface — an exchanger should be your choice. And keep in mind that whether you choose an exchange or exchanger stick to the reliable services that work with well-known partners, have reviews and are transparent enough.

Source: https://cryptocurrencyhub.io/exchanger-vs-exchange-which-one-to-choose-73af890dea0a

Nordea Bank, the largest financial group in the Nordic countries, which banned Bitcoin in January, has been caught in a major money laundering scandal for allegedly receiving dirty money from two banks in the Baltics.

Yle, a state-owned publication in Finland with over 3,500 employees, reported that finance authorities in Sweden received a report with evidence to support money laundering allegations against Nordea Bank.

“We are aware of the report, and at Nordea we work closely with the relevant authorities in the countries in which we operate, including the Nordic Financial Intelligence Units,” Nordea said.

Irony
Nine months ago, Nordea Bank strictly prohibited its employees from buying and trading cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin due to its unregulated nature.

Afroditi Kellberg, a spokeswoman for Nordea Bank AB, said:

“It is widespread practice across the banking industry to restrict the personal account dealing of staff to prevent them taking positions in speculative investments, or which might expose them to a risk of financial loss and therefore impact their financial standing. Nordea therefore, like all banks, has the right to set out policies in this area that apply to its staff.”

By referencing the lack of regulations in the space of cryptocurrency, Kellberg and Nordea Bank expressed concerns regarding the possibility of utilizing digital assets to launder money and the impact that could have on the investors of the asset class.


Doubling down on its decision to impose a blanket ban on crypto, Nordea spokesperson Raymond Frenken stated that it would cooperate with central banks and the European Banking Federation to establish an industry standard regulatory framework in regards to cryptocurrencies.

“If banks like Nordea are going to have a very specific policy on this — and we’re hearing regulators are taking a look at this, including the ECB and central banks — probably it will be that it’s changing. With developments like this, it’s more likely that it will have to be discussed in the context of the European Banking Federation,” Frenken stated.

At the time, as CCN reported, the controversial decision of Nordea Bank AB was met with criticism from both the cryptocurrency sector and the rest of the traditional finance industry.

Djøf chief consultant Niels Mosegaard publicly criticized the ban, reaffirming that the legal basis of the prohibition remains unclear.

“It is clear that employees should not speculate on something that is criminal. But that’s not the case for bitcoin, as it seems at this time. We think that a ban is being made without a legal basis.”

Money Laundering

According to SLE and reports from mainstream media outlets of Sweden including the country’s public broadcaster SVT, more than 365 individual Nordea accounts received payments of over 150 million euros, equivalent to $171 million, from shell companies alleged to have run illegitimate operations.

In the weeks to come, the Finnish authorities are expected to cooperate with the Swedish authorities to launch a full investigation into Nordea Bank.

Danske Bank, Denmark’s biggest financial institution, which was also penalized for laundering $243 billion, previously told clients and employees to stay away from Bitcoin due to money laundering implications.

Source: https://www.ccn.com/biggest-bank-in-nordic-region-bans-bitcoin-gets-caught-for-money-laundering/

Dubai will enable its citizens and residents to make digital payments for retail purchases, bills, and even school fees with a state-backed cryptocurrency thanks to a partnership between Emcredit – Dubai’s Credi Bureau and two blockchain-related firms.

USING CRYPTOCURRENCY TO PAY THE BILLS

Consumers in Dubai, UAE will soon be able to pay for their bills, retail purchases, telecommunications, school fees, and other utilities using the state-backed emCash, according to local media. It’s issued by the Credit Bureau of Dubai which is a subsidiary of the Dubai Department of Economic Development.

In order to make all this happen, the city is entering into a partnership with payment provide Pundi X – a company which has developed a POS device for exclusive usage of emcash. The other company in the agreement is Ebooc Fintech & Loyalty Lab which is providing blockchain-based technology as well as loyalty solutions.

Read more, https://bitcoinist.com/dubai-set-to-introduce-cryptocurrency-payments/

Ether (ETH) prices “capitulating” in September was “significant” to ending the 2018 cryptocurrency bear market, according to a new theory from one cryptocurrency analyst.

In a series of tweets, UTR Equity’s crypto market commentator Eric Thies postulated that Bitcoin’s run to all-time price highs in December 2017 came as a result of Ether investment during the ICO phenomenon.

When interest slowed, so too did prices begin to freefall — Bitcoin reaching lows below $5900 in February this year and Ether below $170 in September.

“(Bitcoin’s) run in the end of 2017 was fueled by a MASSIVE ICO (ERC20) bubble and therefore indirectly fueled via ETH. Meaning that ETH capitulating in early Sept was significant to ending the bear market,” he wrote, noting the concept was a “theory.”

“We were all looking in the wrong place, expecting (Bitcoin) to do it.”

Read more, https://bitcoinist.com/ether-september-price-lows-could-signal-end-of-bitcoin-bear-market-analyst/

Americans are split almost evenly on the topic of whether or not cryptocurrency represents a promising investment class with a bright future.

A new Clovr research report sampling over 1,000 American adults found that roughly even segments of the U.S. population have strongly positive and apprehensive, bordering on hostile, views toward crypto assets, even as the total percentage of the population that is aware of cryptocurrencies continues to grow steadily. The report gathered responses to a number of questions from 1,004 Americans aged between 18 and 80 via Amazon‘s Mechanical Turk platform. The average age of survey respondents was 36.05, with a standard deviation of 11.86 years.

The survey shows that crypto awareness is longer a small niche, with 76 percent of the people surveyed professing their knowledge about it, and a further 20 percent indicating that they “sort of” know what cryptocurrency is. While these figures look good, a cursory dive into the data shows that the 76 percent drops to 62 percent when asked if they would be comfortable to explain what cryptocurrency is to others.

According to the survey, 69.8 percent of people expressed uncertainty about the cryptocurrency market while 28.1 percent are hopeful about crypto adoption and positive movement in the market. While 31.5 percent are excited about its usage, another 32.9 percent are confused, which is an almost even split.


A possible reason for this could be the fact that many people first experienced cryptocurrency as a speculative asset during last year’s record-breaking bull run, which made some see crypto as a means to get rich quickly. The bear market of 2018 soon followed, however, and burnt many fair-weather investors, coloring its perception by the general public. This is also reflected in the reasons given for investing or not investing in cryptocurrency, with 51.6 percent of respondents saying they would invest because of the possibility of outsized investment returns and 58.1 percent saying they would not invest because the crypto asset class is too risky.

The report also shows that crypto investment still remains an overwhelmingly male-dominated activity, with 43 percent of surveyed men having invested in a cryptocurrency before, against 23 percent of women. Unsurprisingly, millennials also led the generational statistics of cryptocurrency investors, with 41 percent of surveyed millennials responding affirmatively to the question, compared to 24 percent of Gen X respondents and 18 percent of baby boomers.

The main takeaway from the survey is that the subject of cryptocurrencies is still one of uncertainty and ignorance among many Americans, with many people possessing little more than a superficial understanding of what cryptocurrencies are.


Source: https://www.ccn.com/u-s-investors-divided-on-outlook-for-cryptocurrency-survey/

The “herd” of institutional investors that cryptocurrency bulls such as Mike Novogratz have perennially said is just over the horizon is finally making an appearance, as reports have emerged that one of the world’s largest university endowments has invested in two cryptocurrency funds.

Yale University Endowment Makes Cryptocurrency Play

Citing an anonymous source familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reports that Yale University, the Ivy League school whose endowment is the second-largest in higher education, has invested in Paradigm, a cryptocurrency fund founded by Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, former Sequoia Capital partner Matt Huang, and Pantera Capital veteran Charles Noyes.

Including Yale’s investment, Paradigm has raised $400 million to invest in the cryptocurrency space, making it one of the largest such investment funds alongside Pantera, Polychain Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).

Concurrently, CNBC reports that David Swenson — Yale’s “Warren Buffet” — invested university money in Andreessen Horowitz’s $300 million cryptocurrency fund, which the firm announced in June. Notably, a16z said at the time that it does not intend to be a fair-weather investor.

“We have an ‘all weather’ fund. We plan to invest consistently over time, regardless of market conditions. If there is another ‘crypto winter,’ we’ll keep investing aggressively,” the firm said at the time.

Yale’s endowment currently stands at $29.4 billion, a record high, following a return of 12.3 percent during the fiscal year that ended on June 30. A majority of those assets, 60 percent, are directed at alternative investments. Over the past decade, the university has returned an average of 7.4 percent, beating the 5.5 percent average university endowment return by a sizable margin, according to the Yale Daily News.

Read more, https://www.ccn.com/yale-university-has-invested-in-two-cryptocurrency-funds-report/