Market Struggles at $500 Billion, But Fundamentals are Strong
bitcoin·@gulzar03·
0.000 HBDMarket Struggles at $500 Billion, But Fundamentals are Strong
 Bitcoin Earlier this year, the dominance index of bitcoin reached an all-time low at around 32 percent. Throughout the recovery period in February, the dominance index of bitcoin, which measures its dominance over the global cryptocurrency market, rose significantly, to around 39 percent, as most cryptocurrencies in the market followed the price trend of bitcoin. While bitcoin has performed better than Ethereum, tokens, and other major cryptocurrencies in the market in the past month given that it has increased by nearly two-fold since dipping to $6,100, it has been extremely volatile. After the initial bear cycle and slump in January, analysts expected the price of bitcoin to start recovering to its previous levels by late February. But, bitcoin has continued to move in between the $9,500 and $11,000 range, without major buy volumes or rallies to push its price to $12,00 and potentially to early January levels in the $14,000 to $15,000 range. Many traders have expressed their concerns over the short-term performance of bitcoin, primarily because of its low volume and the sudden spike in the daily trading volume of Tether, a US dollar-backed cryptocurrency, which traders on major cryptocurrency trading platforms like Binance use to hedge the value of major cryptocurrencies. Adam Back, a bitcoin expert and the CEO at blockchain development company Blockstream, noted that while technical analysis may demonstrate a highly volatile future for bitcoin, technical developments and fundamentals point toward an optimistic future for bitcoin. “Sounds like chartism/tea-leaves over fundamentals: tech investment, scaling progress, infrastructure development pace & ecosystem collaboration, institutional financial products, retail investment products, all at all-time high. I take opposing view: fundamentals are strong, long bitcoin,” said Back. This week, the largest bitcoin wallet platform and cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase announced the integration of Segregated Witness, a transaction malleability and scaling solution, along with transaction batching, following the implementation of SegWit by another leading cryptocurrency exchange in Bitfinex. On February 23, the Coinbase team stated that SegWit has already been rolled out to 25 percent of customers, which exceeds more than 3 million users. Emphasizing the potential of second-layer scaling solutions like the Lightning Network, Coinbase wrote, “new technologies which require SegWit, like the Lightning Network, have the potential to significantly increase the usefulness of Bitcoin as a payment network and benefit customers. We currently have a dedicated full-time software engineer working on open source contributions to the Lightning Network.” Major Improvements By fundamentals and technical developments, Back likely referred to SegWit, Lightning, and other potential privacy solutions like Bulletproofs, which are being actively developed by bitcoin developers in its open source community. Hence, while the entire cryptocurrency market remains highly volatile both in its upside and downside, its price trend does not accurately portray the magnitude of developments and increase in user activity of major cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and Ethereum. Featured image from Shutterstock. Follow us on Telegram. Advertisement POSTED IN: BITCOIN ANALYSIS, BITCOIN PRICE NEWS, NEWS TAGS: BITCOIN INVESTMENT, BITCOIN PRICE, BITCOIN TRADING, BUY BITCOIN, COINBASE, CRYPTOCURRENCY EXCHANGE SHARE POST RedditTwitterLinkedInTelegramFacebookFacebook Messenger AUTHOR Joseph Young Hong Kong-Based Finance and Cryptocurrency Analyst / Writer. Contributing regularly to CCN and Hacked. Offering cryptocurrency news and Insights Into Asian Market (South Korea, Japan, and more). Elon Musk Reveals Personal Crypto Holdings Elon Musk Reveals Personal Crypto Holdings Bank of America Admits Cryptocurrencies Are a Threat to Its Business Model Bank of America Admits Cryptocurrencies Are a Threat to Its Business Model Bitwise Exec Predicts Trillion Dollar Crypto Market Cap this Year Bitwise Exec Predicts Trillion Dollar Crypto Market Cap this Year Bitcoin Exchange Coinbase Launches SegWit Compatability Bitcoin Exchange Coinbase Launches SegWit Compatability 20% Gains: Nano Floats in a Sea of Crypto Red 20% Gains: Nano Floats in a Sea of Crypto Red $1.6 Billion: Telegram ICO Ups the Ante for Record-Setting Token Presale $1.6 Billion: Telegram ICO Ups the Ante for Record-Setting Token  Major Improvements By fundamentals and technical developments, Back likely referred to SegWit, Lightning, and other potential privacy solutions like Bulletproofs, which are being actively developed by bitcoin developers in its open source community. Hence, while the entire cryptocurrency market remains highly volatile both in its upside and downside, its price trend does not accurately portray the magnitude of developments and increase in user activity of major cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and Ethereum. Featured image from Shutterstock. Follow us on Telegram. Advertisement POSTED IN: BITCOIN ANALYSIS, BITCOIN PRICE NEWS, NEWS TAGS: BITCOIN INVESTMENT, BITCOIN PRICE, BITCOIN TRADING, BUY BITCOIN, COINBASE, CRYPTOCURRENCY EXCHANGE SHARE POST RedditTwitterLinkedInTelegramFacebookFacebook Messenger AUTHOR Joseph Young Hong Kong-Based Finance and Cryptocurrency Analyst / Writer. Contributing regularly to CCN and Hacked. Offering cryptocurrency news and Insights Into Asian Market (South Korea, Japan, and more). ALTCOIN NEWS FEBRUARY 25, 2018 10:51 Cryptocurrency Scammers Hijack Verified Twitter Accounts to Trick Users Twitter Cryptocurrency scammers are currently using Twitter to take advantage of naïve investors looking to make some easy money. Often, the scammers pose as influential community members, and promise those that send them a specific cryptocurrency a reward a number of times greater than the initial donation. Now, they even started hijacking verified accounts to look more credible. To legitimize the move, these scammers then add fake replies to the tweet asking for donations. These replies usually claim they’ve received the funds and thank the person. These scammers are usually easy to spot, as they use recently created accounts, with usernames with extra letters, and without a blue checkmark only Twitter can give its users. According to Buzzfeed News, scammers recently managed to create a fake, verified Twitter account for Tron Foundation, the organization behind TRON (TRX). To do this, they seemingly hijacked the account of Literacy Bridge, a nonprofit based in Seattle that’s focused on “improving the health, income & quality of life for the world’s most underserved communities.” After taking over Literacy Bridge’s verified account, the scammers changed its profile picture, pinned a tweet just like the one the real Tron Foundation has pinned, and changed the handle to “tronfoundationl” – notice the extra “l”. Using the fake account, the scammers then replied to a tweet posted by Justin Sun, Tron’s founder, asking for donations. The tweet, according to Buzzfeed, received over 200 likes and retweets, presumably thanks to the blue checkmark. Some Twitter users noticed the change, and quickly spread the word. Geoff Goldberg, a Twitter user who frequently calls out spam accounts, spotted the fake Tron Foundation. Speaking to Buzzfeed News, he stated: “I saw it was a verified account so immediately was intrigued. To me, it was clear it was a scam, given that I have been encountering these for quite some time. But to others, given the verified account, I could totally see people falling for it.” After BuzzFeed and the Tron Foundation reported the fake account, it got taken down. This, however, wasn’t an isolated incident. Hackers seemingly managed to hijack another verified Twitter account belonging to a luxury menswear design team in London, going by “adaxnik.” After hijacking his account, the hackers then spoofed Justin Sun’s account. At press time, Tron’s founder seemingly has two verified accounts on Twitter. One of them is trying to help users stay safe and expand Tron’s reach. The other one claims there’s a Tron airdrop on the way, and is sending users a link to a fake website I wouldn’t dare click on. Twitter may have a share of the blame as well, as it’s supposed to remove verified accounts once their username changes. At the end of the day, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, who recently got his Twitter account verified, makes things clear: Featured image from Shutterstock. POSTED IN: ALTCOIN NEWS, NEWS TAGS: CRYPTOCURRENCY, JUSTIN SUN, SCAMMERS, TRON, TRON FOUNDATION, TWITTER SHARE POST RedditTwitterLinkedInTelegramFacebookFacebook Messenger AUTHOR Francisco Memoria Francisco is a cryptocurrency writer who's in love with technology and focuses on helping people see the value digital currencies have. Twitter: https://twitter.com/FranciscoMemor Elon Musk Reveals Personal Crypto Holdings Elon Musk Reveals Personal Crypto Holdings Bank of America Admits Cryptocurrencies Are a Threat to Its Business Model Bank of America Admits Cryptocurrencies Are a Threat to Its Business Model Bitwise Exec Predicts Trillion Dollar Crypto Market Cap this Year Bitwise Exec Predicts Trillion Dollar Crypto Market Cap this Year Bitcoin Exchange Coinbase Launches SegWit Compatability Bitcoin Exchange Coinbase Launches SegWit Compatability 20% Gains: Nano Floats in a Sea of Crypto Red 20% Gains: Nano Floats in a Sea of Crypto Red $1.6 Billion: Telegram ICO Ups the Ante for Record-Setting Token Presale $1.6 Billion: Telegram ICO Ups the Ante for Record-Setting Token P