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Galaxy Digital CEO, Mike Novogratz Expects Next Bitcoin Rally in Late 2021, Explains Important Levels For BTC And ETH

Albert Brown
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Galaxy Digital CEO, Mike Novogratz Expects Next Bitcoin Rally in Late 2021, Explains Important Levels For BTC And ETH

Following a huge surge in cryptocurrency prices this year, crypto is going through a consolidation period, Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd, CEO Mike Novogratz said Wednesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”



$40,000 is an important level for Bitcoin (BTC) to hold, Novogratz said, adding that if it falls below $40,000, $38,000 will be the next level to watch.

For Ethereum (ETH), the $2,800 level “seems to be an important level to hold.”Novogratz noted the two most popular cryptocurrencies have traded within those ranges during the consolidation period.

 

Novogratz told CNBC he is still anticipating a surge in cryptocurrency prices before the end of the year.

He said:

“My guess is it’s not until halfway to a third of the way through the fourth quarter that you see the next surge.”

According to him, The asset classes that perform the best throughout the year tend to be the ones that finish the year strong.

He said

“In investing, you know, the great asset class, as it gets close to the year-end, the asset class that’s done the best usually has a great finish.”

The Galaxy Digital CEO is still pretty optimistic for a strong fourth quarter in crypto, but expects “more chop” before popular cryptocurrencies begin surging higher.

 

In his recent tweet, Novogratz also mentioned the U.S. Federal Reserve’s taper talk, Chian Crypto Ban and the $45,000 resistance as the key reasons for the cryptocurrency’s current weakness.

 

Texas Senator, Ted Cruz Strongly Opposes Biden’s Anti-Crypto Pick, Saule Omarova For The Office Of The Comptroller Of The Currency (OCC)

Mark Brennan
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Texas Senator, Ted Cruz Strongly Opposes Biden’s Anti-Crypto Pick, Saule Omarova For The Office Of The Comptroller Of The Currency (OCC)

Texas Senator, Ted Cruz, recently revealed to be an ally of the cryptocurrency industry, and is opposing the nomination of Saule Omarova, a law professor at Cornell University who was reportedly chosen by President Joe Biden to lead Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Read: Biden Plans To Nominate A Major Critic Of Cryptocurrencies As A Top Wall Street Regulator



In a scathing tweet, Cruz claims that Omarova is ready to regulate the cryptocurrency industry, “into oblivion”:

He said:

“Not only is Saule Omarova, Biden’s pick to lead the OCC, a threat to our traditional economy, she also wants to regulate crypto into oblivion.

Crypto faces future-defining government regulations. This nomination needs to be stopped.”

 

 

Omarova was skeptical of the idea that crypto would democratize finance, claiming that the rise of the industry was a sign of a “dysfunctional” financial system.

In the Trump administration, the OCC was headed by crypto-friendly Brian Brooks, who took the job after serving as Coinbase legal officer. Brooks also had a brief stint as CEO of Binance.US.

Omarova is best known as a staunch opponent of the big banks. In one of her recent tweets, she specifically targeted JPMorgan.




 

Ironically, the cryptocurrency lobby will fight on the side of the big banks to stop Omarova’s nomination.

The fate of the controversial nomination depends on whether or not moderate Democrats are going to side with her sweeping regulatory agenda.

El Salvador’s President, Nayib Bukele Shared A Video That Shows First Steps Of Building The Most Awaited Volcanic Geothermal Bitcoin Mining Facility

Mark Brennan
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El Salvador’s President, Nayib Bukele Shared A Video That Shows First Steps Of Building The Most Awaited Volcanic Geothermal Bitcoin Mining Facility

The crypto community is paying keen attention to El Salvador, as it takes giant strides towards the implementation of crypto-friendly policies. The country has already started accepting Bitcoin for payments, and President Nayib Bukele is making another statement in the industry.

Read: President Nayib Bukele: “Chivo Is Not A Bank, But In Less Than 3 Weeks, It Now Has More Users Than Any Bank In El Salvador With 2.1 Million Salvadorans Actively Using Chivowallet”



He recently showed a short video that revealed El Salvador’s plans for Volcanic Bitcoin mining.

 

The El Salvadorian government wants to take advantage of the abundant amount of energy generated by its volcanoes to mine Bitcoin. The video shows Bitcoin mining rigs situated at a geothermal power plant that uses energy generated from the country’s active volcanoes.

Bukele’s video initially shows an aerial view of a geothermal energy facility and then cuts to the footage of cargo trucks before mining rigs finally make their appearance.

The government of the tropical nation aims to harness the immense amount of energy produced by its volcanoes in order to mine the largest cryptocurrency.

Bukele shared some mock-ups of the ambitious project on Twitter back in June.

The idea was initially suggested to the Bitcoin-loving president during a Twitter Spaces conversation.

 

Bukele didn’t provide complete details about the project, but said the project had already taken its “first steps,” towards becoming a “volcanode.”

When El Salvador announced the adoption of Bitcoin as a payment method in the country, it received a lukewarm reception within the borders. Many have expressed concerns over the volatility of the crypto asset, with opposition leaders providing the major criticisms to the policy.

Many of those that criticize the Bitcoin policies believe that the adoption of the token would fuel more money laundering activities in the country. However, the government is still focused on its plans for Bitcoin, despite the criticism.

 

Bitcoin became a legal tender on September 7, and Bukele started setting up clean Bitcoin mining operations a week later.

He explained that the new rigs will “provide approximately 95MW of 100% clean, 0 emissions geothermal energy. The news will be a lift to the crypto community after Bitcoin suffered a slight retracement following China’s mining ban.

Read More on El Salvador:

 

Chainalysis Report: Europe Becomes World’s Largest Crypto Economy

Albert Brown
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Chainalysis Report: Europe Becomes World’s Largest Crypto Economy

A report by blockchain data platform Chainalysis on Tuesday revealed Central, Northern, and Western Europe (CNWE) has become the biggest cryptocurrency economy in the world, receiving over $1 trillion worth cryptocurrency over the last year.

This represents 25 percent of global activity, it said.

Read: Swiss Financial Regulator FINMA Approves First Ever Crypto Asset Fund



Driven by increased transaction volumes on Decentralised Finance (DeFi) protocols, Central, Northern, and Western Europe (CNWE) received over $1 trillion worth cryptocurrency over the last year, says the report.

“Having ranked second last year, CNWE’s new position in the top spot is the result of tremendous growth starting in July 2020, combined with a relative decline in activity in Eastern Asia. CNWE’s transaction volume grew across virtually all cryptocurrencies and service types, but especially on Decentralised Finance (DeFi) protocols,” the report added.

 

Chainalysis also found an influx of institutional investment, signaled by large transactions, and drove most of the growth, although there was an upward trend in retail activity.

Read: As A Gesture Of Good Will, Crypto Miner Returns 7626 Ethereum Incorrectly Paid Transaction Fee

“Large institutional cryptocurrency transaction value grew from $1.4 billion in July 2020 to $46.3 billion in June 2021, at which point it made up more than half of all CNWE activity,” it said.

chainanalysis report 1

 

Chainalysis’ data revealed the majority of large institutional-sized transfers went to DeFi platforms, with a majority of them made in Ethereum (ETH) and wrapped Ethereum (wETH). wETH is an ERC-20 token of ETH used in DeFi protocols.

Read: President Nayib Bukele: “Chivo Is Not A Bank, But In Less Than 3 Weeks, It Now Has More Users Than Any Bank In El Salvador

According to the report, the United Kingdom (UK) leads other CNWE nations by a wide margin at $170 billion. 49 percent of this is value sent to DeFi protocols.

France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland are the other countries in the top five.

chain analysis report 2





Earlier in August 2021, Chainalysis ranked India second in terms of global crypto adoption in 2021, amidst global crypto adoption rising over 880 percent in the last year.

In the report titled ‘The 2021 Global Crypto Adoption Index’, Chainalysis ranked India just behind Vietnam, which took first place out of 154 countries surveyed.

Read: Michael Saylor “Nothing Has Created More Wealth In The Past Decade Than Technologies Banned In China”

“The index ranks the top 20 countries and provides an objective measure of which countries have adopted cryptocurrency to the greatest extent after a year of exponential growth for cryptocurrency markets and increased attention for the industry,” Chainalysis said in its August report.

Swiss Financial Regulator FINMA Approves First Ever Crypto Asset Fund

Mark Brennan
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Swiss Financial Regulator FINMA Approves First Ever Crypto Asset Fund

Switzerland’s financial watchdog Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) on Wednesday approved the country’s first-ever dedicated crypto fund.


The FINMA explain that the new fund—the Crypto Market Index Fund—is only open to qualified investors and falls under the category of alternative investment funds, therefore bearing certain risks for customers.

 

The Swiss regulatory watchdog said even though the crypto fund would be regulated under the existing provisions of law, it has been done in a technology-neutral way to make way for innovation.

“In order to facilitate serious innovation, FINMA applies the existing provisions of financial market laws in a consistently technology-neutral way,”

The regulator’s statement also says that this approval has been made “in order to facilitate serious innovation” and emphasizes that nascent technologies will not be used to break the existing rules of the financial market.

 

In order to mitigate risks associated with the volatile crypto market, the new crypto fund would primarily invest in those assets which have a high trading volume. Along with that, all crypto transactions would only be facilitated via established counterparties and platforms that are based in a member country of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and are subject to corresponding anti-money laundering  (AML) regulations.

 

 

As A Gesture Of Good Will, Crypto Miner Returns 7626 Ethereum (Worth $23.7 Million) Incorrectly Paid Transaction Fee Back to Deversifi

Albert Brown
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As A Gesture Of Good Will, Crypto Miner Returns 7626 Ethereum (Worth $23.7 Million) Incorrectly Paid Transaction Fee Back to Deversifi

Yesterday, TheCryptoBasic reported that Crypto exchange Bitfinex paid $23.7 million in transaction fees to send $100,000 of tether (USDT) in what was presumably a bit of a slip up.

Read Details: Bitfinex Spent $23.7 Million In Fees To Transfer 100,000 USDT In A Single Ethereum Transaction



The transaction was sent from one of Bitfinex’s main wallets and the money ended up at one of Deversifi’s wallets — a non-custodial exchange that was spun out of Bitfinex in 2019.

Deversifi announced on twitter:

 

But DeversiFi put their users at ease as they confirmed that miner was returning the 7626 ETH.

 

The transaction was a smart contract interaction with the amount of tether sent to one wallet before being passed along to Deversifi’s wallet. It used the newly implemented EIP-1559 type of transaction, which was designed to make Ethereum fees easier to predict.

The transaction was included in a block that was mined by an unknown Ethereum miner, who ranks in the top ten miners by blocks mined over the last seven days.





While the miner returned the fee on this occasion as a gesture of good will, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for DeversiFi to enforce the return of the 7626 ETH. 

Diversifi also published a 23.7 million dollar Ethereum transaction post mortem:

 

 

China Bans Coinmarketcap, Coingecko And TradingView

Mark Brennan
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China Bans Coinmarketcap, Coingecko And TradingView

Three of the most popular crypto market data sites have now become inaccessible to mainland China based users.

Read: Amid Chinese Crackdown, Alibaba Bans All Cryptocurrency Miner Sales On Its Platform



Search results on Comparitech, a website that allows users to check if a particular domain has been blocked in China, confirm that Coinmarketcap, Coingecko and Tradingview websites are currently inaccessible in China.

It is not clear when exactly they became inaccessible, but users noticed the blockage early Tuesday.

It appears that these websites did not cut off Chinese IP access, rather they were made inaccessible by the Chinese Internet Custody Authority.

 

The Chinese authorities have been taking a tough stance on cryptocurrencies for a number of years. The country has threatened to ban cryptocurrencies in one form or another several times since 2009.

In the last few months, however, the situation seems to be getting more serious. On September 15, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) declared that all cryptocurrency-related activities, including mining and operating crypto exchanges, were illegal.

 

In addition, according to the announcement circulated by the central bank, authorities have threatened to investigate anyone involved in marketing, advertising, payment processing or technical support for overseas crypto exchanges.

While possession of cryptocurrencies has not yet been made illegal, the recent raid has made it difficult for Chinese citizens to legally acquire, hold, or use crypto.

Read more on China Crypto War:

 

Amid Chinese Crackdown, Alibaba Bans All Cryptocurrency Miner Sales On Its Platform

Jakkk
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Amid Chinese Crackdown, Alibaba Bans All Cryptocurrency Miner Sales On Its Platform

Recent weeks have seen the Chinese government intensify its anti-cryptocurrency campaign. 

Alibaba officially announced Monday that its platform will prohibit sales of cryptocurrency miners and suspend categories for blockchain miners and accessories from its website on Oct. 8.



From October 8, sellers won’t be able list cryptocurrency miners on Alibaba. Accessories that are attached to miners will also be prohibited, along with any materials that teach users how to mine cryptocurrency. 

 

Orders placed between September 28th and October 8 will be processed. However, they must be shipped by January 2022. Sellers cannot receive payment for orders placed after October 8.

All items listed under the crypto, blockhain categories above will be removed automatically by Alibaba starting October 15.  Alibaba will also remove all ads of the above categories. Failure to comply with Alibaba’s new rules can result in account closures, fines, restrictions and even complete shutdowns. Alibaba has also banned the sale of cryptocurrency like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

 

China made all cryptocurrency transactions illegal after cracking down on mining facilities within its borders. Alibaba, an e-commerce giant, has taken sweeping measures to further discourage minors from China.

Binance Stops Fiat Deposit, Purchase Of Crypto Through Fiat Channels And Spot Trading Services For Singapore Users

Mark Brennan
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Binance Stops Fiat Deposit, Purchase Of Crypto Through Fiat Channels And Spot Trading Services For Singapore Users

Binance announced that users in Singapore won’t be able to access certain services via the crypto exchange.



Binance Announced:

“With effect from 2021-10-26 04:00 AM UTC (12:00 PM UTC+8), users in Singapore will not be able to access certain functions on Binance.com including fiat deposit services, spot trading of cryptocurrencies, the purchase of cryptocurrencies through fiat channels and liquid swap (“Regulated Payments Services”).”

 

After regulatory scrutiny, Singapore joined the growing number of jurisdictions that restricted binance from offering exchanges services.

At the start of this month, The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) puts Binance on investor alert list. The MAS stated that the exchange was in violation of the country’s payment service law and operated without a license.

Read: Monetary Authority Of Singapore (MAS) Puts Binance On Investor Alert List

 

Binance responded by announcing that it would stop trading services in Singapore. The exchange will also take its trading app out of the Apple App Store and Google Play Store for Singaporean users.

Read More On Binance regulations:

Blake Masters Who Is Running For The GOP Senate Race To Represent Arizona Says US Government Should Buy Bitcoin To Counter China Crypto Ban, Announce His Campaign Now Accepts BTC Donations

Mark Brennan
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Blake Masters Who Is Running For The GOP Senate Race To Represent Arizona Says US Government Should Buy Bitcoin To Counter China Crypto Ban, Announce His Campaign Now Accepts BTC Donations

Blake Masters believes that the U.S. government should purchase bitcoin as a strategic asset to reverse China’s ban.

Read: Bloomberg Chief Commodity Expert, Mike Mcglone Says That Bitcoin May Still Hit $100,000 In 2021



Masters, currently running for the U.S. Senate seat to represent Arizona, announced that his campaign accepts donations in BTC.

He said:

“China banned cryptocurrency last week.

Let’s do the opposite. The U.S. government should buy a strategic reserve of Bitcoin — Fort Nakamoto, the new Fort Knox.

Related: my U.S. Senate campaign now accepts BTC donations. D.M. me or write bgm@blakemasters.com for info & to donate.”

 

Masters will face Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich and solar power businessman Jim Lamont, among other candidates in the Republican primary race.

After announcing his plan for the Senate seat in July, billionaire Peter Thiel and Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson endorsed the venture capitalist.

Read: Twitter rolls out tips feature globally and adds bitcoin tipping via Lightning

 

According to Senator Patrick Joseph Toomey Jr.’s (R-PA) tweet, the United States can benefit a lot from anti-crypto actions by the Chinese government.

Microstrategy CEO, Michael Saylor In his comment, he has shared a fascinating fact that any technology that China bans has turned into huge success:

Read: Microstrategy CEO, Michael Saylor On China Banning BTC And Crypto

“Nothing has created more wealth in the past decade than technologies banned in China. #Bitcoin”

 



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