Another week, another round of crypto tidbits.
It was a positive last week for the Bitcoin market.
After the flagship crypto had dropped to $8,600, it made a strong comeback in the last few days, bringing BTC to $9,650. This is the highest price at which the asset has traded in just over eight days.
Interestingly, last week old coins began to deviate from the Bitcoin price action.
As can be seen in the chart below, Ethereum, like Cardano and Maker, outperformed the BTC and other asset classes by far. On the other hand, Chainlink, XRP, Bitcoin Satoshi’s Vision and other top crypto assets collapsed.
Picture of the crypto-market price action of Coin360
The crypto market remains below the highs of late April and the highs of the year to date, but analysts are still optimistic.
For example, Blockchain Analytics upstart Santiment announced late last week that the BTCs Network Value to Transactions Ratio (NVT) remains „healthy“.
„Despite the mild downturn of -4.4% at BTC today, his NVT looks healthy and our model is showing a reasonably optimistic signal. The number of unique tokens handled over the Bitcoin network is slightly above the average for the month of May, depending on where price levels are currently,“ wrote block chain analyst firm Santiment.
related reading: Crypto-Tidbit: Satoshi doesn’t throw away his bit coin, China ‚forbids‘ the dismantling of crypto money
Bit Coin & Crypto Bits
- Goldman Sachs talks about crypto assets: On 27th May the multinational investment bank and Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs made an appeal in relation to Bitcoin. Under the title „Implications of Current Policies for Inflation, Gold, and Bitcoin“, two executives of Goldman Sachs and a Harvard professor discussed the BTC. They said Bitcoin does not generate cash flow, does not hedge against inflation risks, and does not offer „consistent diversification benefits“ given its unstable correlations. The analysts added that the crypto can be used for crime, citing yesterday’s PlusToken-Ponzi scheme. Many are divided on the content of the call, but there seems to be a silver lining: As one analyst explained, the fact that Goldman Sachs mentioned Bitcoin is a sign that they are hearing from their customers.
- Chinese yuan slips, reinforces Bitcoin and crypto-bull case: Relations between the US and China were on the road to recovery at the end of 2019, but this will change with the news of a new law in Hong Kong. The law, many in the international community say, undermines the autonomy of the region that the mainland Chinese government had promised to maintain until 2047. The US has responded by threatening sanctions. As a result, the Chinese yuan has fallen. This could benefit Bitcoin. Chris Burniske, a partner at Placeholder Capital, said
„If China’s CNY continues to weaken against the USD, there could be a repetition in 2015 and 2016 where the strength of the BTC coincides with the weakness of the yuan“.
- Early Bitcoin miners beat up Craig Wright: An early 2019/2010 Bitcoin miner with access to BTC worth tens of millions (and possibly over a hundred million) recently revealed that it still exists. The owner of the coins signed the following message with his private key, giving his latest views on developments in the Bitcoin space without revealing who he is:
„Craig Steven Wright is a liar and a cheat. He does not have the keys to sign this note. The Lightning Network is a major achievement. However, we must continue to work to improve the capacity of the on-chain chain. Unfortunately, the solution is not to change just one constant in the code or allow powerful participants to displace others. We are all Satoshi“.
- Bitcoin cash looks fundamentally unhealthy, according to the leading cryptanalyst: According to the prominent cryptanalyst Yassine Elmandjra of ARK Invest, Bitcoin Cash is so fundamentally weak that he is surprised „that we have not yet seen an attack on a large scale“. He cited three fundamental factors to support this assertion: The hash rate of Bitcoin Cash’s network has dropped 30% since it was halved in April, economic throughput has dropped to an all-time low, and from a macroeconomic perspective, it doesn’t cost that much to attack the network.
Bitcoin Cash does not look healthy:
-Hashrate has decreased by 30% since the halving (& makes up only ~2% of the SHA256 hash)
-economic throughput at all times Low
-fees are 0.05% of the miner’s turn (<$100/day)
-Theoretical 51% attack costs < $10k/hourSurprised we haven’t seen a major attack
– Yassine Elmandjra (@yassineARK) 23 May 2020
Featured Image from Shutterstock
