IBM has been making aggressive moves in the Stellar ecosystem.
IBM was one of the first partners in the Stellar ecosystem, helping them to host major verified nodes and do network stress testing. But, their partnership has greatly expanded since then.
Last month they announced that IBM was partnering with the Stellar based exchange Stronghold to create a USD backed stablecoin to compete with Tether.
Now, in a recent interview with the Fortune Magazine, the Senior Vice President of IBM’s Global Industries, has confirmed that the company is doubling down on adopting Stellar, and is working with “a number of major global banks” to integrate the Stellar protocol for foreign currency exchange.
While Stellar’s competitor Ripple has made massive in-roads into traditional banking markets, we suspect that IBMs deep connections with global banks (that come from decades of consulting on financial technology) will help Stellar’s non-profit attract a number of financial institutions to their ecosystem.
While Stellar already presents as a top coin by market cap, we’re very bullish on where it can go given the new partnership.
Disclaimer: Insider tips are not financial advice. We do not give buy/sell alerts, we are not telling people to invest or buy specific coins. Insider tips simply promote high quality news stories that are relevant to the market and various cryptocurrency projects. These news stories may move markets in either direction, or not impact them at all. Users should do their own due diligence.
Cryptocurrencies reached their peak in value in 2017. Everyone wanted to get bitcoins, invest in ICOs, and get rich overnight.
This year, while the craze is slowly starting to fade, serious investors and entrepreneurs who understand how the industry works are looking forward to seeing some stabilization in the market.
While many still have doubts, 2018 brings a promise of ICO maturity.
Photo by David Shares on Unsplash
What Is An ICO?
For those who are not familiar with the terminology, in essence, an ICO (initial coin offering) is a crowdfunding process for new cryptocurrency ventures. A tech startup can create an ICO to raise money for a new project.
The first step is to write a whitepaper, advertise the idea, state how much tokens will be released, and for how long the ICO will last. Typically, a token is a new cryptocurrency that has the potential to be traded for other already established cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum.
Alternatively, the token can be valuable solely for the project it is associated with. Once the product or service the ICO supports takes off, the distributed crypto-tokens can be used to obtain said services or products.
So, with an ICO, a company receives money by creating and selling tokens. Of course, tokens need to be worth something, i.e., the new project or the new company are expected to succeed in the future. If that happens, investors can sell them at a higher value, in which case the ICO is considered to be a success.
The Most Famous ICO So Far
Three years ago, investing in ICOs wasn’t nearly as popular as today. Nowadays, there are many successful startups who got their fundings this way. New tech startups don’t have to go anymore through a long and tiring process of traditional funding methods.
The biggest and most famous ICO investment so far was the one that happened with Ethereum, a cryptocurrency that btxchange.io reports raised more than $2 million dollars during from a token sale.
It is an open source platform for developers who use it to write code for decentralized applications. It has built-in smart contracts that enable automatic, trustless payments, transactions, and exchange of content.
With Ethereum, it was the idea, the business plan, and the product that made the entire ICO successful.
Many investors and startups nowadays organize their ICOs hoping for the same. The main reason why they are so popular is due to the cryptocurrency hype, but also because it’s possible to get millions of dollars in just a few hours.
One of the fastest ICO ever seen happened when Brave browser raised 35 million in just 30 seconds. Its founder, Brendan Eich, played a major role here. He is a co-founder of Mozilla browser and the creator of JavaScript programming language.
When a startup with such name behind it asks for investments, it is natural to expect that people would be in such a hurry to invest.
However, it wasn’t just the name that attracted investors. The concept of a browser that will block trackers and remove annoying ads once and forever also contributed.
Ideas matter and great ideas matter a lot.
[bctt tweet=”Ideas matter and great ideas matter a lot.” username=”coincheckup”]
ICOs are to some extent similar to what selling shares via IPO or VC is. As we explained above, a company asks for funding by selling its tokens for cryptocurrencies and then uses the funds to build its project. The greatest concern for investors, however, is that there are little to no guarantees that the token will be valuable in the future. We discuss this in the following section.
Whitepaper
When a company decides to go for an ICO, it presents investors with a certain business plan. This plan must have clear and precisely set goals, background information, and has to be data and goal driven.
Forget about elevator pitches, cool ideas, and overly hyped stories.
When looking into ICO investing, the whitepaper is what gets the money. While many turn to aggressive advertising, using catchy phrases and stories appealing to inexperienced masses who want to be part of the crypto craze, a solid whitepaper is what investors want to see first.
The development team, market analysis, and progress performance reports are of grave importance. To change the fraudulent nature of ICO market and gain investors’ trust, startups need to stick to those three components. Additionally, In 2018 investors started bringing experts to weigh in on the startup’s idea and whitepaper.
Risk assessments and background checks are crucial.
However, what are you going to do when a startup has just been founded and there is no background to check out?
In that case, it’s best to look for clearly defined goals and to invest only if there is a backup plan. If the big idea fails but some parts of the project can still be used, not all investment is lost.
In one word, the first sign of ICO maturity should be a clean, precise whitepaper for all parts of the project.
How To Recognize A Good Whitepaper?
A good whitepaper should have a detailed description of how its token works, who will create it, and what is the main business idea.
There should be enough information about how the blockchain technology will be implemented and why it is a better solution than any other existing technology.
A good whitepaper also has a clearly defined target audience and contains information relevant to the people in the industry. Investors need to know how exactly the new proposed solution to a problem can be implemented within a specific branch.
A lot of startups fail to specify why they need blockchain in their businesses.
If there are no clear specifications about how exactly is blockchain necessary, it’s wise to stand back and put the money elsewhere.
[bctt tweet=”If there are no clear specifications about how exactly is blockchain necessary, it’s wise to stand back and put the money elsewhere.” username=”coincheckup”]
Transparency
The beauty of the blockchain industry lies in its transparency philosophy.
It means that all interested parties can have full access to all financial transactions or other exchange of data conducted through blockchain.
This is particularly important for some industries (such as charities for example) as one can easily track money transfer and distribution.
ICOs have similar transparency features while granting anonymity at the same time. There are even certain programs such as ICO Transparency Monitor where everyone can check the “transparency rating” of an ICO.
Journalists and investors can access the information about assets and transactions. A big sign of ICO maturity is that it’s turning from the trustless market into an open one.
One of the biggest ICO downsides for a long time was that transactions and general reports were not mandatory. Instead, it was possible to hold an ICO and never file a single report to investors.
Things are changed now, so every serious ICO puts great effort into open communication, building trust and transparency. To earn trust, startups send regular progress reports, share news about reached milestones, and form open relationships with the community.
It’s not just investors they look to impress. Keeping tight with fans and supporters speaks a lot about credibility too. Quite often product beta testers are found among fans and supporters, sometimes even investors!
Safety
With ICO, it’s not the technology we should be worried about but the human error that can jeopardize the entire business.
If an app is decentralized, it means that it can’t be hijacked that easily. For this reason, the blockchain technology is currently considered one of the most advanced and safest technologies we have.
So, the problem here is not the system itself, but the possibility of human errors and lack of regulations.
The most tragic theft in the ICO world is related to a company called DAO, or Decentralized Autonomous Organization, where hackers stole almost $60 million in 2016.
The company was created using the Ethereum platform. Its main idea was to have one big fund where everyone who invested should have a say about where the money should go next. Think of it as a blockchain technology based app for funding.
Similar to data being kept in decentralized blockchain, the decision about where the money should be invested was also “decentralized”, i.e. equally distributed among all investors.
The idea was perfect, but the human error – bug in the code – was a perfect opportunity for hackers to grab the money and disappear.
Bans And Regulations
Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram banned the ICO related ads. Such big companies vouch for credibility and the unregulated ICOs are not what they want to deal with. In some countries initial coin offerings are even completely banned.
This is actually good news for ICOs. By banning them, these countries and companies are just sending a message that the market desperately needs regulations.
After the big drop in 2018, crypto markets are slowly starting to stabilize again and big investors are bringing in financial and legal expertise to enforce new, meaningful regulations.
In South Korea, the government lifted the ban and allowed regular crypto trading. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is working on regulations that would help investors to have more control over their money and protect the customers.
What’s extremely good news for ICOs is that everyone encourages the development of the technology; it’s just the unregulated crowdfunding that remains problematic. In some countries like Japan, cryptocurrencies are completely legal, but everyone who uses them has to register.
In Europe, the biggest step towards ICO maturity has been done in Switzerland. FINMA, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory, issued a list of regulations that businesses must follow if they want to go public with ICO.
First and foremost, only three type of tokens can be used: payment, utility, and asset tokens. Payment tokens function just like any other cryptocurrency and they become a regular cryptocurrency after the project succeeds.
Utility tokens serve just to provide access to different applications, which is why they are also called app tokens. If you invest in a service and buy its utility token, once the service is launched you can use your utility token to access it.
The third type is tradeable asset token. It is a digital representation of a real tradeable asset such as precious metals or diamonds.
In the US, asset tokens are regulated by SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission). In Switzerland, every single type of token is regulated by the government.
With regulations on the horizon and government enforcing new and existing laws of trade and anti-money laundering, ICOs have a bright future.
Regulations can bring stability which could result in tougher entry requirements but would increase trust and transparency. For many, this is the only way ICOs can be an essential part of the innovative technologies that bring advanced blockchain solutions.
Of course, many are afraid that eventual regulations will be heavy-handed, crafted without the necessary deep understanding of the crypto world, its technological peculiarities and its dynamics. That’s why it is important for the crypto community itself to create best practices that can be presented to the regulatory organs.
Ideally, the regulations should approach the issue in a sensible manner that stimulates and promotes innovation while guaranteeing security to the potential investors that they won’t be cheated.
This way entrepreneurs will continue to receive the necessary funds, investors will know the terms of engagement, and the technology will continue to change the world as we know it.
KIN the cryptocurrency from the startup unicorn Kik is set to launch their new “Kinit” app this week as a beta on the Android store.
Kinit is an app that allows users to earn and spend cryptocurrency by completing surveys in the app.
Earlier this year Kik announced they had partnered with Blackhawk Giftcards to offer users the ability to redeem their KIN directly for gift cards at major stores like Amazon, AirBnB, Netflix and Uber.
The team announced that Kinit was set to launch in beta “the week of July 16th.”
Last week, the app was leaked on the Google Play store for roughly two hours before the Kik team swiftly took the app back down again.
During the time the app was live, users noted that $5 gift cards were being sold for 500 KIN in the app, but, that users weren’t yet able to send their KIN from the Ethereum blockchain to the app and could only redeem KIN they earned while performing surveys.
Given that KIN is currently trading at $0.000152, but, the app demo was redeeming KIN at a price of $0.01 it’s clear that interesting times wait ahead for the KIN cryptocurrency.
Speculation is rampant on both sides, with many users thinking that the price of KIN will rise to meet the in-app price, while bears think that the model is ultimately unsustainable.
Either way, this insider scoop is one worth exploring before Kinit’s big launch!
BlackRock (NYSE:BLK), is considered to be the world’s largest asset manager with more than $5.4 trillion US dollars in assets under management.
According to recent reports in the Financial News the investment giant is now considering moving into the cryptocurrency investment space.
Back in February, senior BlackRock officials noted in their Global Weekly Commentary that the company believed that cryptocurrencies will have a broader role to play in the financial landscape in the future.
Now, individuals close to BlackRock “has created a team from different parts of the business to investigate cryptocurrencies and their underlying infrastructure, blockchain”, and that this working group “will examine whether BlackRock should invest in bitcoin futures” as well as look “at what BlackRock’s competitors are doing with cryptocurrencies and how that could impact its business.”
eToro Crypto Popular Investors Success Stories: Wes Nolte
Wes Nolte, a 30-something South African-born chief technology officer based in London, describes his trading style as “diverse, risk-balanced, and bodacious”. It’s an approach that appears to work, given that he is one of the most-copied Popular Investors (PIs) on the pioneering global investment and trading platform eToro.
“I have a relatively low-risk trading strategy that diversifies across stocks – especially United States tech stocks – commodities, currencies and cryptos,” he says.
He is particularly fond of cryptos. “There is a good change they will flatten the hierarchies that our society and culture, and so on, are built upon,” continues Nolte, whose eToro handle is Wesl3y. “They are by their nature networks of peers, and could easily change our capitalist society, significantly shifting power from the few to the many.”
Nolte joined eToro in March 2015 and became a PI – a programme that allows top traders to build their own financial business and earn a 2 per cent management fee – less than two years later, in January 2017.
He signed up to the platform having amassed knowledge from 17 years of trading. He had even bought and mined cryptos since 2013, but eToro offered him something extra.
“I was attracted to the platform for a number of reasons: I was curious about how a social network built around trading might work; because of the ease and speed of trading; the great user interface; the fact that it’s secure; plus the knowledge I can draw from and give to the community,” Nolte says. “Also I was interested in the PI programme, and how it enables top traders to earn a second income.
“On eToro I learnt about importance of diversifying. There are many types of traders on the platform – for example forex traders, commodity traders, equity traders – and at times when my portofolio did less well I was able to learn from them and further strengthen my strategy.”
Nolte reveals that he became a PI “completely by accident”. He explains: “I’d been using the platform for over a year, and had no intention of becoming a PI – mostly because I misunderstood how it worked. I was just having fun tweaking my approach and making insane returns – more than 200 per cent – when suddenly dozens of people starting following me every hour, using the CopyTrader tool.
“My eToro account manager called me up and asked if I’d like to join the PI programme. He explained that eToro would give me a nice bonus for joining – I’d thought I needed to pay for the privilege. Who the hell would turn that down? My main account has made a profit of nearly $20,000 from $13,000 since I became a PI.”
There are other benefits to being a PI, suggests Nolte. “I have a strong voice in the eToro community,” he says, “but I also learn a lot as people share ideas and news directly with me. I’ve also managed to generate over $3m in profit for my copiers which makes me very happy. My long-term goal is to generate $1m in profit for myself, and an average for $10m for my copiers every year.”
What makes a successful PI on eToro? Good communication with copiers is crucial, says Nolte – who rises at 6am to research the markets and posts news digests and trading updates throughout the day on eToro – as is perseverance. “I’ve got grit, and am a voracious reader,” he says. “I’ve also learnt to be patient and park emotions – most of the time. Grit enables me to stick it out in tough times, especially as I have 70,000 followers and when things aren’t going well they’ll let me know.
“I love economics and studies of human behaviour, and read a lot every day, so I’m able to build a pretty good picture of the market on an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis.”
Offering a final nugget of advice for eToro newcomers with aspirations to yield great returns – and rise to PI level – Nolte adds: “Be patient; trading is the hardest skill to learn. You must learn to love the red, because it presents an opportunity.
“If you become a PI, stick with it. Sometimes it feels as though you’re posting messages into a void but this is how everyone starts off. Have fun, make money and the rest will come. Finally, don’t take things too seriously. No one gets out of life alive.”
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The high growth rates seen in the crypto space over the first half of 2018 have been exceeded in June, a month that saw a spike and tremendous rise in investor interest towards ICO that could offer real potential value to investors.
DECOIN—an emerging blockchain-based trading and exchange platform offering redistributed revenues to coin holders—has successfully reached its soft cap fundraising goal.
“We are excited about reaching the soft cap of $4,000,000” says Shay Perry, CEO of DECOIN. “The support of the community has been fantastic and we will soon announce further developments in the project.”
Company Overview
DECOIN is making waves in the blockchain space by developing an exchange that offers practical utility to its users. The company’s blockchain—which is based on a proof-of-stake (PoS) algorithm, incentivizes user loyalty by enabling him a 6.2% Staking rewards. The company will comprise a global operation—with multi-lingual support offered across international offices.
DTEP platform to launch within 6 months
In addition to achieving its soft cap milestone, the company will be swiftly moving forward with the development of the DECOIN Trading and Exchange Platform (“DTEP”) in the next stage of its roadmap. DTEP is expected to launch in about 6 months, coinciding with the company’s receipt of licensing from the Monetarian Authority of Singapore. This important step will allow DTEP to operate under a regulated license.
Increasing Interest in DECOIN’S Crypto Indexes
Additionally, DECOIN is making significant headway in the development of the DECOIN Crypto Index (“DCI”). The teams’ analysts are analyzing and researching new projects to potentially be included in the indexes; all projects will be thoroughly vetted before making a final decision on which ones to include in the DCI.
DECOIN has accomplished some impressive early results, and—from the perspective of the company’s leadership— this is only a great beginning to the project’s future success record.
“We reached the funding goals in the first stage, from the number of users we were hoping to see contribute to the project at this stage,” says Perry. “There are international global funds that are interested in investing in DECOIN. We are thrilled about this first successful step and enthusiastic and confident about the roadmap still ahead of us.”
More information on the ICO and the company itself, including whitepapers and vision, can be found on https://www.decoin.io
The world of cryptocurrency and digital assets is still in the nascent stages of its life, so high volatility that can rise from extreme lows to extreme highs and back again should be somewhat expected. However, there are a few factors that can influence the highs and lows of a cryptocurrencies’ value, which can help you make better purchasing decisions, on platforms like AgoraDesk as you become more familiar with the cryptocurrency market.
Here are a handful of factors that you will need to take into consideration before buying any cryptocurrency, as they can directly impact the value both positively and negatively.
Some of these factors even entwine with one another to create multiple sources of influences on the price, so it is essential to be aware of how a cryptocurrency’s value can be manipulated by current events.
News
The news is one of the primary factors of influence for cryptocurrency valuation, much the same as positive and negative news can affect the stock market. In fact, news of any of the following factors on this list can directly impact the price of a cryptocurrency in both directions, so it is essential to stay in the know about the cryptocurrencies you are holding or considering to purchase.
High-profile news events like a government debating regulation for the cryptocurrency market or a hack of a popular exchange can send the price of cryptocurrency spiraling in the abyss.
Conversely, news that a major retailer like Walmart or Amazon has started accepting cryptocurrency would cause the price to rise astronomically.
[bctt tweet=”High-profile news events like a government debating regulation for the cryptocurrency market or a hack of a popular exchange can send the price of cryptocurrency spiraling in the abyss.” username=”coincheckup”]
Cryptocurrency truly is a global currency, as an exchange hack in a small country like South Korea can have a direct impact on the value of the cryptocurrency that was affected.
The news is by far the most important influencing factor for cryptocurrency valuation because it directly ties into each of the following nine elements as the transmitter of these factors. The more widespread the coverage of the news event, either negative or positive, the more volatility you can expect in that cryptocurrency for at least a few weeks.
Fear Factor
You should never discount the fear factor when it comes to investing in cryptocurrency, either. With the success of Bitcoin and the astronomical sums that some people have made from buying low and selling high, there is always tension in the market surrounding fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD).
Every time a piece of positive news airs and the price of a cryptocurrency rises significantly, a wave of people hoping to buy in while the cryptocurrency is rising continues to fuel this growth.
As the market corrects and some people take gains by cashing out into fiat again, this causes the less-experienced with investing to get emotional about the rise and fall in valuation. They might pull their funds out and immediately regret doing so when the bull trap correction hits, or make other poor decisions based out of fear.
Billionaire investor Warren Buffet famously said that investors should be fearful when others are greedy, but greedy when others are fearful. Not always following the hype crowd and waiting out an investment can help when investing in cryptocurrency in the long run, but FUD will still play a role in the valuation of the currency.
[bctt tweet=”Billionaire investor Warren Buffet famously said that investors should be fearful when others are greedy, but greedy when others are fearful.” username=”coincheckup”]
Mutual Influence
While cryptocurrencies may seem unrelated on the surface, especially with the different purposes they serve, mutual influence often causes a ripple effect across multiple currencies, even if that specific currency wasn’t impacted in the news.
For example, when Bitcoin first started experiencing its big boom in 2012, Litecoin’s value rose right along with it as people were hoping that Bitcoin’s adoption would fuel the adoption of Litecoin. To some degree, their speculation has been right, but that might not always be true in the future, especially as new coins reach maturity and widespread support beyond more than a handful of exchanges.
Right now, Bitcoin is considered the gold standard of cryptocurrency since it can be exchanged for hundreds of smaller cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings (ICO).
Most cryptocurrency enthusiasts who want to dabble in small-cap cryptocurrencies will need to buy BTC and convert it into their chosen cryptocurrency, so the mutual influence is a huge factor for young cryptocurrencies that are reliant on enthusiasts who trade BTC for it.
Government Influence
News of government regulations surrounding cryptocurrencies is one of the quickest ways to tank the value since the market is highly unregulated. Regulations from any government can impact the value of cryptocurrency, so it may not even be your country of origin causing the volatility spike.
China is the country keep an eye on when it comes to regulations surrounding cryptocurrency, as a significant portion of mining operations are based within the country thanks to cheap electricity and labor costs. Early in 2018, there were rumors that China was considering a ban on cryptocurrency mining due to its massive electricity usage, which impacted the value negatively.
China has since addressed the rumors and says they have no current plans to ban Bitcoin mining, but the market definitely reacted to the rumors and the denial of rumors by the Chinese government.
Adoption Rates
Widespread adoption of cryptocurrency is one of the most positive influence drivers for the valuation of the currency to date.
When significant retailers announce their support for any cryptocurrency, it helps create value for those who already hold the currency. It also gets more eyeballs on the currency as a digital asset and helps expand interest in owning the currency as a digital asset.
ICOs have also had an impact on cryptocurrency values as they have become a new funding method for Silicon Valley start-ups to raise capital funding. Those interested in owning a stake of a start-up can purchase tokens offered in an ICO with existing cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Not all ICO news is good news, however. The SEC has a rigorous definition of what it defines as a security, and some ICOs have failed to pass that test, marking them as a security that is subjected to increased regulations.
Still, the overall spread of uses for cryptocurrency in modern society means the public is getting more familiar with the idea of using digital assets. This, in turn, increases adoption rates as retailers and businesses begin to accept the cryptocurrency as a form of payment.
Competition
While many cryptocurrencies are reliant on Bitcoin as an exchange medium, that may not always be the case. Newer, faster cryptocurrencies are springing up that address some of the problems that first-generation coins did not have the foresight to address.
This sort of competition could eventually drive older coins to uselessness as better technology is created to deal with stress points that have inhibited the network’s growth. Ethereum was conceived as an infinitely scalable cryptocurrency that is Turing complete to address Bitcoin’s own shortcomings.
Bitcoin remains valuable as an exchange medium for other cryptocurrencies that have more specialized tasks, but it remains to be seen if this will continue to be the case as other cryptocurrencies become more established and accepted.
[bctt tweet=”Bitcoin remains valuable as an exchange medium for other cryptocurrencies that have more specialized tasks, but it remains to be seen if this will continue to be the case as other cryptocurrencies become more established and accepted.” username=”coincheckup”]
Security
People rely on exchanges to purchase and sell their cryptocurrencies, which requires a certain amount of trust placed in that institution. Just like old-timey bank heists in the 1800s, non-secure exchanges are a juicy target for hackers who want to make a quick buck.
Any exchange hack, security failure, or closure of a prominent exchange can directly impact the value of cryptocurrencies as a whole. All it takes is a simple mistake with JavaScript to leave millions of coins exposed to hackers.
Perhaps the most famous example of this is the Mt. Gox heist that happened in 2011 when 850,000 bitcoins were stolen and never returned. Mt. Gox was the premier Bitcoin exchange at the time, but it was never designed with security in mind. The exchange’s failure lead to a mini-crash in the value of BTC at the time, but the cryptocurrency has since recovered.
Still, this high-profile exchange hack resulted in many exchanges taking security more seriously, since all it takes is just a minor slip-up. Some exchanges even offer bug bounties to white-hat hackers who can penetrate their systems but share the information with the company to help fix the security issue.
Bankruptcy
Coin exchange bankruptcies can be a result of a hack or poor management, but they directly impact the value of the currencies they traded in when the news is announced.
South Korean exchange Youbit recently experienced a debilitating theft of 17% of the total assets held by the exchange. This wasn’t the first time the exchange was targeted in an attack, either. Youbit was rebranded from Yapizon after the first attack to distance itself from its flawed security past.
Because of the massive loss of assets, Youbit can’t guarantee those who were impacted will see their funds returned to them. Because of this, the exchange must file bankruptcy and follow all bankruptcy proceedings to allow current customers to withdraw what wasn’t stolen.
Organized Pressure
Just as the stock market is susceptible to organized attacks, so to can the cryptocurrency markets be impacted by just about anyone with interest in manipulating the price.
While cryptocurrencies themselves are decentralized, the market is not. Fluctuations for Bitcoin can have a ripple-like effect on its smaller cousin cryptocurrencies.
Another form of organized pressure is called a 51% attack, due to the way Bitcoin mining works. A 51% attack is a potential attack that could happen when 51% of the miners on the network who control the hashrate decide to hold the network hostage to have their demands met.
This type of attack has not been attempted yet since it does not give the attacker full control over the network, but it is theoretically possible, and something that might become an issue in the future as mining operations for the last 20% of BTC become more consolidated.
Technological Progress
Cryptocurrency is a growing market that is expanding to many industries outside of financial institutions. Blockchain technology and tokens are allowing industries like real estate, healthcare, legal, politics, media, and even startups.
For example, legal contracts such as wills can be stored on the blockchain to be securely verified. Any changes made to the document are noted publicly and authenticated, so there is no question about the authenticity of the document.
As blockchain technology develops for industries outside of the financial sector, cryptocurrencies will benefit from this as a form of adoption.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are a variety of events that can impact the value of any cryptocurrency on the market. Remember that mutual influence can affect every cryptocurrency when both good news and bad news is delivered, so it is essential to stay aware of current events if you have any investment in digital assets at all.
Being aware of how each of these ten factors can influence one another can help you get a better idea of how the market will react to news as soon as it hits. The news itself is an over-arching concept that touches on each of the other nine factors, but it is not the be-all, end-all for deciding whether a cryptocurrency will fail or succeed.
Many detractors of cryptocurrencies thought that Bitcoin’s crash after the Mt. Gox hack signaled the end of the experiment. BTC prices fell from $550 down to below $450, and experts decried how the exchange’s lax security measures spelled doom for the nascent coin. Today, we know that Bitcoin is stronger than ever thanks to the highs it reached within the last year. Keep incidents like this in the back of your mind when following the cryptocurrency market and Warren Buffet’s advice might give you a prime buying opportunity for any cryptocurrency.
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