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Bitcoin (BTC) could surge to $100,000 or bottom out at $30,000 by Christmas — but one of its best-known analysts is betting on the moon. In a Twitter update on Thursday, PlanB, creator of the stock-to-flow family of BTC price models, cast fresh doubt on a Bitcoin bear move. PlanB focuses on “key” remaining months With BTC/USD trading at $47,000 this week, PlanB has a lot to be confident about. His recent prediction of a minimum monthly close for August exactly matches current prices — and if the remaining four are just as accurate, Bitcoin could end 2021 at $135,000. Stock-to-flow’s first incarnation demands an average BTC price of $100,000 this halving cycle, but May’s about-turn gave its time-tested precision a run for its money. PlanB has nonetheless stuck by it, arguing that it has not...

Bitcoin (BTC) gained almost $1,500 in under an hour on Aug. 26 after an “uber dovish” speech by Federal Reserve Chair, Jerome Powell. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView BTC price action charges upwards Speaking at the virtual Jackson Hole annual symposium, Powell hinted that the Fed would begin to reduce its asset purchases in place since the start of the Coronavirus pandemic. A long-awaited signal, the move, referred to as “tapering,” may come this year, but Powell did not give a firm deadline for it to begin. “Even after our asset purchases end, our elevated holdings of longer-term securities will continue to support accommodative financial conditions,” he said. “The timing and pace of financial reduction of asset purchas...

“One of the greatest tragedies in life,” according to author K. L. Toth, “is to lose your own sense of self and accept the version of you that is expected by everyone else.” For the people of Afghanistan — almost 40 million of them — the loss of self, as well as the loss of life, has become a brutal reality. With the Taliban in control, chaos now reigns supreme. As businesses shut down, tens of thousands of people are desperately trying to flee the country. Moreover, as the political system collapses, so too does the financial one. As CNBC’s MacKenzie Sigalos recently noted, Afghanistan is “a country running on legacy financial rails.” This painful reckoning, 20 years in the making, has resulted in a “nationwide cash shortage,” as well as “closed borders, a plunging currency, and rapidly r...

Solana (SOL) prices printed another milestone of nearly $85 high on Aug. 27 as traders assessed a flurry of optimistic fundamentals, including Solana’s potential foray into Wall Street. On Aug. 24, digital asset management firm Osprey Funds registered a first-of-its-kind Solana fund with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In doing so, the New York firm hinted at giving institutional exposure to SOL markets as the token’s value surged by more than 4,300% in 2021.  A day later, real-time data feeder Pyth Network announced that it is going live on Solana’s proof-of-stake blockchain. The firm provides “high-fidelity streaming data” from trading firms and exchanges, which allows it to cover global market activity without depending on any single...

Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week Congress has put forward 18 bills on digital assets in 2021 so far The U.S. Congress has been ramping up its efforts to provide a regulatory framework for crypto in 2021 and has put forward 18 bills concerning digital assets and blockchain tech so far this year.    According to an Aug. 22 analysis from former Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation regulator Jason Brett, the current 117th Congress differs from its predecessor in that it has been focusing on regulation concerning decentralized asse...

Momentum for the top layer-one protocols has been on the rise throughout August as the highly anticipated rollout of the London hard fork on the Ethereum (ETH) network has done little to address the network’s high transaction fees and delayed confirmations.  One of the biggest beneficiaries of the quest to find a more welcoming smart contract environment has been Cosmos (ATOM), a project focused on interoperability that has set out to become the “internet of blockchains” thanks to its Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the price of ATOM rallied 180% from a low of $8.87 on July 20 to a high of $24.77 on Aug. 22 as its 24-hour trading volume surged from an average of $250 million to $1.87 billion. ATOM/USDT...

Whenever there’s data out on futures contracts liquidation, many novice investors and analysts instinctively conclude that it’s degenerate gamblers using high leverage or other risky instruments. There’s no doubt that some derivatives exchanges are known for incentivizing retail trading to use excessive leverage, but that does not account for the entire derivatives market. Recently, concerned investors like Nithin Kamath, the founder and CEO at Zerodha, questioned how derivatives exchanges could handle extreme volatility while offering 100x leverage. When a platform offers leverage or funds the customer to buy for more than the money in the account, the platform takes a credit risk. With Crypto exchanges offering 10 to 100x leverage (futures), on days like today, I wonder...

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has reportedly signed a $125,000 deal with blockchain analytics firm AnChain.AI to help monitor and regulate the decentralized finance industry. According to a Friday report from Forbes, an AnChain.AI company spokesperson confirmed the agreement with the federal regulator, saying the SEC and blockchain firm had the option to sign up to five separate 1-year contracts for $125,000 each, or $625,000 total. The first contract reportedly began in May. “The SEC is very keen on understanding what is happening in the world of smart contract-based digital assets,” said AnChain.AI CEO and co-founder Victor Fang. “We are providing them with technology to analyze and trace smart contracts.” The reported agreement between the government body and the blockchai...

A major consensus bug has affected more than half the Ethereum network’s nodes, causing those running older versions of Geth to split from the main network. According to Ethereum software developer Marius van der Wijden, an unknown individual or group exploited a vulnerability affecting earlier versions of Geth, one of Ethereum’s software clients. According to the developer, Geth clients and Ethereum nodes running software v1.10.7 or earlier are at risk of splitting from the network. “Users that run validators need to update their nodes quickly (in the next 10h I think) as they would otherwise vote on invalid committees,” said van der Wijden. A chain split has occurred on the Ethereum mainnet. The issue was resolved in the v1.10.8 release announced previously. Please updat...

The cryptocurrency market has been on a tear over the last month as Bitcoin price climbed 73% from a low of $29,200 on July 20 to a high of $50,478 on Aug. 26, a move that has warranted caution from Dan McDermitt, cryptocurrency market analyst and co-founder of TheChartGuys.  According to McDermitt, Bitcoin’s relentless march over the past month was done “with a lack of weekly consolidation,” which was an impressive progression that frustrated bears as “every week is a higher low.” McDermitt is “expecting an equilibrium pattern on the monthly time frame, which is a pattern of higher lows and lower highs in a tightening range.” McDermitt said: “I’m anticipating that were are going to be looking for a lower high compared to the all-time high, initially… I’m just watching for some short-...

The entire cryptocurrency industry is waking up to a new reality. Politicians and regulators have decided to wade into the space, which had flown mainly under their radar until now. A House committee chair is launching a working group; the Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking new authorities to regulate digital assets as securities; and the Senate-passed infrastructure bill includes $28 billion in tax revenues from crypto transactions. This last handful of weeks has arguably seen more regulatory activity around digital currencies since the name Satoshi Nakamoto first entered the popular lexicon. Anyone whose business deals in this asset class will need to pay close attention. Related: Biden’s infrastructure bill doesn’t undermine crypto’s bridge to the future Digital asset provisi...

Bitcoin (BTC) price is still 4.4% down from its Aug. 23 high at $50,500, leading some traders to question whether the local top marked the end of the recent 34-day long bull run. Even with the current correction, derivatives data and the maneuvers of professional investors are not flashing any bearish signals. Bitcoin price in USD at Coinbase. Source: TradingView On Aug. 24, prominent technical analyst John Bollinger suggested that Bitcoin price could be pushed lower in the short term. A pseudonymous market analyst called ‘CryptoHamster’ shared a similar bearish outlook based on analyzing a technical pattern called an ascending channel. Bearish news coming from exchange regulation could have also diminished investors’ interest, and this week the United Kingdom’s Fin...