Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies

Some view Bitcoin as a safe-haven asset, has it behaved like one?

Bitcoin has held up better than many stocks, but has fared less well than many other assets that can protect portfolios at times of market stress. For the year to date, Bitcoin has fallen 5%. That’s much better than the S&P 500 which is off 14% for the year. Nonetheless, other assets that can offer safe haven at a time of crisis have risen. For example gold is up 11% and a diversified portfolio of bonds is up 4%.

Hence if you view Bitcoin as a sophisticated digital form of gold, it hasn’t quite played out that way during this crisis so far. However, we should note that we may still be early in seeing the full economic impact of COVID-19. As such it’s hard to reach a conclusive verdict until the economic impact has played out in full. Ideally, you’d want to look across multiple economic cycles too, though since Bitcoin is a relatively young asset, this is not possible.

Furthermore, though on a near term view Bitcoin hasn’t done what many other safe haven assets have done, it is of course noteworthy that on a 5-year view Bitcoin’s return still dwarfs just about any other major asset class because Bitcoin has risen over 30-fold over that period.

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In the crypto industry Gibraltar is well known as one of the few crypto-friendly jurisdictions. In early 2018 Gibraltar became on of, then, few jurisdictions to bring about blockchain guidelines.

However, the wind of change has passed, and now the jurisdiction is pushing to bring new laws to keep in check the digital coins marker.

Its current efforts on new crypto market manipulation guidelines will bear fruit in the next few months.

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Bitcoin prices have been climbing back in recent weeks, after cratering last month. When will the digital asset hit the $9,000 level again?

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If you pay attention to the trends taking place on the Weekly Bitcoin chart, you’ll notice that it has reacted to the global market Covid-19 trends almost exclusively since the beginning of 2020. After the end of 2019, the US stock market rallied on Q4: 2019 data and so did Bitcoin. The US Stock market peaked near February 20 and began a deeper selloff on February 25 – Bitcoin followed this pattern as well. When the US Fed initiated the stimulus on March 23, Bitcoin prices had already started to bottom in anticipation of the Fed stimulus and really began to rally after the Fed began intervening.

This is a bit unusual for Bitcoin, which in the past didn’t correlate to the US stock market trends all that well. What changed? We believe the sudden correlation of Bitcoin to the US Stock Market trends are related to investor psychology and the perceived efforts of the Central Banks in supporting the global economy.

We find it interesting that a decentralized cryptocurrency, which is supposed to be independent of global central banks and governments, suddenly aligns almost perfectly with the US stock market in correlation with the US Federal Reserve. It is almost as if Bitcoin prices are much more aligned with the global economy and global central banks as this crisis event unfolds. This suggests the true value of Bitcoin is not as an alternate, decentralized currency. The true value of Bitcoin is a hyper-speculative alternate store of value – unrelated to any real asset or oversight process.

Our researchers believe the ultimate bottom will set up near the end of Q3: 2020. We believe general weakness will push the US stock market price towards an ultimate low/bottom near July or August 2020. After that bottom completes, Q4: 2020 may see a moderate upside price trend as the Santa Rally mode kicks in. If Bitcoin mirrors this move, then it may attempt to move below the $3850 level and ultimately attempt to find a bottom below $3000.

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The Albanian parliament signed a new bill that aims to implement a legal framework for digital currencies. Signed on May 21st, the bill is entitled “On Financial Markets Based on the Technology of Distributed Ledgers,”.

The legislation aims to oversee crypto licensing conditions for all related cryptocurrency activities in the country. Interestingly, the bill passed with a majority; 88 voted in favor, with only 16 against.

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Bitcoin is now sitting underneath the key $10,000 to $11,000 resistance zone that it has struggled to break above for much of the past year.



Since bottoming in mid-March after hitting $4,000, Bitcoin has been rising within a channel pattern. Bitcoin is now sitting underneath the key $10,000 to $11,000 resistance zone that it has struggled to break above for much of the past year. If Bitcoin can clear this level in a convincing manner, it would be an important bullish confirmation signal.

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Bitcoin once again failed to surpass $10,000. When will the world's most prominent cryptocurrency break past this key resistance?

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Bitcoin prices dropped by more than 8% today, approaching the $9,000 level as digital currency markets suffered widespread losses. At this price, it had declined more than 8.5% in less than 24 hours, after rising to $9,962.18 the night before, additional CoinDesk data reveals.

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The co-fonder of the shady initial coin offering (ICO) Centra Tech, Sohrab Sharma, recently pleaded guilty for scamming investors of $25 million. His lawyers informed the US District Judge Lorna Schofiels this Monday in a court filing in New York.

Along side Sharma, two of his associates and co-founders of the ICO admitted to their cyber crimes. The latest of these is a Robert Farkas.

Another operator of the firm by the name of Raymon Trapani, considered the mastermind of the project, was charged by the US overseer, which led to him pleading guilty for nine counts put against him last year.

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After long weeks of mostly just sideways, Bitcoin and its cryptocurrency friends finally made a move and it was upward.

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