Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Breaking Bulls 📉

November 20, 2018

November has Historically been a Bullish Month.. Until this Year

A strong record

Prior to this year, Bitcoin has finished in the green in each of the last seven Novembers. November 2017 was remarkable as it was a part of the famous Bitcoin bull run that brought many people into cryptocurrencies.

During November of last year, Bitcoin started the month around $6,400 and made its way all the way above $11,000. Ultimately, the crypto closed the month just shy of $10,000, but prepared to have an even wilder month in December.

November turns bearish

This year, investors were hoping the holiday season would be a cure to the blues of the bull market of 2018. Instead, their hopes got crushed. Bitcoin opened November 2018 at almost the same spot it did November 2017, around $6,400. But, this time it went the other direction. At the time of this writing, Bitcoin is trading just below $5,000.

As the market normally works, Bitcoin took all of the altcoins down with it. The event caused altcoins to lose a combined ~$20 billion since the start of the calendar month (roughly a 20% decline).

For now, investors are hoping that the rest of the holiday season will be more bullish. December and January of the prior year is when Bitcoin peaked with altcoins pumping shortly after.

INSTITUTION

Israeli Investment Firm Launches Two Cryptocurrency Funds

Continuance of institutional focus

Silver Castle Ltd., an investment firm based in Israel, has launched two new cryptocurrency funds. The firm is backed by some of Israel's high profile bankers and investors. It expects to accumulate $50 million from investors by the end of the year.

One of Silver Castle's funds will deploy an algorithmic trading strategy for the top five cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. The second fund will utilize a similar strategy but will include the top ten cryptocurrencies.

The firm will be heavily targeting institutional investors. This has been a common theme among new funds as institutions have substantial investing power and are looking to enter the market.

Crypto firms on the rise

Silver Castle is not the only firm opening up shop in the cryptocurrency space. According to Autonomous Research, there are now over 370 crypto investment firms worldwide that have a combined $10 billion in assets under management.

Israel loves crypto

Not only is Israel home to a new cryptocurrency investment firm, but the country is also becoming ever more involved in the initial coin offering and startup space. So far this year, 140 Israeli blockchain startups have raised a total of $1.3 billion in investment.

SCAM

Trezor Issues Warning Over Counterfeit Hardware Wallet

Welcome crypto to the exchange

Hardware wallet manufacturer Trezor issued a warning to its users after it uncovered a "startling" problem: one-to-one counterfeits of the Trezor One.

While Trezor has had to fend off clones before, it has never had a clone that came so close to the real thing like this new one.

Here's the issue: Although the wallet may be physically the same, it's software could be faulty or worse, malware.

Telling the difference

Trezor's official blog post covered three rules to protect users from buying fraudulent devices:

Don't buy devices from unapproved resellers.
Check for differences in packaging.
Avoid steeply discounted Trezor wallets.

The process is similar to avoiding counterfeit clothes except that in this case, the consequences include losing your crypto rather than getting a "bargain" on brand name merchandise.

EXCHANGE

OKEx Pushes Back Against Manipulation Claims

Manipulation accusation

Following the Bitcoin Cash hard fork that split the blockchain in two, the world's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange OKEx faced claims of market manipulation after it had allegedly adjusted BCH futures settlements.

According to one report by Medium user AMBER AI, OKEx's fraudulent actions caused traders to lose $24 million. The report also accuses the exchange of trading against its own users.

Pushback

Now, however, OKEx is fighting back in a new statement issued to CoinTelegraph:

"These are completely false allegations and the defamatory statements have caused serious damages to OKEx's reputation."

The exchange also added that it will consider pursuing legal action against AMBER AI for "interfering" with its business.

Meanwhile, BCH itself has had a rough week as it is down over 50% in value after its controversial split.

BITS

But wait, there's more...

IBM and Columbia University have partnered to launch two accelerator programs for blockchain startups.
North Dakota's securities watchdog is cracking down on a Russian initial coin offering (ICO) that was allegedly impersonating a Liechtenstein-based bank.
The governor of the Bank of Thailand (BoT) has said that it will take three to five years for countries to switch from using cash to using digital currencies.

MEME