Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Remember these 3...🧐

November 27, 2018

Anthony Pompliano Gives a Level-Headed Analysis of the Market on CNBC

Pomp, defender of crypto

Anthony Pompliano (aka Pomp) is well-known around the cryptocurrency space as someone with valuable knowledge and experience. Pompliano is the founder and partner of Morgan Creek's Digital Assets Division.

Pompliano has been steadfast in his defense of cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin. He has held his stance even while the market has been in a freefall.

Appearance on CNBC

On Monday morning, Pompliano was brought on to CNBC's Squawk Box to talk about the recent movement in the cryptocurrency market. Not surprisingly, Pompliano continued his advocacy of cryptocurrencies on national news.

Despite being a cryptocurrency proponent, Pompliano doesn't think the market is to the bottom quite yet. He told CNBC that he sees Bitcoin reaching its bottom at 85% of its all-time high, which is roughly $3,000.

Pomp's three things to remember

Pompliano educated the hosts and the TV audience with three facts that should be remembered about the Bitcoin market. He prefaced these three points by admitting:

"Bitcoin was overvalued in December '17. There are more sellers than buyers this year. So the price goes down. But there are three things you gotta remember."

One:

"The first is, this is a transaction settlement layer. It's the most secure in the world. It's got to be worth something. It can't be worth zero."

Two:

"The second is it's the best performing asset class in the last ten years. It's outperformed S&P, Dow, Nasdaq, et cetera, during the longest bull run. And so it experienced two 80% drops during that time, but the asset's still up over 400% in the last two years."

Three:

"And the third thing is: that was all done by retail. I think what's important to remember is that through 2017, all of the buyers were retail, right? And so now what you're seeing in 2018 as the price has gone down, you're starting to see institutions come in. And one of the things that doesn't get talked about much is that most of these institutions are not buying on exchanges. They're actually buying on the OTC market, which we don't have great transparency into or insight. So what I think you're seeing is the washout of these retail investors."

INSTITUTION

Nasdaq to Move Forward with Futures Despite Plunge

Futures in the first quarter?

According to Bloomberg, popular U.S. stock exchange Nasdaq is moving forward with its plan to list Bitcoin futures.

Before launch, Nasdaq is allegedly working closely with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to make sure it complies with regulations.

Once complete, sources say the launch could happen as early as the first quarter of 2019.

Not so surprising

Actually, Nasdaq has previously suggested it would launch Bitcoin futures in June 2018, according to a Wall Street Journal report more than a year ago. However, the plans didn't pan out.

Now, as Nasdaq's competitor Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) is planning to launch its Bitcoin futures through a new platform called Bakkt on January 24th, 2019, its clear Nasdaq wants a bite of the pie.

"Sustained interest"

Most interesting was that despite Bitcoin's gruesome plunge from $20,000 to current levels, Nasdaq is "betting on sustained interest" for their futures launch.

And they may be right. One quick look into Bitcoin futures volumes shows that even though the market has nosedived in 2018, the average daily volume of Bitcoin futures has actually grown each quarter.

In contrast, Bitcoin trading volume in the retail market has continued to slide alongside its price.

MINING

More than 600,000 Bitcoin Miners Shut Down in Past Two Weeks

Closing shop

According to estimations by F2pool, the third-largest Bitcoin mining pool, between 600,000 and 800,000 Bitcoin miners have ended their operations during the most recent price downturn.

Mao Shixing, F2pool's founder, estimates the number of lost miners by dividing the total network hash rate drop by the average hash power of machines that are no longer able to generate a profit at these price levels.

Hashrate going down with the market

Bitcoin's total network hash rate has been unsurprisingly following the market over the past couple weeks. When the price of Bitcoin declines, only the most efficient miners are still able to generate a profit and so, the older, less efficient miners are priced out of the market.

According to blockchain.info, Bitcoin's network hash rate has declined by about 13%, dropping from 47 million TH/s on November 11th to 41 million TH/s on November 25th.

BITS

But wait, there's more...

Coincheck has now reinstated all services for the nine listed cryptocurrencies during January's hack.
Cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp is rolling out a new technology to help tackle market manipulation on its platform.
Coinbase Wallet has added support for Ethereum Classic (ETC).

MEME