A backlog of crypto transactions on Binance forced the exchange to stop withdrawals temporarily. What else happened in the world of crypto and blockchain last week? Miami’s Mayor Francis Suarez announced his intentions to become the first politician ever to receive 100% of his paycheck in Bitcoin. Following Mayor Suarez’s announcement, New York Mayor-Elect Eric Adams reconfirmed his plans to collect his first three paychecks as Mayor in Bitcoin. Of course, as already stated, last Monday, crypto exchange Binance temporarily suspended all crypto withdrawals following a backlog of crypto withdrawals right as BTC reached its all-time high. As for Ethereum – following Facebook’s brand name change to Meta, Vitalik Buterin released a proposal for something new: “crypto cities.” He did so via a paper in which he discussed the merits of using decentralized technologies in a metaverse.
Meantime, in the world of DeFi – after the meteoric rise and crash of the SQUID token last week, Binance is investigating the incident to determine which developers have abandoned the project. The Avalanche Foundation launched a new $220 million fund to support the growth of decentralized finance, NFTs, enterprise apps, and culture applications. BIFROST announced the launch of its Biport wallet, which has been designed to give users access to multichain decentralized finance. As for news regarding NFT’s themselves, Andrew Wilson, the CEO of EA, recently spoke about the gaming industry’s future. He stated that he believed blockchain-based games and NFTs would play a pivotal role in the industry going forward. FC Barcelona has collaborated with premium NFT marketplace Ownix to launch a set of digital collectibles featuring iconic moments from its history, and Red Bull Racing teamed up with official blockchain partner Tezos to launch an NFT collection based on the Mexican Grand Prix.
As for business, in general – an executive from The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group commented on the growing crypto industry at the “State of Play” forum held by Blockchain Australia. He noted there will be a “major protocol shift for financial market infrastructure.” NBA star Kevin Durant launched a Special Purpose Acquisition Company, and this proposes to look at connecting with tech-driven firms, including firms in the crypto space. As for Altcoins: TRON founder Justin Sun announced plans to establish a $1,111,111,111 fund which will power the expansion of the TRON ecosystem. The quarterly XRP Markets Report for the third quarter of 2021 indicated a total of 88.8 million transactions executed on the XRP Ledger (XRPL). And finally, in regulation news: The Commonwealth Bank of Australia, which is the first mainstream bank in the world to offer crypto trading services, will be facing examination by regulatory authorities; and DarkSide, the ransomware group responsible for the Colonial Pipeline hack, is now the subject of a $10 million bounty promoted by the US Department of State.
5 Great Cryptocurrencies to Buy on Low Prices in November 2021
Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) led the surging rally in cryptocurrencies last week, with both coins reaching new all-time highs. Since their values are already so high, the following list comprises five cryptocurrencies one might consider buying due to their low prices. Some of these are coins have good short-term potential, and some could increase significantly over the next few years. Cardano (ADA) has come to life after several weeks of immobility. At $2.27, it was up by 16% last week. Although it is now flat compared to one month ago, ADA’s 30-day moving average is beginning to surge above its 200-day average. This indicates it might have begun a breakout to a new price level. At the same time, its relative strength index stands at 80, revealing strong momentum. While ADA has not done so well compared to the other major coins in the past few weeks, a rally now seems to be in the cards. Having successfully rolled out smart contracts in September following the Alonzo hard fork; on November 5, ADA also introduced the beta version of the Plutus Application Backend (PAB). This suite of tools will enable developers to create and test dapps, which can then be launched on Cardano, and suggests that the long-awaited moment when Cardano will start deploying actual applications is drawing nearer.
Polkadot (DOT) was basically unchanged early last week. At $53.12, however, it does remain up by 6% from the week prior, and by 46% in the past month. Many investors believe that now is a very good time to buy DOT even though its technical indicators are only mildly positive. Its 30-day average is only just above its 200-day, and meanwhile, its RSI is at around 50, indicating no great momentum. With that being said, these indicators may reveal a very opportune point of entry, since DOT isn’t overbought or overpriced. Polakdot is in the midst of opening the first of its long-awaited parachain auctions, and these will determine which projects can join the Polkadot network. They are expected to run at a rate of one per week for the next few months, and this will cause a significant amount of DOT to be taken out of circulation because projects need to bid DOT in order to win their auctions. At the same time, once projects starting building dapps on Polkadot, even more DOT will be needed.
Ripple (XRP) is another coin that appears to be seriously underpriced compared to its long-term potential. At $1.26, it was up by 15% in the past week, and also up by 8.5% in the past month. XRP’s 30-day average is rising well ahead of its 200-day average. Looking at the bigger picture, XRP’s prospects all hinge on Ripple’s ongoing battle with the SEC. At the moment, its chances look pretty good, with a recent a ruling making things more difficult for the SEC. At the same time, Ripple continues to grow in terms of its ecosystem, even with its legal battle. At the end of last month, it announced a partnership with international blockchain-based financial services company Pyypl.
VET is at $0.186250, which represents a 36% rise last week and a 57% jump in the past month. VET’s 30-day continues to climb to new heights, suggesting that its rally isn’t over yet. Indeed, it recently began the process of launching its chain extension, SURFACE (PoA 2.0). Finally, the OMG Network (OMG), at $16.44, was up by 11.5% in the past week and by 16% in the past month. Admittedly, OMG’s technicals don’t look great at the moment. However, the OMG Network is in the process of launching the Boba Network, an optimistic rollup-based scaling solution for Ethereum. It’s holding an airdrop for the Boba Network’s BOBA token, which will be dropped on a 1:1 basis to all OMG holders. In other words, people have been buying OMG in order to obtain BOBA. Anyone who has OMG will receive BOBA on November 19. However, investors have to either hold OMG on the Boba Network or hold it with a participating exchange.
Ripple launches Liquidity Hub for enterprise clients with support for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others
Global fintech giant Ripple announced that it has launched a new service called the Liquidity Hub, and according to a blog post published last Tuesday, Liquidity Hub is a groundbreaking new way for enterprises to source digital assets easily and efficiently from the broader crypto market. This will bring cryptocurrency trading to enterprises, and Ripple’s latest service is designed specifically to help enterprises accelerate their shift into the cryptocurrency market. Liquidity Hub was designed as a turnkey solution for financial institutions and will leverage smart-order-routing, enabling them to source cryptocurrencies at optimized prices from market makers, exchanges, and OTC desks. Ripple GM Asheesh Birla stated, “We know full well the need for easy and efficient liquidity management. Crypto and financial institutions are embedded in our DNA. So, it makes perfect sense that as they prepare for a crypto-first world, our customers would want access to the same trusted one-stop-shop for buying, selling, and holding crypto assets that have powered our own extensive work with financial institutions.”
Interestingly, Birla noted that the same crypto sourcing technology employed in the Liquidity Hub has been in use in Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity Product (ODL) for nearly two years. The Liquidity Hub will launch in 2022 and will initially support Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and XRP, with more digital assets to be added over time. The company also plans on adding functionalities such as staking and yield-generating in the near future, but no specific date have yet been determined for their launch. Coinme, the first licensed Bitcoin ATM company in the U.S., will also become the first partner for the alpha version of the Liquidity Hub. The company will utilize the underlying technology platform of the Liquidity Hub for the thousands of ATMs it has across the country, with plans to unlock additional functionality as it becomes available.
Bitcoin Surges to New ATH of $68,500 with Big Money Emerging as the Largest Catalyst
Unless you’ve been living in a cave in the middle of nowhere, you most likely already know that last week BTC surpassed its previous record of $66,900 set on October 20 to hit a new all-time high (ATH) of 68,500. Throughout this year, Bitcoin (BTC) has undergone both ups and downs, and remember back in May, when the leading cryptocurrency experienced a 50% daily loss to bottom at lows of $30K when Chinese authorities intensified the crypto mining crackdown? Nevertheless, Bitcoin has silenced the skeptics and scaled to great new heights not seen thus far in its dazzling twelve-year journey. Big money moves have contributed to last week’s price surge because the search volume is at rock bottom. Market analyst Lark Davis explained: “Bitcoin closing on a new all-time high and the search volume is insanely low. Seems like this rally is not being led by retail, looks like big money quietly buying.”
Institutional investments have now all but cemented Bitcoin’s status as a notable investment vehicle, and they had played an instrumental role when BTC breached its previous ATH of $20,000 in December 2020. At that time, the ATH had not been broken for more than three years. All of this momentum leaves one wondering, could this be the start of a new Bitcoin era? Much evidence supports this notion. Despite Bitcoin surging to historic highs, the relative unrealized profit/loss is still at low levels, and on-chain analyst Matthew Hyland noted: “The Bitcoin relative unrealized profit/loss is at the same levels it was in January of 2017 and October of 2020 right before the massive bull runs. With all-time highs broken, we can now confirm, we are just getting started.” He added that the pressure witnessed in Bitcoin’s Bollinger Bands (BB) indicator is about to be released since they had recently shrunk to levels last seen in October 2020 when the price was just at $10,000. With crypto trading emerging as a lucrative business, former Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit believes that all big banks will start seriously considering joining the ride.
ETH/USD Extends Torrid Upside Gains: Sally Ho’s Technical Analysis 10 November 2021 ETH
On Wednesday of last week, Ethereum (ETH/USD) extended recent gains early in the Asian session as the pair continued to appreciate above the 4700 level, and that was even after recently establishing a fresh all-time high around the 4842.54 level. Stops at that time were elected above the 4671 area during the upward range expansion, which was the previous all-time high established earlier in the month. Strong demand had then emerged during a pullback to the 4329 area, and this represented a test of a previous upside price objective around the 3643 area in October. Additional upside price objectives were considered to be at the 4895.12, 5035.94, 5060.87, and 5268.46 levels. Following the recent appreciation, downside price retracement levels and areas of potential technical support will now include the 4617, 4478, 4365, 4253, 4114, and 4093 levels.
Traders are observing that the 50-bar MA (4-hourly) is bullishly indicating above the 100-bar MA (4-hourly) and above the 200-bar MA (4-hourly). Also, the 50-bar MA (hourly) is bullishly indicating above the 100-bar MA (hourly) and above the 200-bar MA (hourly). Price activity is nearest the 50-bar MA (4-hourly) at 4557.88 and the 50-bar MA (Hourly) at 4727.28. Technical Support is expected around 3515.25/ 3375.24/ 3235.23 with Stops expected below. Technical Resistance is expected around 4895.12/ 5035.94/ 5060.87 with Stops expected above. On the 4-Hourly chart, SlowK is Bearishly below SlowD while MACD is Bullishly above MACDAverage. On the 60-minute chart, SlowK is Bearishly below SlowD, while MACD is Bearishly below MACDAverage.
Moonshot to $90K? After Bitcoin Upgrade Taproot Activates, Crypto Advocates Expect the Price to Rally
Bitcoin Upgrade Taproot was expected to activate and go live on the main network on Saturday, November 13, 2021, following the lock-in period this past summer. The upgrade is considered one of the largest changes the protocol has seen since Segregated Witness (Segwit) went live in 2017. When activated, Taproot is expected to enhance the digital currency network’s scripting capacity as well as its ability to leverage Schnorr signatures (BIP340) which will be made available. Taproot is also expected to amplify Bitcoin transactions by allowing certain types of complex, ‘smart’ transactions. Schnorr signatures can help transactions to scale as they are more compact than ECDSA. Schnorr can also allow key aggregation, which provides a slew of multi-signature transaction schemes. While Taproot (BIP341) creates new rules for a new Pay-to-Taproot (P2TR) output type, the upgrade is a soft fork and is entirely opt-in like its predecessor Segwit.
“Taproot-Activation” documentation notes state that: “Taproot is a proposed Bitcoin protocol upgrade that can be deployed as a forward-compatible soft fork. By combining the Schnorr signature scheme with MAST (Merklized Alternative Script Tree) and a new scripting language called Tapscript, Taproot will expand Bitcoin’s smart contract flexibility, while offering more privacy by letting users mask complex smart contracts as a regular bitcoin transaction.” Discussions concerning the Taproot upgrade were all over cryptocurrency forums and social media platforms during much of last week. The highly anticipated Taproot upgrade will officially go live at block height 709,632, and the activation of this specific upgrade has caused people to speculate that BTC’s price may spike significantly higher after a successful soft fork. On November 12, a Bitcoin market update blog post published by decentrader.com said that market sentiment could spark a rally after the Taproot upgrade. Despite bitcoin’s (BTC) current volatility after the crypto asset tapped $69K, Decentrader explained the analysts are still “bullish” about BTC’s price rising higher. The market update states: “We remain bullish on high time frames and continue to expect price to rally up to the $85,000 – $90,000 region in the coming weeks, which aligns with the 1.618 fib retracement level.”
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