Ethereum (ETH) Price Downside Thrust Possible Before 2020 Reversal

Ethereum is slowly moving lower towards the $125 support area against the US Dollar. The price is likely to extend losses as long as it is below the $132 resistance. There is a key declining channel forming with resistance near $131 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD (data feed via Kraken). ETH could decline in the near term before it starts a strong rally towards $150 and $175. Ethereum price is correcting lower versus the US Dollar, while bitcoin is consolidating. ETH price must stay above $120 this week to…

Worst Bitcoin Price Prediction of 2019

To prophesize is a natural human tendency. Humanity applauds those who make the right prediction and also love to hate on people when they miss the mark, especially by ridiculously large amounts. For many years, the crypto industry has been prone to high fluctuations and volatility. Nobody can actually predict what will unfold in the upcoming seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months… let alone the years.  Once when everyone predicted that Bitcoin (BTC) would die, its price nearly hit $20,000. Conversely, when people thought that it would hit $1 million,…

Mike Mayo of Wells Fargo Says ‘We Are Living in the Golden Decade of Banks and Technology’

Wells Fargo analyst Mike Mayo announced during a Dec. 30 CNBC news segment that “this is the golden decade of banks and technology.” Mayo explained that while the 1990’s had record bank consolidation (banking businesses merge with each other), systems were never integrated. He then explains that in the “aughts” decade – the 2000s – banks saw excessive growth, which unfortunately ended in “tears” due to the financial crisis of 2007-2009. Mayo pointed out that the financial crisis was cleaned up this decade, twenty-five years after national banking first permitted banks…

Chrome Browser Extension Ethereum Wallet Injects Malicious JavaScript To Steal Data

An Ethereum (ETH) wallet known as “Shitcoin Wallet” is reportedly injecting malicious javascript code from open browser windows to steal data from its users. On Dec. 30, cybersecurity and anti-phishing expert Harry Denley warned about the potential breach in a tweet: – Source Twitter According to Denley’s tweet, Chrome browser crypto wallet software Shitcoin Wallet is targeting Binance, MyEtherWallet and other well-known websites containing users’ passwords and private keys to cryptocurrency. The Shitcoin Wallet Chrome extension – ExtensionID: ckkgmccefffnbbalkmbbgebbojjogffn – works by downloading a number of javascript files from a remote…

Op Ed: Three Bitcoin Trends That Left Their Mark on 2019

It has been an eventful year for bitcoin. Digital Assets Data, which records, collates and analyzes cryptocurrency and blockchain transaction, value and popularity information, has identified a few essential trends as 2019 comes to an end. Here are three bitcoin trends that we’ve been following this year. Bitcoin as Digital Gold To begin with, anyone interested in bitcoin has, at one time or another, had to explain it to someone entirely unfamiliar with cryptocurrencies and digital assets; many of these explanations relate bitcoin to gold. The familiar comparison isn’t a…

Tom Shaughnessy and Jordan Clifford on Layer 1 Wars, Token Economics and a Shift to Applications

Tom Shaughnessy is a co-founder of Delphi Digital as well as the host of the Chain Reaction podcast. Jordan Clifford is managing director of Scalar Capital. In this end of year interview for The Breakdown, Tom argues that the big story of 2019 was actually the fact that it was all about “quiet” building. When it comes to 2020, however, watch out for fireworks. Tom predicts we’ll see a major increase in the Layer 1 smart contract platform wars, as well as growth in the perceived importance of token economic…

Vexed Tech Entrepreneur Turns Bitcoin Hacker, Steals €1M+ from Ex-Colleagues

A French tech entrepreneur has been nabbed for allegedly stealing over 1 million euros in Bitcoin (BTC) from his former colleagues in what is purported to have been an “act of revenge.” On Dec. 22, the unnamed man was indicted by a judge in Paris on charges of theft, money laundering and fraudulently accessing data processing systems, local newspaper Le Parisien reported on Dec. 28. “Washing away the humiliation” The suspect’s motivation for the theft — his spoils totaling 182 Bitcoin (BTC), worth ~$1.3 million by press time — is…

In Race for 2030 Currency Supremacy, the Dollar Is Its Own Worst Enemy

The U.S. dollar’s century-long reign of the world economy faces a threat over the coming decade – as China’s renminbi strives to become its successor, as some prominent central bankers call for a more sustainable global monetary regime and as cryptocurrencies pose a radically alternative model.  But as the 2020s begin, the dollar looks as strong as ever in global capital markets. As of Dec. 30, an index of the U.S. dollar’s value is up 24 percent over the past decade, even as the Federal Reserve pumped more than $2…

Inside the Osaka Conference Where Crypto Got Serious About FATF’s ‘Travel Rule’

This post is part of CoinDesk’s 2019 Year in Review, a collection of 100 op-eds, interviews and takes on the state of blockchain and the world. Leah Callon-Butler is the director of Emfarsis, a consulting firm focused on the role of technology in advancing economic development in Asia. There he was, belting out Fats Waller jazz vibes like it was nobody’s business: Roger Wilkins, the former president of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).  We’d just completed a practice run for the next day’s V20 Summit, and while the rest…