Weiss Ratings Defends its Decision to Give Bitcoin Only a C+ Grade
Wall Street is known for being a cut throat place where shrewd business people play as tough as possible in order to make gains or their destroy opponents. However, the crypto ecosystem can be at times far more nasty than any other market. One company that had the audacity to rate everyone’s favorite cryptocurrency somewhat poorly learned this recently, but it still stands by the rankings.
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Crypto+
The company obviously felt it needed to counter attack against critics after its rankings caused it to get hurled insults from many cryptocurrency people and opinion leaders on social media. It even suffered a cyber attack which took down the Weiss site temporarily. The 14-page report is meant to answer the outcry by revealing key factors and data behind the rating.
Where is my A?
Aiming to address both investors and developers, the Weiss model combines a number of sub-models: Risk and Reward, adapted from its stock and ETF ratings, plus Fundamentals and Technology, which are unique to cryptocurrencies. Here’s how they determined bitcoin performs on each:
Risk and Reward-“Bitcoin investors have recently made less than altcoin investors, while continuing to experience the risk of extreme volatility.”
Fundamentals-“Due credit is given for adoption and security, but Bitcoin loses points on network congestion with just four transactions per second and high fees of about $10 per transaction. In addition, the top five miners control some 70% of total hashpower, also a negative.”
Technology-“Bitcoin lacks the governance needed for prompt upgrades and is falling behind in a rapidly evolving industry.”
Another criticism that was leveled at the agency is that Weiss overweights price volatility. “Not so,” he says. “Our model accurately reflects an inconvenient truth about the market’s extreme swings. But our ratings are continually updated. If prices stabilize or speed enhancements are rolled out successfully, an upgrade is possible.”
Should cryptocurrency investors even worry about what rankings? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.
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Bitcoin Cash Markets Recover — While Infrastructure Support Increases
This past week bitcoin cash (BCH) markets have been suffering from the bearish sentiment plaguing cryptocurrencies across the board. On February 6 the price of BCH reached a low of $740 per coin but has since bounced back to the $950-1,050 region on Bitstamp Tuesday evening.
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Bitcoin Cash Markets Begin to See Recovery Ahead
This week bitcoin cash markets took a hit as BCH had lost roughly $588 USD (-39%) in value over the past seven days. At the moment the price has rebounded and is coasting along at just between the $950-1,050 zone after bouncing back much of Wednesday’s trading sessions. BCH trade volume has been averaging roughly $650 million to $1 billion over the past week. Exchanges swapping the most bitcoin cash today include Okex, Bitfinex, Hitbtc, GDAX, and Huobi. Currently, the top currencies traded with bitcoin cash include BTC (57%), USD (21%), tether (USDT 11%), the Korean won (4%), and the euro (2%).
New Localbitcoincash Features, Openbazaar Integration, and a Bitcoin Cash SMS Application
Even though markets were down this past week, the bitcoin cash community got a bunch of infrastructure support and new applications. For instance, everyone in the BCH community is talking about a new app called Cointext which aims to create the ability to send bitcoin cash through text (SMS). According to the creators, all texts are on-chain transactions like the tipping platform Chaintip. However, with the platform being so new, some BCH supporters are skeptical of this project being secure when used via text messages.
Another interesting BCH feature announced this week came from the Localbitcoincash exchange which announced it had added skycoin and smartcash services to the platform. The implementation features no fees to these types of trades, explains the exchange developers. “No fee exchange is exactly what it is, it’s totally free, and you can keep exchanging the different cryptocurrencies supported by our platform, and there are no trading fees involved,” Localbitcoincash reveals on February 7.
Just recently the decentralized cryptocurrency infused marketplace Openbazaar integrated bitcoin cash and zcash into the latest 2.1.0 version.
“This release is the first step towards allowing more options for cryptocurrencies in Openbazaar — It includes native support for nodes using one cryptocurrency at a time, bitcoin, bitcoin cash, or zcash,” explains the Openbazaar developers.
Another addition to the BCH infrastructure is the AcceptBitcoin.Cash website has added an adult section to the portal. The developers of the website believe there is a demand for adult merchants to start accepting bitcoin cash. Further, the team said it has seen over 70 submissions since it implemented a request form, and the team added nearly every single merchant to the site in under three weeks of usage.
BCH Supporters Remain Optimistic
In other news this week a fake bitcoin cash token was created on the Omni layer chain. According to reports, the Omni chain’s ability to generate asset tokens was used to create a misleading BCH token. BCH supporters think the token was created to cause confusion while adding to the growing list of scammy snapshot forks that have come into existence over the past few months.
Overall the BCH community is in high spirits even with the past few weeks of bearish market sentiment. The protocol continues to get support nearly every day from exchanges, wallets, and merchants. Bitcoin cash markets are also starting to gather steam again alongside the rest of the cryptocurrencies who got hammered this past weekend.
What do you think about BCH market sentiment, support, and added infrastructure this week? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
Images via Shutterstock, Cointext, Openbazaar, and Acceptbitcoincash.
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Grayscale Plans to Launch a Cryptocurrency ‘Large Cap Fund’
This Wednesday Grayscale Investments, the sponsor of the Bitcoin Trust (OTCQX: GBTC) has announced a new cryptocurrency investment vehicle is coming. The company plans to launch the ‘Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund’ (the “Fund”) that intends to hold the top digital assets within the cryptocurrency economy.
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Grayscale Launches a New Cryptocurrency Fund
“We’re excited to further expand the universe of Grayscale’s product offerings as interest in the digital currency asset class continues to grow,” said Barry Silbert, CEO, and founder of Grayscale Investments.
As a trusted and experienced manager, Grayscale is committed to creating investment structures that are familiar to qualified investors and provide secure access to this emerging asset class.
The Fund Targets 70% Coverage of the Digital Asset Market
The sponsors first funds consisting of ETH and BTC have done phenomenally well following alongside the prices rises of spot markets. When Grayscale launched its first product back in 2013 at the time BTC was averaging $127 per coin and GBTC became one of the first mainstream investment vehicles tied to bitcoin reserves. In July of 2017, the firm initiated its ethereum trust which is framed in a similar fashion. For the new ‘Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund’ the sponsor may also hold cash and assets that arise from forks and airdrops. Shares will reflect the platform Tradeblock’s Digital Asset Reference Rate at 4 pm EDT.
“Through a rules-based portfolio construction process, the Fund targets 70% coverage of the digital asset market — The Fund will be rebalanced on a quarterly basis to remove existing digital assets or include new digital assets in the Fund’s portfolio in accordance with certain criteria established by Grayscale,” explains the announcement.
One Year of Holding and Risk
According to Grayscale the Fund is a Cayman Islands limited liability company but based in the United States. The product is also not registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and is not subject to American based securities laws.
Moreover, Grayscale details that the investment product is “highly speculative in nature,” and the Fund is subject to a one-year holding period. This means investors have to “bear the risks” for an entire year, but after the holding period assets can be “resold without restriction,” Grayscale concludes.
What do you think about Grayscale’s new ‘Digital Large Cap Fund?’ Let us know what you think in the comments below.
Images via Shutterstock, Twitter, and Grayscale.
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Australian High School to Host Information Night on Cryptocurrencies
A surge in the popularity of bitcoin among students has prompted an Australian high school to host an information night designed to educate its students about cryptocurrencies. St. Laurence’s College in Brisbane recently informed the parents of students that it wishes to hold an “educational presentation” in light of an increasing number of students investing in cryptocurrencies.
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Increasing Student Investment Prompts Australian High School to Host Information Night on Cryptocurrencies
The school issued an email stating “While St Laurence’s College has no official stance on this subject it is felt that the boys should be cautioned and educated about these purchases.” The email stated that “The presentation will look at features of cryptocurrencies, the technology underpinning them, and will give some very basic information about the state of the market and ways to keep investments safe,” according to Australian media.
Although the event was originally scheduled to be held on February 2nd, the meeting has since been postponed.
Proposed Information Night Well-Received
Dr. Lee said that “While [teenagers] are quite strong on basic financial literacy skills such as budgeting and interest concepts they may be struggling with more advanced topics like investment.” The professor emphasized the need for teenagers to be educated in “the underlying asset that they are buying into, the technology that supports, the security and those kinds of things” in order to be “fully aware to make informed decisions.”
What do you think of the high schools hope to educate its students regarding cryptocurrencies? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!
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You Can Now Bid for Jamie Dimon Crypto Art Made From Old Credit Cards
“Terrible Store of Value” is a great piece of work if you’re a collector of crypto art that sticks it to the man whilst providing a side order of utility. Formed out of repurposed credit cards and molded in the likeness of Jamie Dimon, who inspired the artwork’s name, the piece is currently up for auction with a reference bid of $15,000. Naturally the auction can be paid in bitcoin and comes with a blockchain verifiable certificate of authenticity.
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SoBs and Their SoV
While Jamie Dimon seems to have softened his stance towards bitcoin, the JP Morgan chief’s most stinging jibes still resonate. The cryptocurrency, he famously opined, is “a terrible store of value”. Given bitcoin’s 65% decline in the last couple of weeks, the Wall Street CEO may have had a point, though that doesn’t diminish the need for cryptocurrencies in any way – it simply suggests they may have more utility as a medium of exchange (MoE), just as they were originally intended.
Regardless of whether you ascribe to the SoV or MoE doctrine, as best exemplified by bitcoin core and bitcoin cash respectively, there’s no disputing the quality of Cryptograffiti’s latest work. The crypto artist, who’s previously created work from Federal Reserve money bags and torn up T&Cs, has used a bank safety deposit box as the canvas for “Terrible Store of Value”. A broken credit card mosaic in the likeness of Jamie Dimon completes the piece.
What are your thoughts on this piece of crypto art? Let us know in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Cryptograffiti.
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Seele ICO Sets Up Emergency Response Team After $1.8m Fraud
One would have hoped that by now investors in Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) would have learned to be more careful who they trust with their money, but the spate of new scams that are reported every week shows this has yet to happen. The latest group to fall for an ICO fraud are Seele investors.
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Seele Scam
The impostor offered group members a private sale of tokens ahead of its official public crowdfund and got them to send their funds to a false wallet. The receiving ethereum address now holds 2,162.49 ether, worth about $1.8 million at the time of the theft.
For the record, the project is described as being “empowered by an up-scalable Neural Consensus protocol for high throughput concurrency among large scale heterogeneous nodes and is able to form unique heterogeneous forest multi-chain ecosystem.”
Emergency Response
Lastly, the promise that although Seele has not started the presale, they “will take responsibilities to minimize the loss of community members by making detailed compensation plans.”
At least the victims in this case have a team they can go to and request compensation for their lost funds. Last week we reported about another ICO which simply disappeared altogether in what is commonly known as an exit scam. The website for an ICO project for fruits and vegetables on a blockchain Prodeum went offline, leaving only a nasty message to investors behind.
Are ICO scams inevitable, or are there steps that can be taken to eliminate fraud? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.
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