Glassnode’s CTO said that only 12% of all circulating BTC is liquid while the rest is in storage. More than 14.4 million BTC (78%) are stored in liquid wallets such as GreyScale’s.

A growing number of institutions are beginning to acquire Bitcoin amid the enthusiasm of the BTC bullish market, which has taken its price above USD 24,000. However, despite acquisitions amounting to hundreds of thousands of units, Glassnode’s CTO said that only 12% of circulating BTC is liquid, while the rest is in storage.

When Satoshi created the Bitcoin protocol, he established that only 21 million BTC will exist. According to Glassnode, of the 18,577,468 existing BTC, only 12% are in liquid institutions such as crypto exchanges.

This figure indicates that there are more than 14.4 million BTC, about 78%, stored in liquid wallets such as GreyScale.

There is a remainder of only 1.1 million liquid BTC, which is equivalent to USD 26.5 billion. This results in a shortage and an expectation of a “liquidity crisis” in the Bitcoin market for all institutions looking to take advantage of the returns that the digital asset provides.

The Glassnode CTO believes that this phenomenon would generate the entry of a growing number of institutions in the short term. Businesses expect the price of BTC to increase over time, so they would not have time to waste. With this, there would be an even greater reduction of that remainder of 1.1 million BTC.

Even though the phrase “liquidity crisis” sounds somewhat negative, most members of the crypto ecosystem consider it a good reason to celebrate. This could lead to an even greater increase in Bitcoin’s price per unit and the great returns that the pioneering cryptocurrency has provided in this eventful year.

There would only be a few years left to be able to mine all the BTC units. However, thanks to the halving events every four years, that would occur in about 120 years. For that reason, Bitcoin will become increasingly scarce, and liquidity problems will cause its price to rise.

More Institutions Arrive and the Price Increases

The institution that has the most BTC in its portfolio worldwide is US technology company MicroStrategy. They have recently acquired another 29,646 BTC since they believe that Bitcoin will continue to provide the best returns.

MicroStrategy CEO Michael J. Saylor said that they have “the opportunity to get better returns and preserve the value of [their] equity over time with Bitcoin than with cash.”

Another case is the UK insurance mutual fund, which revealed that it had bought more than USD 740 million worth of Bitcoin. Like this company, an increasing number of people arrive or enlarge their holdings of Bitcoin units. For that reason, the “liquidity crisis” could worsen, and the price of the world’s first cryptocurrency would continue heading for the moon.

By Alexander Salazar

Form S-1 review is to verify corporate data. The value of the company value was about $ 8 billion in 2018.

The exchange of bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrencies, Coinbase, took the first step for what will be its potential entry to the stock market or Wall Street. The company filed Form S-1 as a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its consideration.

The information saw the light on Thursday by Coinbase after months of rumors that the exchange was getting everything ready for its application to get listed. The company would be considering a direct listing rather than making an initial public offering (IPO).

In the direct listing, there is no creation of new shares. On the contrary, it operates with already existing shares without the participation of intermediaries. This means that investors, promoters, or employees who own shares can sell them directly to the public.

In the case of IPOs, new shares receive issuing. This action requires the participation of an intermediary to approach their distribution among investment banks, stockbrokers, mutual funds, and insurance companies.

“Form S-1 is expected to go into effect after the SEC completes its review process, subject to market and other conditions. This announcement does not constitute an offer to sell or a request for an offer to buy of any security,” this was part of the message Coinbase shared on its blog.

The next steps Coinbase must take to become publicly traded include filing Forms S-2, S-3, and preparing an informational prospectus for investors. This must include information on the issuer, its shareholders, commercial and financial information on the issuer’s business, risk factors, and the destination of the funds from the arrangement.

In the case of the SEC, the SEC’s mission is to evaluate the request and issue a comment letter on the request. In case of notable faults, it will issue a letter of every noted deficiency to the issuer with an explanation of the faults.

The exchange’s request occurs at a historic moment for bitcoin, which this Thursday reached a new top, trading at over $ 23,000 per unit. The overall cryptocurrency market is prospering due to the arrival of institutional investors, pushing the market capitalization to more than $ 660 billion in recent weeks, according to CoinGecko.

The first information about Coinbase’s plans began to spread in July when the Reuters news agency revealed that the exchange was preparing to enter the stock market. At that time, the report said that: with completed procedures, the exchange house would become the first to make a public listing.

It is important to mention that, before the financing that took place in 2018 by Coinbase, the company had a valuation of about 8,000 million dollars. It is currently one of the bitcoin exchanges with the highest volume, showing a trade up to 129 pairs of cryptocurrencies.

Valuation could amount to USD 28,000 million

According to a recent report by the Messari firm, the entry of Coinbase to Wall Street could take its worth as a company to about 28,000 million dollars. For analyst Mira Christanto, Coinbase is one of the most “prominent exchanges with a daily volume of one billion dollars”.

The study bases its argument on a data model that relates to the commercial segments of the company and also includes: commissions for exchanges, fees for custody services, debit cards, and others. According to the researcher, the exchange’s volume comes from institutional clients, but the average holding per client is $ 703.

Concerning custody services, these remained at about $ 7 billion in 2019 but grew to at least $ 20 billion in 2020, which speaks of the growth of the exchange house and the interest that the exchange continues to arouse.

By: Jenson Nuñez.

Antonopoulos talked about two big risks: phishing and the exchange of SIM cards. The Bitcoin evangelist doubts that hackers will conduct physical attacks against affected users.

In the wake of the leakage of data of more than a million users of Ledger wallets, many of them are being victims of phishing and extortion. Bitcoin evangelist Andreas Antonopoulos talked about this on his YouTube channel.

Antonopoulos indicated that “the objective is to help people know how to react amid stress to get out of a panic attack and learn something that everyone can apply for the future.”

In that sense, he talked about how to counteract the “major risks” and the “minor risks” that this data leak implies. Among the major risks, he mentioned phishing attacks and SIM swapping. Concerning the minor risks, he included physical assaults and possible updates to the ledger.

MyEtherWallet co-founder Taylor Monahan and popular cryptocurrency podcaster Peter McCormack discussed actions to take to avoid the major risks. To prevent phishing, they advised users to be aware of the e-mails that they receive.

They say that “it is necessary to check them well before opening them or clicking on a link.” Those who hacked into Ledger user data already resorted to this threat through a campaign last October. Since that time, users have been receiving e-mails and text messages with misleading content and links.

Other members of the ecosystem have posted many of the recommendations that appear in the video, especially those to check the domains of the links and never reveal the seed or private keys. It would be suitable to change the e-mail or password.

Antonopoulos agrees with Ledger that cold wallets are still secure, so hackers cannot gain access to user funds. “You do not have to throw away your cold wallet, you do not need to do that,” recommends the speaker.

SIM swapping is another relevant risk since hackers request telephone companies, through deception, to assign a phone number to another SIM card that they manage. Monahan talked about a personal experience and recalled that hackers have accessed people’s wallets using this strategy. It is possible to avoid this attack by changing SIMs and updating or implementing the two-factor authentication (2FA) mechanism.

Regarding minor risks, the experts consider that there is little probability that direct attacks by hackers against the physical integrity of users will occur.

They believe that threats to disclose confidential information and the demand for payments in Bitcoin to avoid physical attacks are part of phishing. “They try to scare people into feeling forced to pay them with Bitcoin, but they are unlikely to risk making these attacks.”

This is part of so-called “social engineering”, with which cybercriminals seek to get people to deliver sensitive information, without realizing it or under coercion.

Victims of Data Breach

So far there are around 300,000 people affected by Ledger’s data hacking. This group is on a list of one million users, whose information first appeared on dark web sites and then on the surface Internet.

That data includes phone numbers, e-mail addresses, home addresses, and names. Most of those people bought the devices from Ledger stores, where they gave that information, in early 2020.

According to Antonopoulos, some rumored that there are other people, who bought Ledger wallets after the hack, who were also victims of the hack.

E-mail is the main digital identity available at this time, according to the specialists. They say that it is impossible to avoid handing over such data, given that many services do not work without compiling at least one mailing list.

Thus, the data breach is one of the top risks that users currently run, say Jameson Lopp (co-founder and CTO of Casa) and McCormack. All companies, not only those linked to the cryptocurrency sector, are at risk of having this problem.

Despite this, Ledger users express their discomfort, threatening to take legal action against the French company. Ledger recently announced that the victims will not receive any compensation.

By Alexander Salazar

Former Bitcoin developer Martti Malmi said how he sold his coins at ridiculous prices in 2009 and 2010. He considers that not all was a loss, and he does not regret anything.

On his Twitter account, former Bitcoin developer Martti Malmi said that he prematurely sold 55,000 BTC. He mined the virtual coins from his laptop between 2009 and 2010, when their price was close to zero. If he had kept them, his current fortune would be around USD 1.3 billion.

Malmi says that his lack of experience at the time led him to suffer that loss. At the end of 2009, he liquidated 5,050 BTC at a value of USD 5. Likewise, he lost another 30,000 coins in an exchange, “when there was still no established exchange rate.”

He lost the rest of the coins in 2012 when he must have sold them at a price of about USD 5. He explains on the social network that he sold them, although he had decided to hoard them for holding. Unfortunately, he was having a hard time getting a good job at the time.

Not All Was a Loss for the Former Bitcoin Developer

Despite losing such an amount of Bitcoin, former developer Martti Malmi says that he did not lose all of them. “Since then, I have kept my variable amount of savings in BTC. It is not much, but it is still a good advance over the years,” he explained.

On his account, he states that he does not consider that he suffered a loss in the strict sense of the word. He believes that losing that amount of Bitcoin is not the same as having USD 1 billion and losing it overnight. From his point of view, “it is not as bad as it sounds.”

Of the amount of Bitcoin that he sold, the former developer explains that he allocated 10,000 BTC to the purchase of an apartment in Finland. That has happened to a large percentage of early users of the cryptocurrency that Satoshi Nakamoto created. The most memorable event of all is the one that people remember as “Bitcoin Pizza Day”.

Malmi comments that he cannot consider owning an apartment at 22 as a misstep. Of course, he explains that “this is probably the most expensive apartment in the world.”

No Regrets

If the former Bitcoin developer had kept his 55,000 BTC, his fortune would amount to USD 1.3 billion today. However, he explains that he “has no serious regrets.”

He says that not making a lot of money is part of Finnish culture and explains that he accidentally accumulated that amount of Bitcoin. That happened because he had decided to contribute to the computing power of his laptop as a “by-product of Satoshi” to allow others to connect.

Looking at them out of context, the losses of early crypto users are huge. At that time, they lost just a handful of US dollars, but the magnitude of Bitcoin’s rise has changed the parameters over time.

Most of these users do not regret the losses of the first days as they kept a certain amount of coins. Besides, they gained the necessary experience not to repeat the same mistake. For that reason, many of them recommend saving in that cryptocurrency to obtain profit in the future.

By Alexander Salazar

Elon Musk once again influenced the small market of DOGE, since he caused the crypto meme to take a 20% upward leap. Several analysts and traders believe that this jump is heralding the bullish season for altcoins.

In recent days, Bitcoin began to correct, dragging much of the crypto market with it. Thanks to a Twitter message from Elon Musk, DOGE jumped by 20% higher in a few hours.

Several months ago, the CEO of Tesla was tweeting about the world of cryptocurrencies, as he often does. On more than one occasion, he has mentioned DOGE, which always leads this crypto meme to volatile bullish jumps.

Elon is so influential over the crypto meme due to its small capitalization of around USD 445 million.

Attention is one of the main drivers of volatility in this ecosystem. When a small-cap crypto receives a significant increase in attention, its price can rise rapidly.

On this occasion, the upward jump occurred after Elon Musk began posting several Twitter messages about Bitcoin. One of the tweets was a meme, and another sentence: “Bitcoin is my safe word.”

However, the one that caused frenzy in the DOGE market was one where he wrote a single word: “DOGE.” That tweet has over 11,600 retweets and 175,000 likes at the time of writing this article.

Undoubtedly, that is a great promotion for a rather small crypto compared to the leaders of the ecosystem.

The Crypto Meme’s Jump Heralds a Bullish Altcoin Season

The DOGE jump is signaling the start of an altseason, according to various analysts and traders. They state that this was generally the case in the past and the current moment seems to be quite in line with this view.

Bitcoin has been going through intraday supports, at times losing the fight to conquer USD 25,000. This will likely allow other market participants to take advantage.

It seems increasingly likely that a major correction of the main cryptocurrency will occur. After being on the rise for 100 days, it has hardly taken small breaths. In any case, this is the typical scenario in which investors should buy daily, given the dominant bullish force.

DOGE’s Weekly Chart

When technically analyzing the price of this cryptocurrency, it is possible to notice that it has had a bullish behavior from the weekly chart. DOGE has experienced steady lows and increasingly higher highs.

Momentum is currently developing and it is challenging the USD 0.0054 mark, resistance that it should break to cast significant bullish signals for the medium and long term. At the moment, it is the scenario that is most likely to occur.

Daily Chart

In the daily time frame of Dogecoin vs the US dollar, it is also possible to notice a bullish succession, which the resistance at USD 0.0054 hinders.

The price of DOGE has been correcting after the jump that Elon Musk promoted. However, if the previous trend continues, any pullback should be able to arouse new interest in discount prices.

By Alexander Salazar

Some of those affected have reported that they are being extorted. The published data would cover more than 1 million users of the wallet.

The dissemination of the users´ personal data of the hardware wallet, Ledger, is getting more and more controversial; on Reddit and Twitter, those affected by the theft and leakage of information announced legal action against the manufacturer.

The company warned this Sunday about the publication of the data that suffered an attack in July, the attack aimed right on the database of the marketing department. Ledger’s apology messages appeared not to be enough to reassure the affected traders.

One of the injured users, identified on Twitter as @DuckHodl, assured that he is about to initiate a legal process against Ledger. In his message, he stated: “I will take legal action against you very soon.”

The operator received more people from different parts of the world who agreed to join forces for what would be a class-action lawsuit. The university student @Abdi_Sued spoke from Europe and replied: «Anyone from Germany who wants to take legal action against them? The more the merrier… at least for the demand. See you soon, guys.

Some operators requested advice on how to proceed legally in this type of case. This was made known by @EbreyGrant who revealed that he has several Ledger wallets and that he now does not know if his funds are at risk or not.

“Can someone keep updating me about the lawsuit as well? I also have a pretty reasonable amount in ledgers, and now I’m not sure what to do, almost afraid to open them. Does anyone have any advice as it would be very well received?.” Said a Ledger user, @EbreyGrant on Twitter.

The concern of the victims gets even worse after cases of extortion began to appear as reports on Reddit. Users revealed that they were receiving emails and text messages from unknown persons demanding ransoms of $500 to avoid an attack.

One of the threatening messages says: «I am not afraid to invade your house. I do not want to make this more difficult than it has to be. I’m offering you $ 500 (it should not be a lot for you considering the recent raise) to leave you alone. “

Data leakage and extortion cases are the most debated topics this Monday in the bitcoin ecosystem. Even renowned Bitcoin speaker, writer, and evangelist Andreas Antonopoulos will host a live broadcast soon to discuss the issue more profoundly.

The data of more than 1 million users of Ledger wallets was and remains in the hands of hackers. The hacked information includes emails, phone numbers, names, and residence addresses of users.

By: Jenson Nuñez.