Kraken published its “Crypto Sentiment” survey for the second half of 2020. Ether (ETH), Monero (XMR), and Ripple (XRP) are among the favorite altcoins.

According to the “Crypto Sentiment” survey for the second half of 2020, 66% of a group of Kraken customers are bullish on the Bitcoin market by 2021. The respondents mention that they expect the price of Bitcoin to reach a high of about USD 250,000 next year.

The survey results indicated an average price of USD 36,602 for Bitcoin and USD 1,454 for ETH in 2021. This implies that there is an expectation of a 122% return for Bitcoin in 2021, compared to the price of USD 16,500 that the pioneering cryptocurrency had when Kraken applied the survey.

The report indicates that the respondents seem more optimistic about the evolution of Ether’s price in 2021. Taking into account the price of USD 460 that ETH had at the time of the survey, the participants believe that the return for Ether will be on average 215% in 2021.

Guidelines for Trading Bitcoin

The Kraken survey also sought to study the sources of information, resources, and tools that guide market participants in making decisions when buying or selling Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The participants chose, on average, three sources of information.

Concerning the search for essential information, influencers and experts occupy first place, possibly because the respondents consider the issue of cryptocurrencies complex. For that reason, they use social networks and the media to identify specialists and other sources of information that can help them clarify concepts of cryptocurrencies.

Concerning the resources and tools that the respondents use the most to obtain such information, they favored the fundamental parameters of the different networks, professionals and traders, research studies, and technical analysis, among others. They do not consider the media in general to be a remarkable resource or tool in the search for specific technical information.

Impact of Traditional Markets on Cryptocurrencies

The survey participants also had to say whether the global economy and traditional markets had affected the cryptocurrency market in the past six months. Regarding the responses of the second half, Kraken highlights the difference compared to those of the first half.

In the survey of the first half, the respondents saw less influence from traditional markets and the overall picture on the market of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general. In the second half, 70% of the participants believe that there is a relationship.

This reflects a direct influence of the financial markets crash in March this year, which included the cryptocurrency market. The subsequent recovery of the different markets led to a coupling between Bitcoin and traditional assets never seen before.

Although a recent decoupling between the Bitcoin and gold markets took place, there were record values in the correlation between the two assets months after the crash.

Ranking of Altcoins

The most popular altcoins include Polkadot (DOT), which ranked second behind Ether (ETH). DOT emerged in August 2020, after years of development, and is now among the top ten altcoins by market capitalization. Its popularity is due to its community, developer support, existing projects, interoperability, and technology, among other things, according to the respondents.

In the Kraken survey of the first half, LINK ranked eighth but moved to third place in the second survey due to factors such as community, growth, scalability, and utility. Altcoins associated with DeFi platforms such as Synthetix (SNX), Uniswap (UNI), Aave (AAVE), and yearn.finance (YFI) were also favorites in the most recent semi-annual survey.

By Alexander Salazar

More than 25% of those who have not yet invested in Bitcoin said that they want to do so. Only 5% of the respondents considered Bitcoin to be a scam.

The future of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in the United States looks promising; this is according to the results from a survey that SatoshiLabs conducted in the country.

On its blog, the company posted that about half (46%), out of a total of more than 1,000 respondents, claimed to own Bitcoin or some cryptocurrencies on the market.

At the time of the survey, the researchers wanted to know whether hypothetical mass adoption is already underway or whether there are still some obstacles to overcome. They believe that the results of the consultation could show that there is currently a tipping point for the future of large-scale adoption, given the widespread interest and awareness.

Among those respondents who do not own Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, about 27% are willing to buy these types of assets in the future. Meanwhile, almost half of them would like to learn more about them before investing. Just 21% said that they had no interest in acquiring cryptocurrencies.

The small number of people who still see Bitcoin as a scam is a fact that SatoshiLabs found revealing. More than 500 respondents said that they had not yet invested in cryptocurrencies, but less than 5% of them had a negative position on digital currencies.

According to the study, the responses to the interviews suggest a promising future and few obstacles for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. However, nearly 40% of the respondents pointed to the complexity of Bitcoin as its main obstacle to mass adoption.

“More than half (51.8%) considered that they are too difficult to use or that there are too few opportunities to use them,” adds the document that SatoshiLabs published.

Possibility of Imminent Mass Adoption of Bitcoin

According to the survey that SatoshiLabs conducted, the point of view of potential users seems to indicate a promising future for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The researchers explained that this positive sentiment towards cryptocurrencies coincides with the almost widespread view that cryptocurrencies are a “genuine solution” and a “legitimate alternative” against the US dollar.

Institutional interest, which has reached new levels in recent weeks, seems to accompany this stance of acceptance. Companies have invested part of their wealth in Bitcoin, at the same time that a growing number of personalities in the financial world see a promising future for the cryptocurrency that Satoshi Nakamoto created.

Payment processing company PayPal has incorporated them into its services, and one of the world’s leading financial index providers, the S&P Dow Jones Indices, recently announced that it will launch a service aimed at analyzing cryptocurrencies.

In recent days, market analyst Willy Woo made an extreme prediction regarding Bitcoin. According to his calculations, if the current rate of adoption continues, around 30% of the population of the world will have Bitcoin within four years.

Although SatoshiLabs applied the survey to a small sample of the population, the results point in the same optimistic direction that Woo outlined in his analysis.

By Alexander Salazar

The company has accumulated 40,824 BTC since it started its investments in Bitcoin. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) received the notification about the operation.

In recent days, the American business intelligence company MicroStrategy made a third million-dollar purchase of Bitcoin (BTC). On this occasion, the firm invested the amount of USD 50 million in cash, according to its founder and CEO, Michael Saylor.

On his Twitter account, the executive revealed that they bought a total of 2,574 BTC. This confirms the great interest that the corporation has shown in investments in the pioneering cryptocurrency.

“MicroStrategy has purchased about 2,574 BTC for USD 50 million in cash, in accordance with its Treasury Reserve Policy, at an approximate average price of USD 19,427 per unit. Now we have about 40,824 BTC,” Saylor posted on the social network. The message already has more than 13,000 likes, 3,000 retweets, and 1,000 comments.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as a regulator of the US financial sector, received the notification about MicroStrategy’s purchase, according to an attached document that Saylor shared. W. Ming Shao, who serves as MicroStrategy’s Senior Executive Vice President and General Counsel, appears as a signatory to the text that the SEC has also released on its website.

MicroStrategy’s strategy is striking as the price of Bitcoin has been flirting with its all-time high for several weeks. In other words, the company seems not to be paying much attention to the price of the cryptocurrency on the market but accumulating Bitcoin, regardless of its price. At the time of writing this article, the price of BTC remains above the USD 19,000 barrier.

By multiplying the amount of Bitcoin that MicroStrategy acquired by the current price, it is possible to determine that the company holds USD 780 million worth of BTC in its treasury.

MicroStrategy and its Approach to Bitcoin

In August, the corporation began to invest in Bitcoin by acquiring a total of 21,454 BTC for USD 250 million. A month later, they made a second purchase, this time of 16,000 BTC, for USD 175 million. When adding the last amount, the company exhibits a global investment of USD 475 million.

By saying that Bitcoin already has global acceptance and architectural resilience, Saylor himself proves that he defends his position on the pioneering cryptocurrency. The executive considers that these elements “are persuasive evidence of its superiority as an asset class for those who they are seeking a long-term store of value.”

Until now, operations with Bitcoin have brought good financial results to the company. MicroStrategy made more profit with Bitcoin in two months, taking into account the first two purchases, than with its service in three years.

The most recent transaction that MicroStrategy made is in line with growing institutional investment in Bitcoin. In the last 18 months, companies have become closer to the Bitcoin ecosystem. Those that have made their Bitcoin investments public include Grayscale, Galaxy Digital, Square, and Stone Ridge Asset Management.

By Alexander Salazar

Woo believes that that will only happen if the current rate of adoption continues. Based on the percentage Woo predicts, more than 2 billion people will have BTC in 2024.

The analyst specializing in Bitcoin metrics, Willy Woo, estimates that 30% of the world’s population could have Bitcoin (BTC) within four years. According to his calculations, that will happen if the current rate of increase in the cryptocurrency’s adoption continues.

His estimates indicate that Bitcoin adoption has doubled every year at a rate of 2.2x. In a post on his Twitter account, Woo stated that this is what has happened in the last 10 years.

Woo compared this data to “Moore’s Law”, which stipulates a biannual doubling of the computational capabilities of much of the technological advances in recent decades. This law on the growth of technological capabilities has been achieved to date.

The United Nations (UN) estimates that there will be more than 8 billion people in the world by 2024. In other words, Woo’s calculations suggest that 2.4 billion would have BTC by then.

Besides, the analyst compares the adoption curve of Bitcoin to those of the Internet, mobile telephony, and PayPal’s digital payment system. In all those cases, the adoption of those products has occurred at a much slower rate than that of Bitcoin. That is particularly true for direct transactions on the blockchain.

Concerning the rate of adoption of exchanges, it has been lower. However, it also has a steeper growth slope than the rest of the products that Willy Woo mentioned in his analysis.

Banks and Institutions Give Greater Visibility to Bitcoin

In addition to the bullish rise in the price of Bitcoin in recent months, the arrival of large investments from new institutional players seems to be driving the adoption of Bitcoin. That is what some people in the Bitcoin environment have reported.

Reputable platforms that have started paying more attention to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are joining the new investors. Among the former is precisely PayPal, one of the payment systems that Woo compared.

After having held a position against the pioneering cryptocurrency, PayPal announced the incorporation of Bitcoin and other digital assets into its payments service. That could give greater exposure to Bitcoin to more than 300 million people worldwide.

PayPal CEO, Dan Schulman, said that the arrival of Bitcoin on his platform will accelerate its adoption as a means of payment. In addition to the millions of users that PayPal has, more than 28 million businesses currently accept it.

Willy Woo has recently been very optimistic about the future of Bitcoin. At the end of 2019, the analyst already predicted that the price of the foremost cryptocurrency in the market would reach new all-time highs this year.

Woo most recently stated that an even higher increase could drive the price of BTC above USD 200,000 by the year 2021.

By Alexander Salazar

After years of extradition debates, Bitcoin (BTC) launderer Alexander Vinnik has finally been sentenced to five years in prison by a French court.

According to a December 7 report, Vinnik received a sentence to five years in prison for “money laundering as part of an organized criminal group and for providing false information about the origin of the profits”, in addition to a fine. 100,000 euros (or 121,000 US dollars)

According to reports from the BBC, the court partially dropped the charges related to the ransomware known as Locky. At press time, online reports do not specify whether Vinnik’s sentence is related to his alleged leading role in the now-defunct crypto exchange BTC-e.

Vinnik formerly denied his involvement in BTC-e, claiming he was a simple employee. He said that his monthly salary in the BTC-e reached around 10,000 euros. Vinnik is allegedly behind an international money laundering scam that processed a figure that estimates more than $ 4 billion of capital flow through BTC-e.

Alias “Mr. Bitcoin” in the crypto world, Vinnik received extradition to France in 2018 on charges of fraud and money laundering.

French prosecutors say Vinnik was one of the creators of malicious software called “Locky” that was sent via email. If downloaded, the recipient’s data is encrypted, and they are asked to pay a ransom in bitcoin to release it.

A series of attacks of this type against French companies and organizations between 2016 and 2018 led to 20 victims paying ransom requests issued in bitcoin, one of the most used cryptocurrencies, through BTC-e, one of the biggest digital currency exchanges in the world.

At his trial, Vinnik’s main line of defense was that he was just a technical trader following the instructions of the directors of BTC-e.

The court convicted Vinnik of money laundering but found insufficient evidence to convict him of extortion, and he was arrested before the 10-year jail term and 750,000 euros in fines that prosecutors had requested.

One of his French lawyers, Ariane Zimra, said that his conviction for money laundering “does not make sense”, arguing that cryptocurrency is not legally considered money.

Timeline of Vinnik’s prosecution

In July 2017, Greek police arrested Vinnik during a vacation with his family in Ouranoupoli. It took about a two-year legal battle that has kept Vinnik in jail while the agreements regarding the extradition settled for good, and he received the proper criminal charges.

After his arrest, the U.S. filed an extradition request and appeared to do the process successfully by pushing for Vinnik’s transfer stateside. Officials in Moscow joined the fight by requesting Vinnik’s extradition to Russia in September of the same year.

By 2018, France also joined the contend, turning the wheel to the case and turning it into a diplomatic three-way tussle. There is also an assassination plot with suspected Russian criminals reportedly intended to prevent Vinnik’s return to Russia.

In 2019, Greek authorities finally agreed and moved forward in the case of extradition of Vinnik to France to await his trial. Vinnik’s new phase began with his extradition to France with leveled money laundering and conspiracy charges against him.

According to a December 7, 2020 report from the Novaya Gazeta, Vinnik has been sentenced to five years in prison for money laundering as part of an organized criminal group.

By: Jenson Nuñez.

The project will be tentatively complete in 2022, according to its roadmap. All three development phases could extend before moving from PoW to PoS.

The recent activation of the Beacon Chain is the first step towards the arrival of Ethereum 2.0. This raised the curtain on what will be a major migration in the network’s consensus mechanism. What happened on December 1^st is a link in a long chain of implementations to evaluate before its integration.

As a network to register and manage validating nodes, it would be possible to illustrate Beacon Chain as the conception of a new life that still needs to go through many development stages to be born.

Ethereum 2.0 will have three implementation phases: phase 0, phase 1, and phase 2. According to the roadmap, the process could end in 2022. However, it will possibly extend for a longer time.

Ethereum is in a transition from Proof of Work (PoW), as the base algorithm of its operation, to Proof of Stake (PoS). For years, the community that brought this project to life has discussed the possible changes, their benefits, and the time to achieve the objectives.

Developer Vitalik Buterin, Cofounder of Ethereum, recently shared an update to the intricate roadmap, known as Serenity that awaits Ethereum 2.0.

On his Twitter account, Buterin said that the roadmap that he made in March was updated with very rough and approximate progress bars. These showed the progress and some of the recent adjustments to the roadmap itself. There have been many achievements, but a lot of work is still necessary.

Buterin shows that the progress towards Ethereum 2.0 occurs in parallel with new improvements on the current Ethereum blockchain. The section for the new version of the network shows the preparation of the path for the shard chains (groups of nodes validating in parallel), new tests, and implementations.

Ethereum 2.0 Implementation Phases

According to data from ConsenSys, the project incubator on Ethereum, the deployment will occur in at least three phases. Here the question arises about what each phase comprises and what its execution time is.

Phase 0 has already started with the activation of the Beacon Chain. This will take control of the validating nodes and will launch the Proof-of-Stake mechanism.

To become a validator, the operator must risk 32 ethers (ETH) in a smart contract. However, he will not be able to withdraw them for at least two years when both networks join. When the integration process is complete, operators can have the funds along with their incentives.

Once phase 0 is consolidated, phase 1 would start in 2021. At this stage, shard chains will be the protagonists with an implementation that would divide the validating nodes into smaller groups. The nodes would work in parallel and not sequentially. A total of 64 different chains would share data verification and settlement functions.

By doing a relevant assessment of phase 1, the third phase (called phase 2) would come. According to ConsenSys, this is the least defined stage of the project, which will probably be ready by 2022. At this point, there would already be full integration of both networks and final disposal of the Proof-of-Work method.

“This phase will involve adding Ether accounts, allowing transfers and withdrawals, implementing crossed transactions and calls for smart contracts. In addition to building runtime environments to develop scalable applications on Ethereum 2.0, this will take the chain from Ethereum 1.0 to Ethereum 2.0 so that the Proof of Work will finally stop working,” the development company explained.

If there are no technical complications, and if there is a consensus among all participants, the activation of Ethereum 2.0 would be complete in 2022. However, the integration of the new PoS mechanism will likely occur later.

By Alexander Salazar