The Bearish Market Does Not Stop the Number of Bitcoin Holders from Increasing

Alexander Salazar
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The Bearish Market Does Not Stop the Number of Bitcoin Holders from Increasing

The number of addresses does not imply new users, as an individual may have various addresses while several people may use only one. The rising number of Bitcoin HODLers accumulate a significant share of all holders, although they have recently suffered losses.

Although the price of Bitcoin (BTC) has kept dropping for months, its adoption has not slowed. On-chain data indicate that the number of addresses has risen since the peak of the crypto market in November.

The Number of Addresses Does Not Mean There Are More Holders

According to the crypto intelligence platform IntoTheBlock, around 41.9 million addresses have a balance on the Bitcoin network. That number is just below the all-time high of 42.07 million registered addresses at the beginning of August.

Despite the bearish market, the number of Bitcoin holders has increased to over 42 million addresses, 4.5 million more than in 2021.

However, the number of addresses does not necessarily mean that there are new users. An individual may use various addresses for security reasons, while several people may use only one.

Some wallet providers have multi-address accounts on their systems by default. The wallet generates a new address for the user each time they select receive on their accounts. It aims to increase on-chain privacy by making it harder to associate their payments with their identity.

The ratio of active Bitcoin addresses with balances has been just 2.36% over the last week, 12% lower than in 2013.

After reaching their peak in 2021, daily active addresses have been around 1 million.

The Distribution of Bitcoin

According to IntoTheBlock, retail investors now concentrate 89.6% of the ownership of Bitcoin.

Retail holders are those owning less than 0.1% of the supply, equivalent to 19,000 BTC. That is more than the amount that billionaire businessman and investor Michael Saylor has hoarded.

The data indicate that HODLers, the addresses holding their coins for over one year, are the most common (29.78 million). Cruise Ships keep their holdings between 1 and 12 months (14.85 million), while Merchants do it for one month or less (2.33 million).

The number of HODLers seems to rise steadily and accumulate a significant share of all holders. Meanwhile, Bitcoin price cycles usually allow Merchants to reach highs and lows.

Data from Glassnode indicate that long-term Bitcoin holders have recently suffered losses due to the bearish market. However, they believe its price will eventually recover and bring them significant profits.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin is trading at around USD 20,096 and has accumulated a 1.0% gain over the last 24 hours. While its trading volume is above USD 29.67 billion, its market capitalization is about 385.23 billion, according to CoinGecko.

The relevance of Bitcoin in the global economic system is increasingly evident, which long-term holders know well. Even though the overall crypto market is amid a bearish trend, they have not stopped buying it. It is a matter of time before seeing how the market influences the price of the pioneering cryptocurrency.

By Alexander Salazar

Crypto Companies Raising Big Money Despite Bear Market

Audy Castañeda
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Crypto Companies Raising Big Money Despite Bear Market

Venture capital investment in crypto firms is on a roll.

Institutional funds continue to flow into the crypto space as traditional and crypto firms look to gain strength in the bear market.

As retail investors dump crypto, institutional investors are piling into the space and see it as an opportunity to determine their digital asset strategy ahead of the next bull market.

Two trends seem to be emerging: increasing crypto-focused venture capital investments and more traditional asset managers giving institutional clients access to crypto assets.

Following the $720 million fundraising from the New York Digital Currency Group, Brevan Howard Digital and Morgan Creek Digital recently led a $40 million funding round for video game company Horizon Blockchain Games.

Toronto-based Horizon will use the funds to build its Sequence video game development platform, Niftyswap, an NFT marketplace, and a digital trading card game.

Cryptocurrency Companies Make Significant Investments

Brevan Howard Digital provides institutional investors with access to crypto assets, while Morgan Creek Digital counts Solana, 1inch Network, and Coinbase as part of its investment portfolio. Video game giants Ubisoft and Take-Two Interactive Software were also part of the fundraising event.

As of the end of September 2022, NYDIG raised approximately $720 million for a Bitcoin fund, according to an SEC filing.

The company behind the NFT Doodles collection raised $54 million from Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s venture capital firm Seven Seven Six and FTX Ventures to fund music and gaming lines of business.

Mining company Rhodium Enterprises recently announced that it plans to raise funds through a reverse merger with SilverSun Technologies, a company that acquires and develops technology and software companies.

Following the merger, SilverSun shareholders will be granted an approximately 3% equity interest in Rhodium.

BlackRock Backs Cryptocurrencies, a Signal for TradFi Companies

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, recently unveiled plans to launch a Bitcoin spot private trust. Private trusts are based on the price of an underlying asset and are listed on a public stock exchange.

Investors can buy shares of the trust using a brokerage account, which eliminates the need for them to hold Bitcoin directly.

The trust company takes money from institutional investors and buys BTC or another crypto asset, which it stores in a fund. This makes the institution the holder of the digital asset instead of the investors.

BlackRock’s recent partnership with Coinbase is designed to enable its institutional investors to access products from Coinbase’s Prime offering using BlackRock’s Aladdin asset management software.

Coinbase Prime, which is an institutional prime brokerage platform, serves around 13,000 institutional clients.

For the money manager, the association is based on greater institutional demand. Joseph Chalom, Global Head of Strategic Ecosystem Partnerships at BlackRock, said: “Our institutional clients are increasingly interested in gaining exposure to digital asset markets and are focused on how to efficiently manage the operational life cycle of these assets.”

The British company Abrdn recently bought a stake in Archax, a cryptocurrency exchange.

ETPs Set for a Bullish Rally despite Exits

Despite falling cryptocurrency prices, asset managers including Charles Schwab launched 40 exchange-traded cryptocurrency products (ETPs) in 2022.

Cryptocurrency outflows from exchange-traded products have slowed as most retail investors have fled the market.

In the third quarter, investors withdrew approximately $18 million from cryptocurrency ETPs.

But Morningstar’s Kenneth Lamont told the Financial Times that these moves by asset managers could be proactive and that ETPs “are being launched in anticipation of the next crypto bull run.”

By Audy Castaneda

The Performance of Bitcoin Nine Years after the Arrest of Ross Ulbricht

Alexander Salazar
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The Performance of Bitcoin Nine Years after the Arrest of Ross Ulbricht

The extremely harsh sentence of Ross Ulbricht remains a burning issue wherever people talk about Bitcoin. He stated he wanted to save the world with Silk Road but never imagined someone would use it to sell drugs.

The history of Ross Ulbricht, the creator of Silk Road, closely relates to Bitcoin. That darkweb black market was one of the first to accept Bitcoin as a payment means. In addition, it tainted the pioneering cryptocurrency by linking it to illicit goods, a stigma it is struggling to remove.

Ross Ulbricht went to jail on October 1st, 2013, after which the closure of the original Silk Road occurred. Although the Bitcoin network did not react, the arrest and the disappearance of Silk Road marked the end of an era.

Some years later, the extremely harsh sentence of Ross Ulbricht deeply shook the Bitcoin ecosystem. Besides, it remains a burning issue wherever people talk about the pioneering cryptocurrency.

Ulbricht recently wrote on his official account that he has already spent 10 years in prison. He said that he regretted making that mistake, which ruined his life and caused much pain to others.

The Creator of Silk Road Suffers an Extremely Harsh Sentence

The man will spend two life sentences, plus 40 years, for everything the users of Silk Road did. He received charges for distributing narcotics through the Internet, promoting a criminal enterprise, hacking a computer, smuggling through false identification, and laundering money.

The judge states that the violence inflicted by Ulbricht related to the five murders he allegedly committed. The Court must determine whether the evidence proves those claims, but the official believes he did it to protect his criminal enterprise.

The defenders of Ross point out that Ross will die in prison for creating a website where others sold drugs. They think it is much more severe than the punishment for worse crimes. The other defendants linked to the case received sentences between 8 months and 10 years but most are already free.

Ross Ulbricht Talks about His Case from Prison

In 2021, Ross Ulbricht, the creator of Silk Road, spoke from a maximum-security prison. Among other things, he said he might use Bitcoin to make a difference but admitted he rushed with the idea of Silk Road. He stated he wanted to save the world with it but never imagined someone would use it to sell drugs.

Ulbricht wrote to the Court that Silk Road should have given people the freedom to make their own decisions. He said it aimed to help them pursue their happiness but that it turned out to cause him deep regret.

Nine years after the arrest of Ross Ulbricht and the closure of the Silk Road, Bitcoin is amid a bearish market. His defenders might make donations and sign a petition to help him as they consider that sentence does not fit his crime.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin is trading at around USD 19,950 and has accumulated a 3.8% gain over the last 24 hours. While its daily trading volume is above USD 28.48 billion, its market capitalization is about USD 382.43 billion, according to CoinGecko.

By Alexander Salazar

NFTs Represent a Great Opportunity for the Book Industry, According to Mark Cuban

Audy Castañeda
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NFTs Represent a Great Opportunity for the Book Industry, According to Mark Cuban

According to Cuban, non-fungible tokens allow authors to apply royalties so that when their books are resold.

During a recent interview, Mark Cuban assured us that NFTs represent a great opportunity for the book industry.

According to Cuban, non-fungible tokens allow authors to apply royalties so that when their books are resold, the author, publisher, and anyone else involved can get a flat royalty rate.

“NFTs like books, I think particularly for textbooks. Now, whether or not we can get college textbook publishers to agree is another question, but the idea is to get kids to buy books for classes.”

For Cuban, by marketing the books as NFTs, the publishers who created the book can continue to be paid, whereas when there is a physical book that is sold and resold, they have to wait for the book to fall apart so they can sell a new one.

Insurance and Health Industry Could Benefit from NFTs

In his interview with Forbes, the billionaire also assured us that the insurance industry could benefit from a cryptocurrency-oriented platform. According to Mark Cuban, health insurance could be much more efficient and honest if it operates in a decentralized Blockchain environment, which uses two entities to check and balance.

“The whole process of getting a claim pre-approved or post-approved is horrible. Nobody likes dealing with their health insurance company. First of all, for pre-approval, you never know if you will get it or not. […] Cryptography could reinvent how insurance claims are pre-approved or disapproved by creating an environment where you have a thousand validators. Here are different types of optimistic rollups where you have validators and challengers.

So you can train people to be a validator, and pay them every time they validate, approve, or don’t approve a claim. The optimistic rollup side of it, the challengers will say that you didn’t approve this, but not for the right reason. Your training says you should have approved it. I’m challenging it so anything you’re staking that you put up to get paid for that, I get. ”

Cuban said that technology could help communicate data and information to all parties in the health industry in an effective and transparent manner.

Cuban and His Indecision against the Crypto World

Despite these recent claims, Mark Cuban can’t seem to make up his mind about cryptocurrencies. Last September, he expressed that he thinks digital assets are boring.

During his speech at the Code 2022 conference, Cuban said that, in his opinion, the space is boring and will remain boring for quite some time.

“Just like in the early days of the Internet, we navigate with the Internet. It’s all boring, right? Because we haven’t seen anything new […] it really took mobile devices to come along to really push it forward. And we don’t have that right now for crypto, so it’s kind of boring.”

But this is not all. In an opportunity in 2019, the billionaire said in an interview with Wired, that when choosing between Bitcoin and bananas, he would choose bananas because they are more useful.

Anyway, the Shark Tank investor believes that non-fungible tokens and decentralized finance have something to offer, and other developments in the space could even emerge. He insists that he is still “very interested” and will continue to invest.

By Audy Castaneda

Experts: Inflation and Monetary Uncertainty to Further Affect the Price of Bitcoin

Audy Castañeda
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Experts: Inflation and Monetary Uncertainty to Further Affect the Price of Bitcoin

Cryptocapital specialists agreed that Bitcoin has a year and a half left of falling prices.

In the latest edition of Capital Radio’s Cryptocapital, hosted by Sergio Fernández (@Sergio_fdez_7), specialists agreed that the current macroeconomic situation will slow down the recovery of Bitcoin, whose bearish forecasts remain between 12,000 and 15,000 dollars.

The Cryptocapital panel on September 30 was made up of the following experts:

SECRETO DEFI (@SecretoDefi).

Sebas Orc (@Sebas_Orc).

Fao the Wolf (@BrunoMarcial76).

The Host’s Opening Remarks

The Cryptocapital host of Capital Radio, Sergio Fernández (@Sergio_fdez_7) exposed the following:

“Last month’s close is an important date for Bitcoin, where volatility tends to increase. It is a difficult time for traders. There is a lot of pessimism, one of the worst moments in the crypto market. We don’t know what it takes for the market to stabilize. Bitcoin held up well in September against the NASDAQ, volatility. I don’t know if it is a turning point for its future price. Despite the problems, they do not stop printing tickets.”

Experts agree that “there are too many negative expectations”

Last week, the price of Bitcoin has fluctuated between $20,050 and $19,600, according to CoinMarketCap. BeInCrypto’s latest analysis reveals that Bitcoin has been in a bearish trend since the all-time high of $69,000 recorded in November 2021. Despite the price action of the previous weeks not breaking out of the range indicated above, the trading volume of BTC is slowly rising.

In this regard, Sebas Orc (@Sebas_Orc) highlighted the following:

“Cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin, I see that it is a market where we must consider everything external. There are factors that can benefit cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is the first time you live it. The crisis, war. Now there are too many negative expectations. It is possible that we can see Bitcoin as a haven for investors, to protect their money a bit. The euro can now be compared to any currency.”

Meanwhile, SECRETO DEFI (@SecretoDefi) explained that the market is still “full of negative news”, with low spirits, although the market has discounted the price of BTC, and even investors continue to expect BTC “to drop to levels of 12,000 or $15,000”; however, he trusted that there will be no lower prices than the current ones.

“It is a matter of waiting, for the negative market sentiment to calm down. Perhaps there is little left to reach the worst. It is clear that neither this nor next year we will see bull runs and it will not reach all-time highs. Now we are experiencing the worst. There’s not much to do. It would be good for BTC if there was not so much correlation with the S&P 500. I am confident that Bitcoin is not dependent on the markets, but it still needs that correlation.”

Finally, panelist Fao the Wolf (@BrunoMarcial76) argued that the ideal is that the correlation between the price of Bitcoin and the S&P 500 “are not so identical”, since it could make the cryptocurrency “boring” before potential holders and investors.

“There is a lot of volatility and uncertainty. Macro news does not help the price, it only generates volatility and market manipulation. I think we expect the drop to be between $14,000 and $16,000 at the end of the year. It is difficult to predict the future. In the end, we are at a stage where fear must be faced as investors or traders. Currencies and cryptocurrencies or Bitcoin, now go hand in hand with the S&P 500. In a year it may break that parity, and be used as a store of value in the face of the fall of fiduciary currencies.”

By Audy Castaneda

According to Robert Kiyosaki, the Biggest Economic Crash Will Occur in 2023

Alexander Salazar
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According to Robert Kiyosaki, the Biggest Economic Crash Will Occur in 2023

Kiyosaki commented that the crash of the US dollar would occur in January 2023 after the Fed changes course. However, he recently mentioned the rise of the fiat currency offers an excellent opportunity to buy gold, silver, and Bitcoin.

Since the publication of his best-selling book Rich Dad and Poor Dad in 1997, Robert Kiyosaki has predicted a global economic crash. The American businessman and investor recently said that this debacle would occur in January 2023.

Pessimistic forecasts like the one in October about the collapse of the US dollar in January 2023 characterize Robert Kiyosaki. He has also suggested that silver would become an alternative asset, saying that its price might rise to USD 500.

Since he believes the biggest crash in history is imminent, he advises buying assets that are impossible to reprint. The renowned guru also highlighted that it is better to invest in stocks and bonds than in US dollars.

Kiyosaki recently commented on Twitter that the crash of the US dollar would occur in January 2023 after the Fed changes course. He pointed out that he bought many more US silver Buffalo coins to profit from the depreciating American fiat currency.

Despite its last quite bullish day, silver has devalued by up to 20% of its value this year, while gold has depreciated by 9%.

Kiyosaki Thinks that Gold, Silver, and Bitcoin Will Rise

The financial expert, who supports cryptocurrencies, predicted in May that Bitcoin would drop to USD 17,000. Although the current prices are around that low, the prediction of Kiyosaki has been accurate until now.

He said on Twitter that Bitcoin would crash, saying that is excellent news. He has noted that he is waiting for a lock-in at USD 20,000 before BTC bottoms out at around USD 17,000. If that happens, he will invest a lot of money in it, reiterating that crashes are the best time to become wealthy.

However, Robert Kiyosaki recently mentioned the rise of the US dollar offers an excellent opportunity to buy gold, silver, and Bitcoin. He thinks that the American fiat currency will depreciate just like the pound sterling when the Fed changes its interest policy.

He tweeted that the US dollar will strengthen while gold, silver, and Bitcoin decline if the Fed continues to raise interest rates. Therefore, he recommends buying more to take advantage of the situation to avoid regretting as most people would.

The Opinion of Robert Kiyosaki about Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin

The financial expert is in favor of cryptocurrencies, gold, silver, and real estate. In early 2022, he also recommended buying canned food, toilet paper, and garbage bags.

However, Kiyosaki has recently referred to cryptocurrencies quite frequently. Last week he told his followers that they had to acquire cryptocurrencies before the biggest crash occurs.

Despite his warning about a prolonged recession, he claimed that bearish markets are the best opportunity for becoming wealthy. In July, he said that the prices of asset prices were plummeting, which led him to expect bargains in the real estate market.

By Alexander Salazar

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