Binance received the first regulatory approval from the Central Bank of Bahrain, a nation based in the Persian Gulf.

Binance has had a complex year full of ups and downs, with rejections from regulatory entities attacking the entity on a global scale. However, things began to improve in the last months of the year, as the entity opened a corporate headquarter in Ireland and acquired an exchange in Singapore.

But there is more. Today Binance Holdings Ltd. highlighted that it received complete authorization from the Bahrain central bank to work as a crypto asset service provider in the country, according to a statement from the firm. Bahrain, also known as Bahrain or Bahrayn, is a country in the Persian Gulf, in the Middle East, made up of 30 small islands, which despite being small and little known, has had a relevant technological development.

Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, CEO of Binance, stated that the company is currently working on the entire application process, adding that the project will get completed soon.

Strong Leadership and Foresight

Zhao expressed that the Central Bank of Bahrain showed strong leadership and foresight in approaching cryptocurrencies as a future asset class. The chairman also expressed a lot of enthusiasm for the support he received from the Central Bank of Bahrain during the process.

Furthermore, Finbold notes that Abdulla Haji, director of licensing at the country’s central bank, highlighted that once Binance gets the necessary prerequisites for training complete, the licensing process will be just a matter of formalities. During his talk, he described the Kingdom of Bahrain as the best place for the exchange to set up its regional headquarters.

The outlet also comments that Bahrain has pioneered sympathy for digital assets. In 2019, Rain Financial Inc. became the region’s first licensed crypto-asset platform, and even received authorization from the Kingdom’s central bank to start operating in the country. This action got followed by CoinMENA, which acquired another license from the Bahraini monetary entities earlier this year.

Binance’s decision demonstrates the company’s increased emphasis on the Middle East. However, various Turkish regulators fined Binance’s local headquarters for not complying with digital currency legislation linked to consumer information.

A Fully Regulated Centralized Cryptocurrency Exchange

Binance highlighted that they received total approval from the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) to establish itself as a crypto asset service provider in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The agreement came to the public light after Binance applied for a license from the CBB as part of its strategies to become a fully regulated centralized cryptocurrency exchange.

CBB’s move positions it as the first regulator in the Middle East and North Africa to give approval in principle to a Binance entity. CBB’s approval in principle still requires Binance to complete the entire application process, which intends to meet its completion in due course.

By: Jenson Nuñez

The value of Bitcoin should increase in the remainder of 2021 since the bulls are in control for the short term. Rejection of low prices and bullish pressure after a sharp drop indicates a possible bottom.

Despite low volatility in the past weeks, the technical scenario for Bitcoin before the end of 2021 is full of optimism. The following analysis will help understand the behavior of the price and predict where it might head.

BTC is currently trading at around USD 49,863 and has accumulated a 5.9% profit over the last week. Its daily trading volume is above USD 24.6 billion, and its market capitalization is about USD 943 billion, according to CoinGecko.

The bulls have shown little determination, which keeps market participants afraid of what may happen next regarding the price. That is what investors can see in the Bitcoin sentiment indicator.

According to the weekly CryptoQuant metric analysis summary, there is not much certainty over what will happen in the remainder of 2021.

Different indicators show the level of supply and demand and the strength of accumulation by leading market participants. Despite the current uncertainty in the market, they remain firm with a medium/long-term bullish prediction.

Most technical oscillators are neutral but tend to be bearish, which is evident in market sentiment for the short term.

The Bitcoin Price Could Surprise Investors in the Remainder of 2021

The BTC/USDT daily chart indicates that the price recently rebounded to its short-term upward trend. That happened after it escaped through the top of a descending wedge.

When wedges form on relevant support, they are highly reliable chart figures, as it happened in this case.

The bulls are currently in control for the short term, for which the price of Bitcoin should rise in the remainder of 2021.

Before Christmas, resistance at USD 51,200 hampered the value of the pioneering cryptocurrency. There is still a pullback in progress, which seems to be finding support close to the USD 50,000 mark.

Right now, the correction could stop and give way to new momentum in the short term. That will be relevant only if the price breaks through resistance at USD 51,200. If that happens, its next goal will be to reach a value of USD 59,000.

Before considering selling, the price has to break through support at USD the 48,588 mark. However, it should not be a worrying scenario as long as the support at USD 43,100 remains.

The Weekly Chart of the Price of Bitcoin

In the last week, the price of the pioneering cryptocurrency has shown signs that it will probably end 2021 with more profits.

Low-price rejection and bullish pressure following a sharp drop signal a possible bottom.

In case that a new rally starts, it would not be surprising to see new all-time highs in the next few weeks/months.

As mentioned above, short-term selling will not be relevant as long as the support at USD 43,100 remains.

By Alexander Salazar

A few days before the end of 2021, the pioneering cryptocurrency shows a 71% return. The performance of the overall crypto market tripled that of Bitcoin this year.

There have been wide fluctuations in the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in 2021. However, the balance is currently very positive since the total capitalization of the cryptocurrency market is USD 2.37 trillion. That represents an appreciation of 209% compared to the beginning of the year.

On January 1^st, the total market capitalization was USD 766,678 million, which indicates that it rose three times during the year. That is the sixth-best annual return for cryptocurrencies in the last decade. For example, the annual return was 301% in 2020.

The great boom starting in October 2020 served as the frame for the first quarter of 2021. In late March 2021, the total value of the cryptocurrency market reached USD 1.83 trillion, which represented a 139% rebound.

In the second quarter, the value of the cryptocurrency market hit an all-time high of USD 2.57 trillion on May 12^th. In mid-May, Tesla announced it would not receive payments with BTC for its cars. That contributed to the decrease in the price of Bitcoin and the total value of the cryptocurrency market.

While April closed in green numbers, May and June did not. On June 30^th, the total value of the cryptocurrency market was USD 143 trillion, a 21.86% drop in the second quarter.

Following the correction beginning in May, the market capitalization of cryptocurrencies started to drop in the third quarter. The low of that bearish phase/stage occurred on July 21^st when the value of the cryptocurrency market reached USD 1.2 trillion.

A market recovery that brought the total value of cryptocurrencies to USD 2.4 trillion on September 8^th followed that decline. Cryptocurrencies had a boom in the third quarter despite a moderate dip, and the total value of the market closed at USD 1.9 trillion.

The Cryptocurrency Market Follows the Lead of Bitcoin

In the last quarter of 2021, the cryptocurrency market has reached several milestones. The most prominent was the 42% record growth in October, the highest monthly close for Bitcoin price and cryptocurrency market capitalization. The second was that the latter reached the all-time high of USD 3 trillion on November 10^th. Although a correction began, it was considerably lower than the one occurring between May and July.

Despite the market pullbacks in November and December, the last quarter is still green, thanks to the boom in October. Bitcoin is currently trading USD 51,179, and the appreciation of the cryptocurrency market in the third quarter was 24.66%.

The price of Bitcoin recently exceeded USD 50,000 once again, amid a moderate price recovery beginning on December 17^th. The appreciation of Bitcoin in 2021 has been 71.3%, three times lower than the return of the total cryptocurrency market.

There was growth in decentralized finance platforms (DeFi) and the great boom of non-fungible tokens (NFT) in 2021. That may have contributed to that disparity in the return of Bitcoin compared with the cryptocurrency market. The dominance of Bitcoin went from 70% earlier in the year to 40.30% today, according to CoinMarketCap.

By Alexander Salazar

Salinas Pliego advised moving away from fiat money such as the US dollar, the euro, and the Mexican peso. The billionaire said that physical currencies are a tissue of lies and recommended investing in Bitcoin.

Businessman Ricardo Salinas Pliego, one of the wealthiest men in Mexico, recently posted a Christmas video. He advised his almost one million Twitter followers to invest in Bitcoin (BTC).

The entrepreneur said he would give them some gifts for Christmas, referring to recommendations for the end of the year. One of them related to Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

Salinas Pliego told his followers to move away from fiat money like the US dollar, the euro, the yen, and the Mexican peso. Then, he commented that they are a tissue of lies, and central banks are issuing them more than ever.

The last thing to which the entrepreneur referred has caught the attention of the world population. The printing of banknotes in the United States has increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That situation has led to the highest inflation that the country has had in almost 40 years.

The November US Consumer Price Index (IPC) report recently published showed an increase of 0.8%, which led the inflation rate to 6.8%. That figure is more than three times the 2% target expected for this year and the highest since July 1982.

Some readings of inflation higher than expected may drive the Fed to expedite plans to eliminate the stimulus plans approved last year. According to local media outlets, they could cancel them several months before scheduled.

Salinas Pliego Says Good-Bye to the US Dollar and Hello to Bitcoin

The level of inflation reflects how a fiat currency loses purchasing power and shows its devaluation against stronger ones. That situation has encouraged the purchase of cryptocurrencies as a store of value in some Latin American countries.

A report from Blockchain on the growth of Bitcoin (BTC) indicates that inflation drives the purchase of the cryptocurrency. Almost two billion people suffer from two or more digits of inflation, especially in countries like Argentina (52%) and Venezuela (1,575%).

In other words, almost 20% of the population worldwide will lose half of their savings in fiat money within eight years. Besides that loss of purchasing power, national fiat currencies like the Venezuelan bolivar (VED) and the Argentine peso (ARS) do not stop depreciating.

Keeping that in mind, Salinas Pliego ends by telling his followers to invest in Bitcoin. The entrepreneur adds that message to a set of actions regarding the cryptocurrency. The Mexican billionaire said that Bitcoin was the most modern gold, and he began accepting it as a payment method in December.

Some other billionaire entrepreneurs recommend buying Bitcoin but warn that people should be careful. For example, Tim Draper advises not to invest all the savings in the cryptocurrency to have a diversified investment portfolio.

The loss of value of fiat currencies has led many people to turn to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin as hedges against inflation. Citizens from countries undergoing severe economic crises are increasingly turning to those assets to store value.

By Alexander Salazar

The CEO of the Binance cryptocurrency exchange considers that entrepreneurs should issue their own cryptocurrency. He said that investing in crypto assets like BTC, ETH and BNB is not usually a good deal.

Changpeng Zhao considers that the more than 8,000 cryptocurrencies and tokens existing now are insufficient. The CEO of the Binance exchange thinks that there should be millions of crypto assets.

The businessman expressed that opinion in a recent post titled One Coin to Rule Them All? Or Millions of Coins? He predicted that people would continue to create new tokens for their projects, which would lead to millions of them. He clarified that most of them will fail while those succeeding will build a lot of value for the world.

Zhao does not only believe that this will happen but also wishes that it will become a reality. He said that entrepreneurs should issue their own currency, about which he talks to executives from other companies. He commented that they usually change their perspective on cryptocurrencies and their relevance in the future.

How Companies That Issue Their Own Cryptocurrencies Benefit

The CEO of Binance argues that a company that creates its own token or cryptocurrency can benefit in three ways.

First, they can raise high sums of money at launch through initial coin offerings (ICOs). As a consequence, they provide early investors with low-priced coins.

Second, the team can hold coins, which they sometimes sell later if the price of the crypto asset increases. In that way, the company issuing them receives economic benefits.

Finally, Zhao believes that their token can allow a new ecosystem to retain users.

Launching Rather Than Buying Cryptocurrencies Is Usually a Good Deal

The companies issuing tokens and cryptocurrencies consider the launch is usually a good deal, which is true about Binance and other exchanges. The fee costs for trading and withdrawing them report multi-billion-dollar profits to those platforms.

If the projects are not fraudulent, investors who enter pre-sales usually make a profit.

Of course, the problem can be to assume that those projects will continue to appreciate in the long term. For example, those involved with Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies know of fads that sometimes arrive and attract all the attention.

One of the fads hitting the Bitcoin universe in 2017 and 2018 was the ICO fever. There were dozens of new initial coin offerings daily, and the issuers of those assets collected thousands of bitcoins. Almost five years later, most of those projects failed to transcend, although they seemed extremely promising.

According to the investment in their currency, the projects that failed include EOS, IOTA, and Cardano (ADA). Even though their price in US dollars increased, it still does not exceed the figure that BTC reached in March 2017.

Investors See Bitcoin as a Reliable Crypto Asset

People continue perceiving BTC as the old trusty one because of its monetary policy. It has a limited supply of 21 million coins, its halving occurs every four years, and the market and miners support it. The decentralized cryptocurrency created by Satoshi Nakamoto has gained strength for 13 years since its release.

Bitcoin may not make people rich overnight, but they eventually make significant gains after investing in it. Nakamoto did not create the cryptocurrency to help anyone become a billionaire but give individuals financial sovereignty.

Bitcoin has not disappointed anyone who has understood its properties in the long term. After knowing those features, they have chosen to use the first cryptocurrency as a store of value.

By Alexander Salazar