Category Archives: Ethereum

Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum, Lending, Non-Fungible Token (NFT)

How To Make Money in Cryptocurrency

April 19, 2023 flippener

The Bear is dead, long live the Bull!

It is increasingly clear that the most recent Bitcoin bear market (‘crash’) is finally over and we are starting the next bull market (‘to the moon’).

Bitcoin Bull Market (Image: Bitcoin-Investors.co.uk)

It has seemed to me that we were at or close to the bottom of the market for some time. In November I was able to add to my Bitcoin portfolio with additional loans from Ledn, at a price around $17-18k per Bitcoin.

Around the New Year, appropriately enough, it looked more certain that we had turned a corner. I increased my holding of Bitcoin, via dollar loans against Bitcoin (at around $22k), while being cautious and open to the possibility of further significant falls in the market.

However, it is obvious now that the worst is behind us and we should – mostly – be seeing increases in value from here on in. I say mostly because, of course, Bitcoin never goes up in a straight line, and we can expect spikes and troughs as its value on average goes up.

As I write this Bitcoin is at $29160 and Ether at $1969 on Coinbase. It looks like a great time to buy in as the market shakes off its ‘crypto winter’ and starts to build momentum towards a new all-time high.

It is important to be patient, however. Bitcoin’s value rises and falls in 4 year cycles because of its halving, and the rest of the market follows along in its wake. Therefore we can expect good gains leading up to the forthcoming halving, but the real breakout is likely to take place in the 6 months afterward.

The next halving is due in April 2024. In advance of it we can hope for a steady increase in the value of Bitcoin, plus a faster spike in its value in the 6 months from the halving to October 2024. That should produce the next Bitcoin All Time High (when I’ll be looking to sell) – and then, realistically, the usual fall again afterwards towards 2026 until the next halving approaches in 2028.

In terms of Bitcoin as an investment then, I see the current moment as a great time to buy in. That could be via a lump sum purchase (especially while Bitcoin is below $30k and Ether is below $2k) but Dollar Cost Averaging over the next 12 months would also be a very good strategy.

A suggested diversified portfolio would be something like 50% Bitcoin, 25% Ethereum and 25% of either a range of alternative coins or blue chip NFTs such as the Mutant Ape Yacht Club (which currently has a floor of just 11.9 Eth).

Bitcoin (BTC), Cryptocurrency, Ethereum, News

How Bitcoin And Ethereum Have Crossed The Rubicon Of Legitimazation

May 11, 2021 flippener

Bitcoin and Ethereum are at an inflection point. Beyond their prices, Senior Commodity Strategist for Bloomberg Intelligence, Mike McGlone, believes digitalization of money and finance is accelerating.

Still in its early days, the top 2 cryptocurrencies by market cap seem to have already won the adoption battle, one as the main hub for decentralized finances (DeFi) and the other as a digital version of gold. McGlone writes:The mantra appears to be: “Adopt and embrace the advancing technology, or become the next Kodak, Sears or Blockbuster.”

With a similar price as a month ago, BTC has retaken the higher area around $50,000. At the time of writing, the cryptocurrency trades at $57,049 with a 4.9% rally in the daily chart. McGlone records a “rising tide of accumulation below the market” after BTC crashed from its all-time high at $65,000.

Bitcoin’s price action is on a consolidation or pause phase at current levels. The strategist claims this could be beneficial in the long term:

We see this as a pause to refresh the paradigm-shifting process of Bitcoin becoming the world’s benchmark digital-reserve asset.

On the other hand, Bloomberg’s Galaxy Crypto Index (BGCI) has been led by Ethereum. With a 740% profit since 2020, the BGCI has entered a heated territory, but DeFi could drive further gains with its “potential to be revolutionary”.

Ethereum’s Price Could Follow Bitcoin 2017 Trajectory
McGlone estimates that Bitcoin’s current levels around $50,000 could be its new critical support zone, similar to $10,000 in 2020 and previous years, post-2017 bull-run. As shown in the chart below, BTC’s 10-week Bollinger’s Bands, an indicator from price fluctuations above and below its price simple moving average (SMA), suggest $48,000 is a “firm price foundation”. The strategists added:

A risk-off period in the stock market is top a potential threat for the crypto’s advancing price, but like the April dip to below $50,000, it might be a good test for the Bitcoin bull market.

Bitcoin’s limited supply will continue to be a bullish factor. McGlone compared the cryptocurrency’s 2013, 2017, and its current rally and concluded that the price could appreciate further, but with only a fraction of the profits. This could still send BTC’s price towards the $100,000.

Ethereum’s price could follow Bitcoin’s 2017 trajectory, during that bull market BTC went from around $1,000 to $20,000. McGlone believes ETH has a “price advantage” when compared to BTC. He added the following:

Ethereum may reach $19,000 in 2021; to May 4, the No. 2 crytpo at about $3,400 is more than double Bitcoin on the same day four years ago. ETH at about 4x its 50-week moving average indicates a stretched market. The last time this level was exceeded was around Ethereum’s peak in 2018.

BTC Closes Best Quarter in History, While ETH Price Revisits $2,000

April 12, 2021 flippener

The BTC price surged to local highs of $60,110 on Bitstamp on Friday, marking the first time it has surpassed the psychological $60K level in two weeks.

The climb higher now means that bulls have canceled out the flash crash from earlier this week and ensured that bitcoin closed the historically red month of March in the green.

BTCUSD has also logged the best quarterly close in its short history, raising prospects that the pair would keep soaring higher into the new quarter.

At the time of writing, bitcoin has shed some of its gains to trade at $59,338. However, the flagship cryptocurrency’s slow grind back to all-time highs will likely give traders plenty of reasons to be bullish in the short term.

Filbfilb, the co-founder of trading suite DecenTrader, shared a bullish outlook for BTC in his latest market update, noting that bitcoin is now recovering following the BTC options’ expiry.

He predicted after buyers bought the dip last week, the king coin was currently on the verge of a strong breakout.

Top BTC Analyst Warns of “Overheated Retail Action”
Despite bitcoin prices closing Q1 almost 100% higher, one analyst suggests that the latest surge higher has resulted from “overheated retail action.”

According to OKEX researcher Robbie Liu, rising premiums for the quarterly contract BTCUSD0625 rose from about $3K last Friday to current levels of $5,200.

He explained that the premiums are nearing a dangerous range, as was the case when the digital coin pulled back after establishing a new all-time high above $61K.

“If the price does not break out to the upside in a short period of time, then traders attempting to chase the rally high with high leverage will have to close their positions, thus putting downward pressure on the price,” Lui added.

Ethereum Price Returns to ATH
ETH traded to a new weekly high above $2K on Friday after breaking the stubborn resistance near $1,920 and $1,950.

The largest altcoin by market cap is now trading higher than its previous all-time high of $2,040 established on Feb. 20. As of this article’s writing, ETHUSD is up over 5% to change hands for $2,048.

Ethereum NFT of Burned Banksy Piece Sells for $380,000

March 14, 2021 flippener

An original Banksy piece that was recently burned by a group of crypto enthusiasts and tokenized as an NFT has sold for 228.69 ETH.

A group of crypto enthusiasts burned an original copy of Banksy’s “Morons” and listed the artwork in an NFT auction last week.
The NFT has sold for 228.69 ETH, worth over $380,000 at purchase.
The group said that they hoped to “inspire artists and explore a new medium of creative expression.”

Burned Banksy Gets Tokenized
An NFT of Banksy’s “Morons” has sold for 228.69 ETH, worth around $382,000 at purchase.

The original artwork was acquired by a group of crypto enthusiasts and burned on a live stream in Brooklyn last week. The purpose of the burning was to tokenize the piece as an NFT. The video’s host, who also burned the piece, said they hoped to “inspire artists and explore a new medium of creative expression.”

A bidder using the moniker GALAXY bought the NFT on OpenSea yesterday afternoon.

The piece depicts an auction for an art canvas that reads, “I can’t believe you morons actually buy this shit.” Banksy produced the piece in 2006, and prints were initially sold at $500 each.

A 2007 edition of the piece sold for $84,494.79 (£60,480) in a Sotheby’s auction last year.

Cryptocurrency Art Gallery: Litecoin, Ether, Ripple, Bitcoin and Namecoin (Image: Namecoin/Flickr)

The piece was acquired by members of Injective Protocol and SuperFarm, who reportedly paid around $100,000. It came with a Certificate of Authenticity from Pest Control, Banksy’s official authenticator.

It’s the first time a genuine Banksy piece has appeared on-chain, as the NFT trend continues to snowball.

By tokenizing “Morons” on Ethereum, the group said they hoped to make a point that the art could live on even after destroying the physical copy. GALAXY is now the provable owner of the piece, and the record of their purchase is immutable. As the token is fungible, no-one else will be able to claim ownership until they decide to sell.

NFTs and Art Merge
The Banksy item is only the latest in a series of massive drops across the NFT space, which has now seen several major musicians making an entry.

EDM superstar Steve Aoki released his first collection on Nifty Gateway over the weekend, raking in around $3.4 million in the process. Last week, 3LAU raised a record-breaking $11.7 million from tokenizing his “Ultraviolet” album.

Kings of Leon also became the first band to release their album as an NFT this weekend. The event attracted a significant amount of press attention from the mainstream media and music world. Over 489 ETH has been traded on the collection with 16 hours to go. With ETH trading at almost $1,700 today, the sale is a lucrative move for U.S rock artists.

But arguably the biggest NFT event so far is the release of Beeple’s “The First 5,000 Days.”

The digital artist’s piece is on sale at Christie’s, with bidding at $3.75 million. The auction closes Thursday.

The hefty price tags that some NFTs fetch have led some to criticize the space. Many argue that the six-figure valuations are unsustainable. It’s difficult to say whether the bubble is about to burst. Still, NFTs offer provable scarcity in a similar way to Bitcoin, whose meteoric rise has stunned doubters time and again over the last decade.

Gunbot Crypto Trading 4: Your First Gunbot Trade

May 2, 2018 flippener

Strategy

After my previous post, creating my first Gunbot Setup in this version of Gunbot using the Bollinger Band strategy, I had a change of heart. I decided to try the Emotionless strategy instead, something I don’t remember being an option in my previously installed versions.

Emotionless is described on the Wiki as follows:

“The Emotionless strategy is fully tuned and ready to use, even for novice traders! It’s meant to be a relatively safe strategy, with modest but steady gains.

“With this strategy, you don’t need to think about setting the right or best parameters: it’s all there already. You only need to set the basics like your trading limit and choose on which pairs you want to trade. Optionally, you can increase GAIN slightly.

“Behind the scenes, an advanced algorithm based on the Ichimoku cloud indicator does the hard work. The specifics will not be disclosed.”

Given I haven’t used Gunbot seriously in many months this seemed like a good bet. I cancelled the run and restarted it with the strategy set to Emotionless. I kept all other settings the same.

Trading

I then went to bed, and didn’t check the results until the next morning. Success! Gunbot had bought some Ether and sold it again at a higher price during the night.

I suspect you won’t be impressed if I say the profit made was just 0.00001482 BTC (worth about 10p) but that is to miss the point. The stake, remember, was just 0.002 BTC (£13) and the setting for GAIN is 0.6, i.e. aim to make a profit of 0.6%. In fact the profit is 0.74% so the bot has done really well.

Of course, once you have gained confidence that the bot is working then you naturally increase the stake. If it were set to 1 Bitcoin, for example, then each trade would make a profit of about £50 and you could get multiple trades in one day. 10 BTC would make you £500 per trade, and so on.

In this case I left the bot running unchanged and it has now made 3 complete trades (for a total profit of 2.25%). In any other field such a gain in 2 days would be unprecedented.

Here’s the record of transactions so far:

Poloniex Trade History: Gunbot trading Ether with Emotionless Strategy (Image: BIUK)

Note that the bot has since gone on to buy again, but has not yet sold. It will be interesting to see if it sells successfully or if the market drops and it’s left holding Ether it can’t sell – I’ll report back once the outcome is clear.

Update: Gunbot Crypto Trading 5: Emotionless Trading