According to Dan Morehead, CEO of Pantera Capital, large investors such as PayPal and Square are buying up more than 100 percent of newly generated bitcoin holdings. However, this statement is somewhat misleading.

Dan Morehead, CEO of Pantera Capital, opined to CNBC that large investors, such as PayPal and Square, are investing massively in Bitcoin. According to the report, the two financial services firms alone bought up more than 100 percent of newly-generated bitcoin combined. Specifically, Morhead said in the interview published on Twitter:

We currently have buyers, like PayPal, who alone are buying more than 100 percent of newly issued bitcoin.

Morehead’s PayPal statement is misleading

This statement is actually somewhat misleading, as it implies PayPal and co. are buying the newly issued stock short. That’s only partially true. According to the four-year cyclical Bitcoin Union halving that took place in May, 6.25 Bitcoin are currently being mined worldwide every ten minutes. That makes circa 900 bitcoin a day. PayPal is acquiring 70 percent of the newly created bitcoin alone, according to an investor letter Pantera Capitals. Together with the investments of Cashapp, Square Inc.’s mobile payment service, the percentage of investments in freshly mined Bitcoin extends to more than 100 percent. It must be taken into account that miners also „hodln“ (hold) a part of their generated Bitcoin and do not resell it directly. In plain language, this means that large investors are buying more Bitcoin than is currently coming onto the market.

PayPal’s investment seems logical in that the payment service has about 300 million active users. Admittedly, there will already be numerous Hodlers with their own wallet among them; estimates assume around 100 million BTC owners. Still, PayPal will need to build up a large BTC reserve to meet demand – at least until bitcoin integration expands beyond the U.S., which is planned for 2021. After PayPal announced in October that it would be able to buy and sell cryptocurrencies through the payment service in collaboration with Paxos, the U.S. giant is stocking up on Bitcoin en masse.

PayPal CEO anticipates bitcoin mass adoption

In the first interview after PayPal’s bitcoin implementation, CEO Dan Shulman predicted mass adoption of bitcoin. He said he is certain that cryptocurrencies will become an everyday means of payment. In this regard, the global pandemic has greatly accelerated the trend, in his opinion. Shulman sees the future in a financial system that is faster, cheaper and more efficient than the traditional one. Financial inclusion, he feels, is desirable to allow people around the world to access the financial world.

Concerns that many people have about cryptocurrencies due to volatile prices are something the CEO can understand, he said. Especially for smaller traders on Paypal, the profit margins are sometimes small and can even be completely wiped out by fluctuating exchange rates. However, the exchange rate is always transparent and known to both sides at the moment of purchase. The risk of volatility is therefore not as high as initially thought.

Bitcoin miners tend to hold their Bitcoin in 2020

Often, a higher bitcoin price also gives miners a reason to sell their holdings. That’s what happened in 2017 and 2019 when the price shot up to interim highs of $20,000 and $14,000, respectively. Despite the current all-time high, the current trend among digital gold miners is to hold rather than sell. In fact, these are optimistic signs for bitcoin.

When more miners decide to hold bitcoin instead of selling it, a supply deficit is created. This should automatically improve the cryptocurrency’s bullish bias against booming demand from institutional investors, such as PayPal and Co.

Strategowie JPMorgan ostrzegają, że jeśli instytucje zmniejszą swoje zakupy BTC, cena aktywów może pójść w kierunku masowej korekty.

Analitycy z amerykańskiego międzynarodowego banku inwestycyjnego JPMorgan Chase & Co podwoili swoje przekonanie, że wpływy instytucji na BTC są kluczowe dla ceny aktywów. Ostrzegali, że jeśli ich zakupy spadną, krypto waluta może skierować się na gwałtowną korektę.

JPMorgan potwierdza: Instytucje są kluczowe dla Bitcoinów

Podczas gdy większość aktywów finansowych ucierpiała w tym trudnym roku, wyniki Bitcoin’a znacznie się skontrastowały z gwałtownym wzrostem o ponad 220% od początku 2020 roku.

Ostatni kwartał okazał się szczególnie korzystny dla aktywów, ponieważ ich wartość wzrosła ponad dwukrotnie od początku października i wyniosła ponad 24.000 dolarów.

W ostatnim raporcie na temat wyników BTC analitycy JPMorgan pod kierownictwem Nikolaosa Panigirtzoglou zbadali potencjalne przyczyny tego imponującego skoku. Przyznali wprawdzie, że rajd jest niezrównoważony, ponieważ jest prowadzony przez spekulacyjne fundusze kwantowe, jednak strategowie stwierdzili, że prawdopodobnie najbardziej prawdopodobną przyczyną jest interes instytucjonalny.

W związku z tym podwoili się w stosunku do poprzedniego sprawozdania, podkreślając rosnącą rolę skali szarości. Firma jest organizacją go-to-to dla instytucji, które chcą uzyskać ekspozycję BTC (lub innych krypto walut) bez obawy o przechowywanie funduszy i nie mają nic przeciwko zapłaceniu premii.

Wiodący cyfrowy menedżer aktywów rozpoczął rok 2020 z aktywami pod zarządzaniem (AUM) o wartości około 2 miliardów dolarów. Jednak po kolejnych rekordowych wpływach na jego produkty, kwota ta wzrosła do ponad 15 mld dolarów. Oczekuje się, że Grayscale Bitcoin Trust jest odpowiedzialny za większość funduszy o wartości ponad 13 miliardów dolarów.

W związku z tym, strategowie uznali, że te przepływy do BTC Trust „są zbyt duże, aby pozwolić na to, aby każda pozycja rozwijała się przez inwestorów z impetem, aby stworzyć trwałą negatywną dynamikę cen“. Ostrzegli jednak, że w przypadku znacznego spowolnienia tych przepływów, mogą one „zwiększyć ryzyko korekty Bitcoinów, podobnej do tej z drugiej połowy 2019 roku“.

Korporacyjne i instytucjonalne alokacje BTC

Oprócz rozwoju Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, analitycy JPM zwrócili uwagę na rosnącą liczbę korporacji i instytucji, które ostatnio weszły na scenę BTC.

Firmy takie jak notowane na NASDAQ MicroStrategy i Jack Dorsey’s Square w ciągu kilku miesięcy zakupiły Bitcoin wart miliony dolarów.

Firma ubezpieczeniowa MassMutual i giganci funduszy hedgingowych One River Asset Management i Ruffer Investment zrobili to samo. Wall Street behemoth Guggenheim złożył dokument w SEC, aby kupić do 500 milionów dolarów, podczas gdy jego CIO powiedział, że krypto waluta powinna być warta 400.000 dolarów.

Aktywa te spotkały się również z pochwałami ze strony wybitnych tradycyjnych inwestorów, takich jak Stan Druckenmiller, Bill Miller i Paul Tudor Jones.

The launch of the new Stellar protocol has been welcomed by the crypto market: in the last 48 hours the price has increased by 100%.

The price of Stellar Lumens (XLM) has risen by 60% in the last 24 hours and exceeded the $0.2 threshold for the first time since September 2018. This growth came after an announcement by developers about the implementation of a new version of the Stellar protocol by validators.

The update of Protocol 15 came into force at 16:00 UTC on 23 November and introduces two new features, which aim to reduce the complexity for users of applications and services based on the Stellar network.

Until 21 November Stellar Lumens had no particular price fluctuations, but on that date the trading volume started to grow. Bitcoin Rejoin has doubled in the last 48 hours and is at the top of the list of the first 100 currencies for weekly earnings: it has achieved a 125% growth! Some believe that it could be one of the tokens driving the long-awaited „alt season“.

„$XLM Stellar Lumens was the first altcoin he bought. I have never sold them and have accumulated them over the years.

I am delighted to have so many of them now that they are worth $0.7 on average. All the way to Valhalla!“

Initially created as a fork of the Ripple Labs protocol by Jed McCaleb and launched in July 2014, Stellar seeks to reduce the cost of cross-border payments using blockchain. The project is particularly focused on serving areas of the world where access to traditional financial services is non-existent or so expensive that it is prohibitive.

The update to Stellar’s Protocol 15 includes two new elements, designed to improve the user experience while maintaining a high level of protection against „farm attacks“ and other methods that could interfere with the network. A „farm attack“ occurs when multiple accounts are created by a single person, with the purpose of collecting the small amounts of money sent to those accounts by service providers, necessary to activate the account.

According to Stellar’s official blog, the features of Protocol 15 have been under development for over a year and address some of the „major hot keys“ for developers who build applications and services on Stellar:

„After the upgrade, developers can create simpler, better user experiences that reduce the complexity of the blockchain without losing any of the benefits of a fast, affordable, permissionless public registry.

Stellar also recently announced a partnership with East African B2B payment solution provider ClickPesa. According to the blog post, ClickPesa decided to use Stellar, recognising it as an „opportunity to reduce problems related to intra-African cross-border payments and P2P payment activity“.

In October, Stellar made it clear that the stablecoin USDC would migrate to its blockchain in the course of 2021 in order to pursue its goal of simplifying cross-border payments: among Stellar Lumens‘ strengths are extremely low transaction fees and settlement times of just 4-5 seconds.

Después de predecir una importante corrida de toros para Bitcoin y de llamarla „balsa salvavidas“, Raoul Pal discutió varios temas dentro de los sectores del mundo financiero tradicional.

El ex gerente de fondos de cobertura y director general de Real Vision, Raoul Pal, cree que el impacto real de la pandemia COVID-19 está a punto de llegar a los mercados financieros. Al esbozar varias de las próximas piedras angulares entre los activos financieros tradicionales, destacó a Bitcoin como la „balsa salvavidas“ en esta situación.

Raoul Pal: Todo ha cambiado

En un reciente hilo de Twitter, el veterano de Wall Street esbozó el rápido crecimiento de los casos de COVID-19 en todo el mundo. El número total de infectados se ha acercado a los 45 millones, mientras que el número de muertos es de casi 1,2 millones.

Pal predijo que estas cifras crecientes en Europa, los EE.UU. y Canadá están a punto de „ejercer presiones económicas y extinguir la fase de esperanza de los sueños de reflación“. Cree que las próximas consecuencias perjudicarán a la economía aún más que los desarrollos de principios de 2020. Una recuperación económica real „requerirá más que un estímulo postelectoral en enero“.

Continuó observando varios mercados que han empezado a sentir las consecuencias adversas y han caído a niveles de apoyo a largo plazo. Entre ellos, el precio del petróleo, el índice bursátil de referencia de España -el IBEX 35, el índice bancario de la UE, el euro, la libra esterlina, el dólar estadounidense y otros.

Como tal, abordó algunas posibles soluciones – „puedes comprar bonos y dólares, o puedes tomar la balsa salvavidas – Bitcoin.“

„O, para amortiguar la volatilidad de un evento de riesgo (podemos y veremos fuertes correcciones en el BTC), puedes tener las tres para una cartera casi perfecta para esta fase“. – Pal concluyó.

Bitcoin se comerá el mundo y las predicciones de precios de Pal

Pal también destacó su opinión positiva sobre Ethereum Code diciendo que la cripto-moneda „se comerá al mundo“. La atribuyó a su rendimiento, que es tan dominante y tan „global“ que „absorberá toda la narrativa de activos y la escupirá“.

„Nunca antes en mi carrera he visto un oficio tan dominante que mantener cualquier otro activo no tiene casi ningún sentido.“

En cuanto a las predicciones de precios, Pal dijo que 14.000 dólares es la única resistencia que queda en el camino de Bitcoin hacia el máximo histórico de 20.000 dólares. Espera que BTC supere el máximo de diciembre de 2017 „a principios del año que viene como muy tarde“.

Además, CryptoPotato ha informado recientemente de un pronóstico aún más optimista y a largo plazo. Utilizando una regresión en el gráfico logarítmico desde el principio, Pal sacó a relucir un modelo que ve a Bitcoin alcanzando el millón de dólares en 2025.

The notorious crypto critic Nouriel Roubini also does not have a good hair on the DeFi.

Economics professor Nouriel Roubini, known for his fierce and persistent criticism of blockchain technology, recently reiterated his negative stance on the crypto industry, this time targeting Decentralized Financial Services (DeFi)

„DeFi was a lot of ado about nothing from the start,“ as Roubini wrote in a tweet on September 24th. To this end, he adds: „Now they are collapsing, because blockchain technology has always been the most overrated technology in human history.“

The Twitter entry from Roubini was a response to the blockchain book author David Gerard, who for his part had previously also sarcastically criticized Bitcoin System: „DeFi are no longer in, financial CryptoKitties are now all the rage for all basement children.“

With this, Gerard alluded to a meme that, according to a blog entry by the IDEX crypto exchange, „depicts the depression and self-hatred of those who have invested excessively in cryptocurrencies and are now facing the crash“

The CryptoKitties were a fad that emerged during the big crypto hype of 2017. Back then, some crypto fans paid absurd sums of money for digital kittens that were immortalized in the form of a crypto coin on the Ethereum blockchain. The trend around the „crypto kittens“ subsided quickly, but the project still exists and is always finding new ways to maintain the interest of the sworn fan base.

The current hype surrounding decentralized financial services is reminding parts of the industry of the CryptoKitties and similar short-lived fads, hence the comparison by Gerard. Other market participants had recently in the same beaten notch . Most of them only criticize the hype surrounding the DeFi and not the idea behind it. There are voices who nevertheless believe in the future potential of the DeFi concept.

Roubini has repeatedly criticized crypto and blockchain heavily in recent years . Here railed he among others against the crypto-trading platform BitMEX.