Bitcoin may be the most popular cryptocurrency. But crypto investors would be wise to keep an eye on Ether, which dramatically outperformed its more volatile cousin in 2021 — a trend that could continue in 2022. Today’s Chart of the Day shows Bitcoin against the dollar on a logarithmic scale over the past five years, measuring the acceleration of the cryptocurrency’s move while accounting for its volatility. After peaking in late 2017, Bitcoin has largely traded sideways. Volatility tied to the presidential election gave it a boost, which then sped up as traders embraced risk after the first Covid vaccine arrived in early November 2020. For a while, Bitcoin showed a positive correlation the S&P 500 Index, emerging-market securities and even commodities as a measure of inflation. But then, after putting up a 516% return in about six months, its momentum plateaued. These days, the cryptocurrency seeing fewer wild swings. Tuesday’s thin volume, for example, traditionally would have triggered a major move, but Bitcoin dropped just 6.7%, or less than two standard deviations. In the first half of the year, the cryptocurrency crossed that threshold more than three times as often as it did in the second half, mainly thanks to retail-driven trades and regulatory risk. “A lot of traders have made life-changing money in 2021 and have been waiting to take profits until after the turn of the year to delay tax payments until 2023,” said Sergio Silva, sales director at Fireblocks. “That’s another source of selling pressure that […]

Bangkok, Thailand – The moment the axe fell on China’s massive cryptocurrency mines, Thai entrepreneur Pongsakorn Tongtaveenan was ready to swoop – quickly buying up redundant computer processors needed to retrieve Bitcoin from the network and shipping them to Southeast Asia. “Chinese miners got rid of their machines and the price collapsed by 30 percent,” Pongsakorn told Al Jazeera. Prices have now returned to more than $13,000 for the new “miners” – the computer hardware that solves the complex math puzzles which release the Bitcoin rewards from the network. Still, Pongsakorn, 30, has been able to sell hundreds of units across Thailand as small players jump into cryptocurrencies as China cracks down on the lucrative market. In September, Beijing banned all cryptocurrency trading and mining amid concerns virtual currencies were “breeding illegal and criminal activities” and posed a risk to the “economic and financial order”. The crackdown forced some of the world’s largest Bitcoin mining operations to seek out new bases with friendly regulations and the essential ingredient of cheap electricity to run thousands of computers around the clock. The biggest packed up and shifted operations to the United States – particularly Texas – Malaysia, Russia and Kazakhstan among other countries. But for many smaller miners keen to quickly cut and run for fear of incurring the wrath of China’s authoritarian government, the priority was to claw back some money on their now useless computers. That created an opportunity for entrepreneurs like Pongsakorn, who was on hand to whisk the […]

Iran for the second time this year ordered a shutdown of authorized cryptocurrency mining centers as part of efforts to ease the strain on the country’s power plants and avoid blackouts, according to Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi, director of the state-run Iran Grid Management Co. and a spokesman for Iran’s power industry. The ban, which will be in place until March 6, will free up 209 megawatts of power for consumption in the household sector, Rajabi Mashhadi said in an interview with state TV. Authorities are also cracking down on illegal mining carried out by both individuals at home and larger-scale industrial units, he added. These unlicensed operators account for the largest share of crypto mining in the country, consuming more than 600 megawatts of electricity. Other fuel-saving measures include turning off street lights in some areas and regulating electricity consumption in offices. Rajabi Mashhadi said the government expected 60% more electricity production in the summer. Iran banned crypto mining for a time earlier in the year amid a series of blackouts across major cities that was blamed in part on a surge in the energy-intensive process. While the majority of crypto mining was long centered in China, that changed this year when a nationwide ban sent operators to other nations, particularly places offering cheap power. This, in turn, has pressured power grids, leading countries from Iceland to Kazakhstan to place limits on the industry. Iran’s daily gas demand in the household sector soared to an unprecedented 570 million cubic meters per day for the […]

When Canadian artist Trevor Jones graduated 14 years ago from the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland, he was quickly confronted by the harsh realities of the art world. “I had some decent exhibitions and gallery shows,” he told Al Jazeera. “But it was no way to pay the bills. I was working three different jobs at the time.” In the early 2010s, he got interested in the intersection between technology and art, and started experimenting with QR codes and augmented reality. These themes received a lukewarm response from the established art world, but he pushed on. In 2017 he invested in the rising cryptocurrency Bitcoin, promptly losing his money in the 2018 crash. “I found out I was a much better painter than an investor,” he joked. “But it opened up a whole new world that I could explore through painting.” Since then he has been making cryptocurrency-themed works, mixing classical painting and crypto themes, often with digital art pieces attached to them in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). NFTs are unique digital files underpinned by blockchain technology – the same tech that anchors Bitcoin – and the blockchain ledger they sit on verifies who the rightful owner is of that one-of-a-kind digital asset, giving it a provenance. Demand for NFTs started taking off late last year, with interest in them exploding this year – along with Jones’s fortunes. His first NFT project sold in 2019 for $10,000 – a huge amount of money at the time. In October […]

Justin Sun, founder of the Tron cryptocurrency platform and one of the more high-profile individuals in the digital-asset world, said he’s embarking on a new career as a diplomat for the Caribbean nation of Grenada. At the same time, Sun, who said he’s been a resident on the 135-square-mile island since 2019, is phasing out his participation in crypto-related projects. That includes Tron, the blockchain that’s a top network for controversial stablecoin Tether and supports hundreds of gambling and gaming apps. Sun, 31, first gained notoriety for the saga of his delayed meeting with billionaire investor Warren Buffett in 2020 and a bungled Tesla giveaway a few months earlier. He was outbid at the last moment at an auction for a non-fungible token that was sold for a record $69 million, and has even faced a revolt at a crypto social network company he acquired. “Our crypto industry has got into the stage, we really need sovereign states and regulators and international organizations to recognize the potential and the benefits of the blockchain technology,” Sun said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “That’s why I think I will focus lots of my energy, to try and push blockchain technology and cryptocurrency – the importance of all of this in developing countries and developed states as well. I will also try to promote new technology development in Grenada.” He was appointed Grenada’s representative to the World Trade Organization in Geneva, according to Oliver Joseph, minister of Foreign Affairs, International Business and Caricom Affairs. Other crypto […]

The finger-pointing has already started after data glitches resulted in the brief display of astronomical gains for many cryptocurrencies late Tuesday. Crypto.com Chief Executive Kris Marszalek blamed popular data provider CoinMarketCap.com and said it was working to remove the “unreliable price feed” from its site. Coinbase Global Inc. President and Chief Operating Officer Emilie Choi also cited bad pricing data from CoinMarketCap.com, which is own by rival exchange Binance. The incident was “indicative of an emerging industry,” Choi said during an interview Wednesday at the Bloomberg Technology Summit. Coinbase, the largest U.S. crypto exchange, has more than 70 million customers worldwide. (Bloomberg) While the exact cause of the glitches is still unclear, some industry members point to the possible role of API, or application programming interface. Websites use APIs to talk to each other, and a website can make its APIs available so other websites can embed their data, for example. Coinbase didn’t respond to questions on how much its pays for CoinMarketCap’s data feed. Crypto.com declined to comment. Technical glitches have long plagued the cryptocurrency world, with many exchanges often having trouble processing transactions during period of high trading activity. The feature of anonymity that has been a selling point since the development of cryptocurrencie has also made it difficult to resolve hacks and thefts. “The perception here is it happens quite often to the level that people start to get impatient,” said Owen Lau, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. “While people are still looking for the root cause, I […]