Bitcoin Price Analysis and SegWit
While Bitcoin price is experiencing a new growth after the almost 50% drop from its all-time high, a few analysts of the crypto market suggest that bitcoin price at $4000 is in the air.
And this moment seems to come sooner than expected.
“When added to the professed agreement for major players to work together on the Bitcoin scaling issue starting September – if it becomes a reality, the price could see between $4,000 and $5,000 before the year ends,” said an expert to Cointelegraph.
2017 has been a good year for bitcoin price, as it traded at about $950 back in January and it reached its new all-time high a few months ago in June with a value of $3011: this means that bitcoin price grew of more than 3000% in a six-months period.
Compared to the all-time high we quoted above, the current price decrease is maybe due to the uncertainty around the upcoming SegWit activation that will take place on August 1st, 2017.
For those who are unfamiliar with this, SegWit is a new upgrade to the Bitcoin blockchain that will increase the block size to support more transactions and allow a faster confirmation for transactions.
At the moment, the blockchain supports up to 2000 transactions per block in 10 minutes and SegWit will double this capacity to 4000 transactions.
Also, Segwit2x will increase the size of each block from 1MB to 2MB.
SegWit will be implemented on August 1s, while it is not sure yet if Segwit2x will be implemented too.
That said, the real reason of uncertainty is caused by the hard fork needed to implement SegWit.
This might create two different chains in a similar way to what happened to Ethereum in 2016 with the DAO and Ethereum Classic.
Not a problem for the Bitcoin price
According to many experts in the industry, while this event might create panic sell and uncertainty within the community, will not be a real problem in the next future.
Kumar Gaurav of Cashaa explained to Cointelegraph:
“When looking at 2017 so far, it still has been a good year for Bitcoin, starting just below 1000$ and now standing just below $2,000. Whether and to which extent this overall trend will continue will be seen more clearly after some crucial dates such as 1st August. If 80% of the Bitcoin community adopts the updates all should be fine. It seems most likely this will be reached, as the current signaling of intended support is at 87.8 percent, an increase from 83.28 percent in May. Comparable to when in May, following the New York agreement on SegWit2x, Bitcoin reached an all-time high of $2,160, it can reach new all-time highs after a successful activation as Bitcoin will be more attractive again and bring users of other cryptocurrencies back to Bitcoin.”
Bitcoin-based ICOs
Another reason that might be influenced the price is the growing number of Bitcoin-based ICOs or Initial Coin Offerings.
ICOs managers might have cashed out during those days and this drove the prices because a huge amount of bitcoin appeared on the market.
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Litecoin Segwit has been finally approved
Litecoin Segwit has been finally implemented, so this long-debate to change to change the digital currency network can be said to be closed now.
Originally intended to improve the bitcoin blockchain, Segwit – or Segregated Witness – had to solve the so-called block size debate, but it has been used on the lesser known litecoin chain, with some in the community that believes that it will help to finally have a quick implementation on the bitcoin network too.
Litecoin Segwit: how does it work?
Segregated Witness, in fact, is a new system that will allow litecoin to improve its block size, by modifying how transaction data is stored by the blockchain itself.
The change was first locked-in two weeks ago, when the proposal reached the 75% threshold level.
Then, the community had to wait two more weeks (8,064 blocks) to ensure that the upgrade approval was consistent.
After that, yesterday (on May 10th) the change was officially activated at block 1201536.
What does it mean?
Litecoin users can now start using a new kind of network, and there has been at least one transaction so far.
Anyway, several supporters are thrilled about the new techs that can now be created on the Segwit-supported network.
For example, the Lightning Network could boost litecoin transactions by million times; thanks to Segwit it can now be used to move real money.
Developer Loshan T explained to CoinDesk:
“I think today will be a great day for pushing more awesome tech into Litecoin. With SegWit activated on litecoin’s mainnet, I cannot wait until we deploy confidential transactions, Lightning Networks, MAST and Schnorr signatures.”
Unfortunately, these projects are early stage right now, but developers from the Lightning Labs seem thinking that it is too early to talk about sending money over an experimental network, so they plan to continue to develop the chain.
The future is unwritten
It not so clear where the Segwit activation will lead to or what role Litecoin will have in the next future.
Loshan explained that some in the community are skeptical about litecoin needs of the Lightning Network tech because litecoin blocks are not full yet, but they would like to have trustless cross-chain transactions between bitcoin and litecoin as a potential Lightning use case; and developer believes could be a benefit for both the digital currencies.
Anyway, at the moment, the Litecoin blockchain seems to work properly, without any issue, even after the Segwit activation.
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Litecoin Segwit: how it is driving the prices
Maybe because of the recent Litecoin Segwit support, this digital currency price set a new high yesterday, reaching a value of $11.42, its highest price since May 2014.
We cannot define it a cryptocurrency pump, but the market seems to answer to the technical changes in the network.
This price growth, in fact, could be explained thanks to the almost reached the 75% support level needed in order to activatate the Litecoin Segwit (Segregated Witness), or a scaling solution that will improve blocks capacity.
Right now, in fact, just over 70% of miners were giving their support for the Litecoin Segwit.
Even if at press time, Litecoin price declined of about 67%, litecoin traded as high as $11.32 today up nearly 40% in one day, according to CoinMarketCap.
On March 30th, litecoin price increased of about 70% and, always according to Coinmarketcap data, its 24-hour volume passed $250m today.
Litecoin SegWit support
These important new Litecoin highs have coincided with the almost reached support level needed for activating the Litecoin SegWit.
First designed to be used on the Bitcoin blockchain, SegWit would increase the block capacity by modifying how transaction data is stored by the blockchain itself.
Once reached, the support level will have to remain at or above the 75% threshold level for 8,064 blocks (almost two weeks) before SegWit can officially be activated.
The litecoin price reached $50 in late 2013, but it has traded below $20 since early 2014.
Click here to read more about SegWit and a new Bitcoin potential fork.
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Cryptocurrencies 2016: Bitcoin Alternative charts
Today we want to talk about Cryptocurrencies 2016, as the just ended year has been very exciting for several digital currencies and not only for Bitcoin.
A lot of major open-source currencies, in fact, showed a good growth during 2016 and we hope to see significant expansion in 2017.
Below you’ll read charts of the excited cryptocurrencies 2016, during a period between December 27, 2015 to December 26, 2016.
Source: Coindesk.com
Bitcoin
Market Capitalization (Beginning of Year): $6,161,215,794
Market Capitalization (End of Year): $14,590,356,108
Price (Beginning of Year): $411.99
Price (End of Year): $908.17
Price (Annual High): $909.94
For sure Bitcoin is the king of cryptocurrencies 2016, if we talk about value.
It is the oldest blockchain-based asset as today (January 3rd) it celebrates its 8th anniversary: the genesis block was generated on January 3rd 2009.
While I’m writing of this article, Bitcoin price is still growing, surpassing the value of $1,000 for 1 BTC.
Bitcoin price and trading volume were supported by several global circumstances, including the Chinese yuan devaluation, the UK’s Brexit, and the election of a Donald Trump.
Ethereum
Market Capitalization (Beginning of Year): $80,339,474
Market Capitalization (End of Year): $638,041,577
Price (Beginning of Year): $2.83
Price (End of Year): $7.31
Price (Annual High): $19.59
2016 saw Ether, or the digital currencies that powers the Ethereum blockchain – become the best-performing currencies, with a more than 2,000% increase over the first six months of 2016.
The major reason for its instability was the DAO hack, the subsequent failure of the decentralized project, and the creation of ethereum classic. These factors led to a fall of nearly 50% of this altcoin value.
Anyway, Ethereum is the favorite network for possible FinTech permissioned distributed ledgers, enterprise software and Internet of Things applications, so 2017 could will probably show a capitalization increase for ether.
Litecoin
Market Capitalization (Beginning of Year): $149,142,004
Market Capitalization (End of Year): $212,469,870
Price (Beginning of Year): $3.41
Price (End of Year): $4.34
Price (Annual High): $5.55
One of the oldest bitcoin alternative, litecoin showed a stable valuation during 2016, closing $2 above its starting price for the year.
Dash
Market Capitalization (Beginning of Year): $16,081.586
Market Capitalization (End of Year): $70,675,107
Price (Beginning of Year): $2.64
Price (End of Year): $9.67
Price (Annual High): $14.42
In 2015, darkcoin decided to end its association with shadow businesses and the DarkNet by changing its name to Dash.
This re-branding seemed to work and Dash ended 2016 with pricing nearly three times, and a market capitalization close to four times.
Cryptocurrencies 2016 and their future
As we enter 2017, the future for cryptocurrencies seems bright, as the digital currency market will continue to progress and prove its worth as one of the top-performing commodities available today.
We at HolyTransaction are very happy to work with this top-rated cryptocurrencies, as our wallet can store Litecoin, Dash, Ethereum and Bitcoin within a unique login.
Needless to say, we are proud to have chosen the best and the most profitable cryptocurrencies for our multicurrency wallet you can open here for free.
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HolyTransaction add-on for cryptocurrencies exchange rates
Recently we at HolyTransaction created a new add-on for the Firefox browser only to see the exchange rates for cryptocurrency pairs.
How to dowload the add-on
- Click on the Firefox Menu at the top right of the toolbar;
- Click on “Add-on”;
- Write “HolyTransaction” in the search at the top right of the page;
- Click on “Add-on” on the left menu;
- Click the “Download” button next to the HolyTransaction add-on.
- You will find the exchage rates window at the top right of your toolbar.
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Infographic: Comparing Altcoins
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HolyTransaction Telegram Bot for Crypto Conversion
/exchange
- ● Conduct a trade between any of our supported currencies on the HolyTransaction
platform.
/getnews - ● View the most recent cryptocurrency news.
/rate - ● Receive details on the current price of any of our supported currencies.
/currencies - ● List currencies available on the platform.
/help● List of BOT commands
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HolyTransaction partners with Netki for human-readable address
Wallet addresses are one of the most aggressive barriers to the mass adoption of digital currency. Trying to explain these lengthy, case sensitive, intimidating strings of numbers and letters to the uninitiated is a daunting task. Much of the general population values simplicity over function, and in this regard wallet addresses seem scary and overly complex.
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Netki makes digital money approachable and intuitive for new and veteran users alike, by transforming long and unwieldy Bitcoin addresses into human-readable wallet names. Additionally, your Netki name separates your identity from public blockchain data, providing you multiple layers of privacy, as well as multiple validations to keep you secure.Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.
Dogecoin to allow Litecoin merge mining in network security bid
Plan to save dogecoin
Dogecoin in ‘dire situation’, says Lee
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Litecoin network hashrate tripled in two months
At the end of April, mining hardware manufacturing company started shipping a whole stack of their products. It was the same time when the Litecoin hashrate was somewhere around 173,225 MH/s. The increasing exposure of Scrypt ASICs mining machines further influences other manufactures as well. In just two months since April, the Litecoin hashrate went up to 200$, while its mining difficulty also tripled.
The next Scrypt ASICs to hit the market will have the hashing power between 200 and 400 MH/s; indicating the possible surge in Litecoin mining difficulty and network hashrate as well. Some companies are also building hardware that can sustain hashing power up to 650 MH/s. As many believes, these events will somewhat impact the Litecoin standings in the market. The question however is, in which way?
The Litecoin community seems to have divided on this question. There is a section which believes that the increasing hashrate will have a fruitful impact on Litecoin prices, citing Bitcoin as a key instance; while another section does not acknowledge any relation between the Litecoin prices and its hashrate.
Explanations are coming from both sides, each with a unique perspective. The ones that support the prediction of Litecoin’s escalation believe it to be the network’s strength that will multiply by over 1,000 times in future. It is the economics of scale in mining that will play a major role in boosting the Litecoin’s stand in the market.
On the other hand, there are those who do not support this theory even in thoughts. They outright rubbish the history that certifies increasing hashrate proportional to the coin’s market cap. Their logic dictates a scenario in which miners are faced with increased selling pressures in order to cover their investments on such expensive mining hardware. This aims at a lower demand and higher supply rate that will eventually cause a huge drop in Litecoin prices. They event say that the current imbalance of Litecoin market is caused by such selling pressures.
Considering both the sections, we believe that market conditions have changed a lot since the launch of new cryptocurrencies in the market. The reason why BTC did so well after the increased hashrate was it being used only for trading. Litecoin too cashed only because of the bubble fuelled by China. The moment these coins were introduced to the real merchant world, its basics changed completely. Seeing today’s scenario, Bitcoin is backed by multiple major organizations while Litecoin is still far away from reaching this point. In short, the continual acceptance of BTC over LTC thickens the latter chances to repeat history. Hashrate increased or decreased, it won’t hold any meaning until Litecoin grabs some major investments from big players.
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