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Koreans trade differently to the rest of the world, market data shows.

South Koreans are active crypto traders, with local exchanges outperforming their global rivals in volume, and have a strong preference toward altcoins and local tokens, according to a report from DeSpread Research.

The number of crypto investors in the country hit about 6 million, or 10% of the population, this year, according to a Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (KoFIU) survey, the report said. “The majority of these investors are primarily engaged in investment activities centered around centralized exchanges, making the influence of centralized exchanges in the Korean crypto market significant.”

Since March, centralized exchanges worldwide have seen declines in trading volume as bitcoin traded sideways. Local exchanges, such as Upbit – the country’s largest, bucked the trend, with trading volume growth outpacing market leader Binance by July.

Part of the reason for the gain was a surge in XRP’s price and trading volume after a favorable ruling in Ripple’s court case against the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“Korean exchanges had an explosive reaction to news related to Ripple. The trading volume of the four major Korean exchanges, which recorded $27 billion in June, increased to $37 billion in July, a 37% increase from the previous month,” DeSpread wrote.

Korean traders, after all, are big into altcoins and not so fond of the major tokens, the report said.

“The majority of individual investors on Upbit show strong interest in altcoins with high-profit potential and tend to accept the associated high risks. This is considered one of the reasons for the high proportion of altcoin trading in the Korean market,” DeSpread wrote.

“Cryptocurrencies that dominate the global market, such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Polygon (MATIC), boast large trading volumes worldwide. However, within Upbit, their trading volume shows surprisingly low levels,” the report reads. “This phenomenon indicates that Upbit has unique characteristics compared to the global market and reflects regional disparities in investor preferences and investment strategies.”

The preferred networks for transactions are different in South Korea as well, with Tron’s network being used for the lion’s share of transactions because of the relatively lower transaction fees.

While South Korean exchanges have registered a significant recovery in volume, the country’s traders still use overseas platforms to store their assets. A September report from the country’s national tax service shows that South Koreans hold $99 billion in digital assets overseas.

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A memo by the city’s securities and futures regulator reminds investors of the risks of NFTs; altcoins surge and then drop.

The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was recently trading at about $30,300, up about 0.5% over the past 24 hours. Ether, the second largest crypto by market caps, was changing hands at roughly $1,730, down about 3% over the same period.

Other major altcoins that had risen significantly earlier in the day, including SOL and ADA were more recently about flat, as investors wrestled with a few positive economic signs and the months-long flow of more troubling news.

Still, a number of analysts said that Bitcoin was unlikely to take any deep dives for the time being.

“I think we may be putting in a bottom here with Bitcoin,” Greg King, CEO and founder of crypto asset manager Osprey Funds, told CoinDesk’s First Mover program.

King noted that the presence of institutional investors has differentiated the latest price slump from previous crypto winters in 2013 and 2018 when bitcoin lost over 80% of its value. Bitcoin has currently dropped about 60% since hitting its all-time peak just short of $70,000 in November.

“Institutional buyers are buying this dip and then don’t forget the macro environment,” King said, noting the four-decade high inflation rate in the U.S. “Zero yield assets such as gold and Bitcoin do very well” at these times, he added.

Stocks rose slightly on Monday with the tech-focused Nasdaq and S&P 500 increasing about a half percentage point, as was the case for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Gold, a traditional safe-haven asset, fell about a half-percentage point. Investors were buoyed by last week’s job report that suggested the economy might not plunge into recession any time soon. Some analysts also believe that inflation has peaked, although markets will be nervously eyeing this Friday’s consumer price index report, which is expected to show inflation remaining stubbornly above 8%, a four-decade high.

Volatility continued to fade in crypto markets, while the fear and greed index ticked higher, although it is still registering squarely in extreme fear territory. Bitcoin has been trading in a tight range between $28,000 and $31,500 for the past month as investors wait for clearer signals about whether the economy will sink into recession or power through its current headwinds.

King believes the increasing correlation between cryptos and stocks will reverse to some degree, calling it a “reflection of this kind of wild situation in macro markets where we have awful conditions and so it’s more of a risk-on, risk-off type of mindset.”

“I personally think that crypto will emerge as – certainly things like Bitcoin – as a relative safe haven as we continue to chop through an uncertain macro environment and especially if rates continue to rise and equities continue to tank, but I don’t think that a long term correlation makes a lot of sense,” he said.

The post When It Comes to Crypto, Hong Kong Isn’t the World’s ‘Freest Economy’; Bitcoin Has a Late Fall appeared first on Crypto Insider.

Traders of ether futures saw liquidations nearly double those of bitcoin in an unusual move.

Bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) lost pivotal support levels in the past 24 hours amid weakening sentiment for the broader crypto market – a move that caused over $520 million in liquidations, data shows.

Ether-tracked futures lost upwards of $236 million, nearly double those of $125 million on bitcoin futures. The losses were unusual for ether, which mostly sees lower liquidations than bitcoin on average trading days.

Futures of Stepn’s GMT tokens racked up $23 million in losses amid headwinds from Chinese authorities, who banned gameplay of the popular ‘step-to-earn’ protocol in the country. Futures on Solana (SOL) lost $11 million, while metaverse-focused Sandbox (SAND) saw $9 million in losses.

Ether dropped to as low as $1,728 in early Asian hours on Friday, losing some 9% of its value over the past 24 hours. A sudden dip to similar price levels on Thursday night was prompted brought up by traders, but this morning’s slide was gradual.

Price-charts suggest support at current levels and resistance at $1,900, which acted as pivotal support earlier this month. Similar prices were previously seen in July 2021, and losing the level could see ether drop to the $1,300-$1,500 range or lower.

A fundamental reason for the drop could be a lack of demand for Ethereum’s block space, as per data from analytics firm Glassnode. ‘Gas,’ or network fees, prices have been trending downward since December and recently reached multiyear lows, the firm said in a note earlier this week.

Block space is the amount of transactional data that can be included in each block, with users paying “gas” fees for doing so. Lower block demand generally means a fall in user activity on any particular network.

Meanwhile, analytics firm Coinalyze said in a Twitter message that Thursday’s volatility in ether was succeeded by a sudden increase in open interest on ether futures. Open Interest is the amount of unsettled futures in any market, and an increase in the figure usually implies traders are opening long, or short, positions in anticipation of a move.

Ether and other major cryptocurrencies seemed to stabilize at writing time. Futures and options data for bitcoin suggests traders are positioning for a bearish period ahead, however.

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The crypto world has focused more heavily on environmental issues than the social and governance aspects of different projects; major cryptos were in the red on Sunday as the Russian invasion intensified.

Bitcoin began falling late Friday and continued to drop through the early part of the weekend before coming to a temporary rest at about $39,000. At the time of publication, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was trading below $38,500. Ether and major altcoins were in the red on Sunday.

Bitcoin’s decline began as bad news throughout last week quashed even the faintest hopes of a resolution to the Russian onslaught and erased gains from earlier in the week when investors saw Ukraine and Russia’s separate use of crypto as proof of its potential.

“The drop on Friday was a reversion to prices that shot up when people believed there might be more of an escape to crypto in the wake of fiat banks and payment gateways in Russia and Ukraine restricting access,” Joe DiPasquale, CEO of fund manager BitBull Capital. “The price would be buoyed if there were a de-escalation with the Russia/Ukraine conflict.”

That seemed unlikely on Sunday as Russia continued its brutal attacks against Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin rejecting all overtures for a ceasefire, even to a targeted truce that would allow citizens of Mariupol, a besieged port of roughly 500,000 people, to flee. Russia has been targeting Mariupol and other Black Sea ports to isolate Ukraine’s southern coast with its access to shipping and industry.

Russian forces pounded other major Ukraine cities with artillery and rocket fire, according to multiple reports. In one instance, mortar fired killed a mother and two children as they evacuated the town of Irpin near the capital of Kyiv. European and North American media outlets reporting on the invasion even found themselves under attack on at least one occasion.

Meanwhile, the three largest credit card companies, American Express, Visa and Mastercard announced over the weekend that they would be suspending operations in Russia. The decision added to a flurry of sanctions by countries aligned against Russia in hopes of crippling its economy. Already there are signs that the sanctions are biting hard as the ruble’s value against the dollar has plummeted to less than a penny.

At the time of publication, Bitcoin was down about 2.5% over the past 24 hours and over 7% from early Friday when the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was still trading at roughly 41,600. Ether was changing hands at about $2,550 on Sunday, off over 4% from a day ago.

DiPasquale believes that bitcoin could hit “its next resistance just below $36,000 before bouncing back up to $40,000,” and noted that “many, long-term investors” may see this as “a buying opportunity.” But he added that that “new investors are skittish given global uncertainty, as well as uncertainty” about the Biden Administration’s executive order on crypto in the near future.

The post Cryptos Has a Lost Weekend as the Russian invasion intensified appeared first on Crypto Insider.

Investors continue to monitor the escalating tensions on the Ukrainian border as well as this week’s Producer Price Index report.

After dropping sharply Friday, bitcoin found firm footing in the $42,000 to $43,000 range during U.S. trading hours as investors continued to hold their breath about a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine, particularly the implications for the global energy supply.

At the time of publication, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was trading just below $42,800, up slightly over the last 24 hours. Ether, the second-largest crypto by market cap, was trading at above $2,900, up more than 2% over the the same time period. Major altcoins were mostly in the red. Trading was light.

Crypto’s performance largely mirrored prices on major equity exchanges. The tech-focused Nasdaq composite was flat, the first trading day after it dropped more than 2% on Friday. The S&P 500 and DJIA were off slightly.

Oi l prices have risen to $90 a barrel, their highest level since 2014, and a war that could mean sanctions on Russian production could send the price to over $100, a number of analysts have predicted. Natural gas prices jumped 6% on. Monday. “The possibility of war between Ukraine and Russia has put oil prices on a one-way road higher,” wrote Edward Moya, senior market analyst for The Americas OANDA.

Moya noted that crypto prices “appears to be stabilizing,” despite rising U.S. Treasury bond yields. “Bitcoin has weathered the regulatory storm and China [mining] exit,” Moya said. “There’s a strong belief that bitcoin is going to do well in a gradually increasing Treasury yield environment.

If tensions on the Ukrainian border decrease in the days ahead, Moya said investors will “focus on U.S. economic data.” He said that Tuesday’s Producer Price Index (PPI) report, the average change in the selling prices received by domestic producers for their goods and services, will “be closely watched” as a window on inflationary trends.

The post Bitcoin Finds Firm Footing Above $42K appeared first on Crypto Insider.

The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization plummets below $41,000 after rising earlier in the day.

After jumping over $43,000 for a short time, bitcoin plummeted below where it started 24 hours ago. Ether and the largest altcoins by market capitalization also rose promisingly before falling back.

At the time of publication, bitcoin was trading under $41,000, ether had dropped below $3,100, and 19 of the 20 largest major altcoins by market cap were in the red.

The moves downward reflected ongoing pessimism about the economy and rising interest rates, and mirrored bearish sentiment about once, high-flying tech stocks. After a late sell-off of stocks, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index dropped 1.1% in U.S. trading hours. The S&P 500 fell similarly.

Joe DiPasquale, the CEO of the crypto fund BitBull Capital, said investors were initially upbeat about a study by the U.S. Federal Reserve on a digital dollar. “Any news that comes from such an official sources lends crypto credibility, and that credibility leads to increased demand,” DiPasquale said.

He attributed crypto markets’ recent down trend “to lower demand and some seasonability. “January is historically a soft month,” he said. “So I’m hopeful as we lead into the next few weeks that there will be increased activity and demand.”

The post Bitcoin, Altcoins Rise and Then Sink appeared first on Crypto Insider.

Ether and most other altcoins also drop amid more bad news for the global economy.

Crypto prices sagged on Monday, a national U.S. holiday honoring civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., and showed few signs of reversing any time soon.

Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, fell below $42,000, although at the time of publication it was above that mark. Ether dropped under $3,200, while most of the other leading altcoins stayed in the red.

Equity markets were shuttered on the holiday, offering a respite from the recent drumbeat of bad news that seems to be increasingly intertwined with crypto pricing. The Wall Street Journal reported that about 220 U.S. publicly traded companies with market capitalizations over $10 billion have fallen 20% from their peaks and that the S&P 500 and Nasdaq had declined 2.2% and 4.8%, respectively.

Meanwhile, a New York Times story highlighted the inability of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to keep pace with data about the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, which has been hammering the global economy.

Pankaj Balani, CEO of the crypto derivatives exchange Delta Exchange, said that bitcoin is vulnerable to falling further because buying demand is absent. “We are not seeing any bottom fishing at these levels, and the interest to own bitcoin risk around $40,000 remains low,” Balani told in a WhatsApp chat. “We could retest $40,000 and should that break, we can see a fresh round of selling come through.”

The post Bitcoin Is Off on US Holiday and Could Fall Further appeared first on Crypto Insider.

Mason Versluis, who goes by Crypto Mason on TikTok, began investing in crypto in 2017. Since then, he’s spent his time browsing the web for new projects that have the potential to go mainstream.

He bought hedera (HBAR), which could prove to be an ethereum competitor, when it was at $0.03. It has since gone up by about 1,200%. He bought ripple’s xrp at $0.17, and it’s since up 600%. And he bought the ethereum-based quant (QNT) at $28, which is up about 864%, according to screenshots of the transactions Insider viewed.

In the past five months, Versluis has had his eyes on cryptos tied to the metaverse, a sort of digital universe that allows people to interact in virtual worlds. And he said his interest had nothing to do with Facebook’s big metaverse splash and rebrand to Meta. What sparked his attention was a tweet about someone selling a virtual property in one of these digital worlds for $913,000.

Like blockchains, there are numerous metaverses, each operating slightly differently. And like cellphone games and video games, each metaverse looks and works differently. In one, you could purchase virtual real estate and build on your land. In another, you could slay dragons.

“It’s an online virtual world that you can exist in just like you exist in the physical world,” Versluis said. “You can meet other people. You can play games. You can shop.”

While Facebook’s announcement prompted the spike in mainstream interest around metaverses, the company and its highly centralized platform isn’t exactly favored by the crypto community, Versluis said.

“There’s, like, an adoption curve to these things. So Facebook’s awareness blast is the first step to mass adoption,” Versluis said.

People will be able to hop onto different metaverses they prefer. Some metaverses may even have interoperability, allowing users to merge two platforms, he added.

But whether you’re a gamer or not, the opportunities for investors in the metaverse are as diverse as in the crypto space. And Versluis said it was not something to be overlooked.

“They should be looking at this like the obvious new wave because if a trillion-dollar company like Facebook is taking a step that big, it’s very clear where the world is headed,” Versluis said. “So as an investor, you should be trying to capitalize on this new wave.”

Some of these metaverses are effectively built on well-known blockchains like ethereum. But they have their own tokens people can use as a native currency within the game. This means the value of a metaverse’s token can skyrocket if the virtual world gets popular enough.

Since many of these projects are in their early stages and don’t have mass adoption, investing remains highly risky and highly volatile. That’s why Versluis is sticking to projects that he’s seeing momentum in and those that have partnerships with big companies.

“The money being pumped in might be temporary because it has been a lot, so naturally things are going to correct,” Versluis said. “But in the long term, this is going to explode. I can say with personally 100% confidence that this is the future.”

In an interview with Insider, he shared the five cryptos he’s betting on that are tied to the metaverse.

Metaverse-linked cryptos

The first pick is Decentraland, which uses the token mana. The piece of digital land that sold for almost $913,000 was built within this ecosystem. And it’s one of the leading metaverses built on ethereum.

Decentraland is quite the opposite of Facebook’s metaverse because it’s run by the community, not a centralized company, Versluis said.

Within this digital world, you can shop in a marketplace, play games, and buy and build plots of land. And yes, you’ll need mana to transact. Mana was last trading at $2.74, according to CoinMarketCap, up about 1,042% year to date.

The next project is Metahero, which uses the hero token. This project isn’t building another metaverse but the hardware required to merge our world with the digital. Its key product is a large scanner that scans people and objects and creates a version of them for the digital world.

“So what they’re doing is trying to build the largest database, and this is going to help us continue to merge the physical and digital world. It’s essentially like a physical portal,” Versluis said.

Hero was last trading at $0.16, according to CoinMarketCap, up 2,062% year to date.

The next project is The Sandbox, a leading contender for the metaverse that’s ethereum-based. Its token is sand. According to its website, you can “play, create, own, and govern a virtual metaverse” that’s created by the community or its players.

Rather than holding this crypto, Versluis told Insider he had been trading it because he hadn’t done enough in-depth research to determine whether this would be a longer-term hold.

As of Wednesday, sand was last trading around $3, according to CoinMarketCap, but it’s up a whopping 8,233% year to date.

Steve Ehrlich, the CEO of Voyager Digital, also recently told Insider that “there’s definitely still further room to grow” in both Decentraland and Sandbox because of the metaverse opportunity.

The next contender Versluis is invested in is Hedera, which isn’t a metaverse or a blockchain but a hashgraph. Its crypto is hbar. He’s picked this project because it has a metaverse project being built on it known as Vccess, another metaverse that uses nonfungible tokens, rather than crypto.

Hedera’s platform is enterprise-driven, and its governing council includes global organizations such as Boeing, IBM, and Google. It’s not the favorite among the crypto community because of its lack of decentralized features relative to blockchains. But for traditional investors who are more familiar with stocks than blockchains, this may be a bit closer to home.

As of Wednesday, hbar was trading at $0.39, up 1,119% year to date.

Finally, Versluis said not to forget about ether because its blockchain hosts the two biggest metaverse contenders, Decentraland and The Sandbox.

@ Insider

The post Here are top Altcoins to buy as expert says Metaverse is about to explode and these tokens are tied to the biggest opportunities in the sector appeared first on Crypto Insider.

• Ethereum and Bitcoin, two of the biggest cryptocurrencies in the market, are set to at least double their price before the end of the year, according to analysts.

• The rally for Bitcoin is predicted to stem from more ETFs coming into the market, giving the cryptocurrency more legitimacy as an investment asset.

• Goldman Sachs pegs Ethereum to hit $8,000, in-line with breakeven inflation.

After hitting a new all-time high in October, analysts are betting on Ethereum and Bitcoin to double in value before the end of year.

The analyst behind Plan B, who correctly predicted the price of Bitcoin in September and came very close in October, believes that Bitcoin will reach $98,000 this month itself and go on to breach $135,000 in December.

This is in-line with other price predictions for Bitcoin that banking on the world’s oldest cryptocurrency. Standard Chartered, for instance, pegs that Bitcoin will hit $100,000 in 2021 or early 2022.

Meanwhile, global investment bank, Goldman Sachs, estimates that Ethereum’s price is set to reach $8,000 by year-end — higher than what a recent panel of 50 cryptocurrency experts, put together by Finder, predicted at $5,000.

The push for Bitcoin to double in value

After the first ever Bitcoin-based exchange traded fund (ETF) hit the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the money from institutional investors has been flooding in. According to CoinShare’s weekly report, crypto investment products saw inflows of $288 million for the week ending on October 31 — Bitcoin accounted for 93% of it at $269 million.
The cryptocurrency, which turned 13 years old on October 31, is up by 112% this year so far and hit the all-time high of $67,000 in October. Analysts expect the cryptocurrency to rise further with more ETFs coming in, giving a boost to Bitcoin’s legitimacy at least as an investment asset, not an actual medium of exchange.

Ethereum price to rise in-line with breakeven inflation

Goldman Sachs’ prediction for Ethereum to breach $8,000 is based on the second-largest cryptocurrency’s historical correlation to inflation. According to the banking behemoth, cryptocurrencies have traded in-line with inflation breaks — the difference between the yield of a nominal bond and an inflation-linked bond of the same maturity — since 2019.

“It has tracked inflation markets particularly closely, likely reflecting the pro-cyclical nature as a ‘network based’ asset. And the lastest spike in inflation breakevens suggests upside risk if the leading relationship of recent episodes was to hold (grey circles),” said the note.

According to an analysis by blockchain data firm Kaiko, Ethereum has offered higher returns than Bitcoin with respect to market risk over the past one year. As compared to this time last year, the cryptocurrency’s price is up by 1,000% — leaving not just Bitcoin, but other major cryptocurrencies, in the dust.

Ethereum’s price rally

The rally in Ethereum has been aided by the growth of decentralised finance (DeFi), which is touted for its probable disruption of the international monetary system by eliminating the need for middlemen like banks, remittance providers and other players. Moreover, the boom in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has all seen a host of new projects use ether and jump onto the Ethereum blockchain.

Ethereum’s protocol is currently in the midst of an upgrade from the proof-of-work (PoW) to the proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus method, which is expected to reduce the energy consumed for mining — validating transactions — by 99%.

Challenges that lie ahead for Ethereum

Ethereum’s growth trajectory is not without its challenges. The time taken for the community to agree on the upgrade left opportunity for other blockchains to pop up — like Cardano, Solana, Polkadot and others — each claiming to solve either for high transaction fees, energy consumption or transaction times.

Some of the participants in Finder’s panel of 50 cryptocurrency experts expect that their ‘Ethereum Killers’ could run up to win their fair share of the DeFi and NFT market from Ethereum.

Bitcoin, however, is expected to continue its reign as the biggest player of the crypto world — at least for the time being.

In view of the coming wave, banks and financial institutions in the US have been on a crypto hiring spree. Over the past three years, they have onboarded more than 1,000 crypto experts. Currently, financial institutions are offering significant bonuses to attract even more talent their way, according to Bloomberg.

Indian technology companies and crypto exchanges are also on the lookout for crypto talent. The demand for talent has jumped over the last 8-10 months with more than 12,000 job openings on the docket in October, according to a report by Bangalore-based staffing specialist Xpheno cited by the Economic Times.

Since the Supreme Court lifted the ban on cryptocurrencies in 2020, interest in blockchain technology has seeped back into the country, despite the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) attempts to dissuade investors. BrokerChooser, an investment broker comparison company, pegs that there are currently 10.07 crore crypto owners in India — reportedly higher than everywhere else in the world.

By PRABHJOTE GILL @ Insider

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