Excited for what's to come - CoinMarketCap Blog

Your daily newsletter for May 15, 2019

Enthused

“Enthusiasm is excitement with inspiration, motivation, and a pinch of creativity."

- Bo Bennett

CoinMarketCappers, it's been a tremendous week for the crypto community thus far. As if it weren't already sufficiently exciting, things are starting to get really exciting again in the industry. 🤪 To those who have some time to kill, I would recommend watching highlights (you can easily find them on YouTube) of the ongoing Consensus 2019 conference in New York! You'll be able to stay abreast on the what's what in the space. I guarantee you won't be disappointed! 👌🏻

Today in history (2008), the U.S. state of California became the second U.S. state after Massachusetts in 2004 to legalize same-sex marriage after the state's own Supreme Court rules a previous ban unconstitutional. 😄

In today's newsletter, we will be covering the U.S. SEC again delaying the decision on a Bitcoin ETF, comments made by a TD Ameritrade executive vice president at a Consensus 2019 conference panel and Coinbase expanding USDC trading support to 85 countries.

Please don't forget to answer the polls down below too! It's a great way for us to interact with you all and hear what you have to say. 💭 Happy reading! 📚

Spillover 🌊

Over the last 24 hours, total market capitalization rose from ~$236.7 billion to ~$242.5 billion, mostly due to a flow from BTC's market capitalization to that of the altcoins. This is very similar to a common occurrence in the end 2017 bull run, where a sharp BTC run up would follow up with a slight retracement that's accompanied with an altcoins run up. Most coins are seeing gains in the ~5-10% range. Notable movers of the day include XRP (XRP), Tezos (XTZ), Neo (NEO) and Chainlink (LINK), each up ~13.3%, ~19.5%, 13.3% and 17.1% respectively. 📈

BTC is currently trading at ~$7,940, down ~2.4% over yesterday. RSI level on the daily chart is currently at ~88, still well inside the 'oversold' range. The last time we've seen such strong momentum was back in mid Dec 2017, in the midst of BTC's then parabolic rise to ~$20,000. 💰

A greater probability lies with the idea that after such a parabolic rise, that there would be some profit taking which will contribute to lower bullish momentum and a likely retracement.

The wait continues ⌛

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has again delayed the decision on whether to approve or reject a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), namely the Bitwise ETF proposal filed with NYSE Arca. At this point, the SEC still has yet to approve any BTC ETFs. 😔

The Bitwise ETF proposal was first filed in January this year, and was previously postponed in March (to May) along with another BTC ETF proposal filed by VanEck/ SolidX.

What follows after this soft decision to postpone is a 3 week public comment period where the public can publish comments in the Federal Register, followed a 2 week period for responses. ✍️

Assuring words 😀

During a panel at the ongoing Consensus 2019 conference, TD Ameritrade's executive vice president Steven Quirk shared some positive insights about the crypto space. 🗣️

He remarked that about "60,000 [of TD Ameritrade's] clients have traded something in this complex [the crypto space]" and that attendance education events facilitated by the company has been “off the charts”, stemming from growing interest from both millennials and older retail investors. 😍

He went on to talk about Bitcoin (BTC) futures products, and how BTC's price fluctuations have not affected overall interest in seeing an introduction for one. This included interest from investment advisors (RIAs) too. He believes that “as soon as you open the door, you’re going to get a lot of people looking to participate in the market". He added that there is also a demand for the much anticipated physically settled BTC futures (which are not cash settled and based on BTC as an underlying commodity) as they enable traditional risk management tools to “function better”. 👍

Another notable comment made by Quirk and fellow panelist Thomas Chippas (CEO of exchange ErisX, an exchange TD Ameritrade has invested in) was that institutional investors, despite popular perception that they are waiting for an ETF to be introduced before they invest, are already investing. 🤑

Spinning a bigger web 👐

According to an official blog post, crypto exchange Coinbase has, as part of a commitment to provide more fiat-to-crypto onramps, expanded trading support for 1:1 USD-pegged stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) to 85 countries, for both its retail site Coinbase.com and for its Coinbase Pro service. 😲

The firm touts USDC to be stable store of value that can be sent globally “near-instantly”, and added that "unlike other cryptocurrencies, each USDC is backed by $1 USD with monthly transparency audits showing 100% USD backing”. 😊

Coinbase believes that USDC can help individuals "countries like Argentina and Uzbekistan, where consumer prices are expected to inflate by 10–20% in 2020" and "provide an opportunity to protect against inflation.”

Blockchain term of the day 🤓 - Confirmations

A transaction is only confirmed when it is included in a block on the blockchain, at which point it has one confirmation. Each additional block is another confirmation. Different exchanges require a different number of confirmations to consider a cryptocurrency transaction final.

Other news 📰

Facebook has hired two Coinbase veterans, Jeff Cartwright and Mikheil Moucharrafie who both worked at Coinbase for 5 and 3 years respectively, to work in compliance. 🤝
BitGo is launching a new clearing and settlement service for its regulated BitGo Trust Company institutional clients. It will supposedly ensure “fast, compliant and secure” settlement is whilst ensuring that assets never leave custody when being transferred. ⚡
According to Business Korea, Samsung will lower barriers to a blockchain experience on their Galaxy phone models by making its digital wallet app available on lower-cost models as well and by further expanding the crypto features to more jurisdictions. 😄

Crypto calendar 📅

16 May - U.S. SEC's decision on the NYSE Arca and Bitwise Asset Management's Bitcoin ETF application (decision has been delayed)

21 May - U.S. SEC's initial decision on the VanEck, SolidX and the Cboe BZX Exchange Bitcoin ETF application

TBA - ICE's Bakkt Bitcoin Daily Futures Contract updated launch timeline

Catch the CoinMarketCap team at these community events! 🤝

8-11 Jul - RISE Conference 2019 (Hong Kong)
10-11 Jul - Barcelona Trading Conference (Barcelona, Spain)

Poll of the Day

On a scale of 1-10 (10 being maximum FOMO), how hard are you FOMO-ing right now after the recent price run up? 😂💭

Why do you say so? Share with me in the polls! 😆

What you said

"On a scale of 1-10 (10 being most shocked), how shocked are you at this recent crypto market rally?"

The average vote was a 5.8.

"Why do you say so? What do you think is the cause(s) of it?"

Whales - Could be! 🤔

Not surprised.. - In this space, one should expect the unexpected. 🤪

New money pushing prices up. - I really hope so. With more fiat-crypto onramps available now this is a possibility. 🤔

there's a good moon rising and the only way is up - See ya on the moon! 🚀

Bakkt - Best news all year! Or should I say, 2 years. 😂

Wishful thinking everyone waiting for bcn to go on a tear like 2018 - Perhaps not in the near future, but I believe that in due time it will hit its previous ~$20,000 all time high. 🔮

The greater economic outlook! - Hmm you're saying the U.S.-China trade war causing the recent U.S. stock market tumble leading to people looking for alternative ways to preserve their capital and hence the inflow into crypto? That's possible too! 😁

You knew it had to happen sooner or later - Bout time we got to see some double digit daily gains again. 😋

Not sure really it has been down for so long I guess it could only go back up and I am glad it is - We all are too! Although, I think it's way too fast. 😔

Lots of positive things on the horizon and have occurred - True.

It's manipulated pump - Possible!

Simple TA. Retracement sufficient. A buildup of positive news the last few months. - Personally, I wouldn't go so far as to say 'Simple TA'. It seems like a very dangerous term to me. I always take TA with a pinch of salt. But yes, there definitely has been a series of positive sentiment inducing news over the past weeks/ months. 👌🏻

I find it to be next to impossible to predict the price of the major cryptocurrencies because there’re so many things that may influence it. For example, maybe has a steady price increase given people increased faith in cryptocurrencies? - I think it's hard to pinpoint a single contributing factor. Rather, it's a series of them that led to it. 🤔

The controller s were ready to advance there cripto agenda - Hmm, illuminati confirmed? 😂

I believe that the price drop in December was manipulated by a few "whales" who sold in bulk then re-bought and capitalised in the dip - I think that in any market, there are always greater forces at play and the rest of us are simply hoping to ride the waves. 🌊

Too high, too fast. - I agree with you here. If the run up is too fast, a fast breakdown is more likely too. Never a fan of quick parabolic run ups as I think it's unhealthy and much harder to sustain. 😔

i am not shocked.. but yes surprised it happened & recovered very quickly. now i fully understand why BITCOIN is BITCOIN. - Bitcoin has that cockroach gene in it. 💪 It never seems to die hahaha.

Satoshi based BTC on the gold market, so when stocks fall gold and crypto go up. - No I don't think he did. There is actually a low correlation between stocks and gold, and crypto. And he did not purposely create it with that intent.

Anticipated institutional access. - One of the factors for sure!

Fomo - Fomo was real strong on this one. 😂

A big breakout on BTC has been building as the mathematical odds could no longer overcome the underlying psychology of FOMO🤓. Great call on FOMO being the term of the day👊. - Haha thank you, I just had to. It's been awhile since I was able to use that term again. Way too long.

Nothing shocks me in this market anymore. We could be back down to yearly lows tomorrow. Has such a volatile asset ever existed before? - Dot com internet stocks and penny stocks!

Long time coming and adoption is everywhere you look - Only if you pay attention (: Definitely doing my part to help people see. Are you too? 😉

institutional investors becoming more of a reality - It's very real. BTC has been proving itself to have staying power. Given its non-correlative attribute to the stock market, the big boys are starting to see it as a viable diversification tool for their portfolios. 🔨

You could feel the bullrun coming since the rapid recovery in april, but who could've expected this rapid rise? We have some excellent analysts at BTC Direct but even they were a bit surprised 🙂 - You could definitely feel it, but I'm sure everyone was shocked to see how it went parabolic, through the heavy resistance zones of $5,800 to $6,400. 🤯 This space never fails to amaze me.

It was only a matter of time and we all know where it is heading in the long run. Still going to change the world! - All in due time. 😁

Thank you all for reading! Catch you back here again tomorrow for your daily dose of crypto news! 💙