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VORTECS™ Report: This key trading algo spotted bullish altcoin setups even as BTC price fell

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 23:47:00 GMT

Even in a red market, solid gains can be made. Here’s how Cointelegraph’s unique trading tools highlighted the assets with the strongest historical outlook.

Last week was challenging for crypto traders, with Sept. 24’s FUD-triggering crypto-ban news out of China wiping out much of the gains investors managed to rake in earlier in the week. Between Sept. 18 and Sept. 25, the top 100 altcoins shed as much as 14.4% of their aggregate value, while Bitcoin ( BTC ) lost 12.5%.

The number of altcoins posting double-digit returns was unusually low as well. Data from Markets Pro , Cointelegraph’s subscription-based data intelligence platform, shows that only eight assets out of the hundreds tracked gained more than 10% against the U.S. dollar.

While trading is an activity marked by a steady flux of gains and losses, how can investors spot ahead of time the coins that are well-positioned to weather the storm?

The top performers of a tough week

The table below lists the eight altcoins that managed to secure a robust return even amid the sea of red that swept through the market last week.

COTI continued its winning streak , boosted by the recent release of the Coti Treasury white paper, the asset’s listing on Crypto.com and anticipation of a new stablecoin partnership with Cardano .

CELR’s momentum accelerated following the launch of Celer Network’s cross-chain cBridge 2.0, which is designed to facilitate the transfer of digital funds between major blockchains.

The third best performing asset of the week, Trace (TRAC), is the native token of OriginTrail, a blockchain ecosystem and protocol that aims to improve global supply chains by providing infrastructure for trusted data exchange. The token’s valuation has recently been growing on the back of a series of bullish developments, such as United States home improvement business Home Depot’s adoption of the SCAN Trusted Factory solution built on OriginTrail.

TRAC and REN also posted very high VORTECS™ Scores last week. The VORTECS™ Score is a machine learning algorithm that compares historical and current market conditions around crypto assets to help traders make more informed decisions.

The model considers a host of quantitative indicators — including market outlook, price movement, social sentiment and trading activity — to generate a score that assesses whether the current conditions for a coin are historically bullish, neutral or bearish.

Here is how it worked for TRAC and REN last week.

VORTECS™ caught the early signs of a breakout

The VORTECS™ model is optimized to detect patterns of social and market activity that in the past have consistently appeared 12 to 72 hours before the coin’s price shot up. A score of 80 or higher indicates that the observed conditions have a strong history of preceding price increases.

The price of TRAC was volatile throughout the week against mostly favorable — low to mid-seventies — VORTECS™ Scores. The peak score of 81 briefly flashed late on Sept. 21 (red circle in the chart), indicating the model’s rising confidence that the patterns of market and social activity around the coin looked historically bullish.

Despite a price downturn that had begun shortly after the peak VORTECS™ Score was registered, TRAC soon saw its fortunes reverse, kicking off a two-day rally from $0.37 to $0.56.

The price of REN had been steadily declining in the first half of the week against the backdrop of a sequence of very strong VORTECS™ Scores.

REN eventually bottomed out at $0.70 before starting to climb again, and the week’s second sequence of VORTECS™ Scores registering 80-plus showed up shortly thereafter. Savvy traders know that an asset whose VORTECS™ Score remains high for a long time — even while the price is flat — can present an excellent profit opportunity.

Sure enough, toward the end of Sept. 23, REN’s price exploded from $0.81 to reach a peak of $1.13 some 29 hours later.

Digital assets do not always behave in ways similar to what has been observed in the past, especially during market downturns.

After all, out of last week’s eight best performers, only two coins generated familiar bullish patterns before their prices exploded. However, the additional insight that the VORTECS™ Score supplies to traders can be indispensable in a situation when very few coins can be expected to beat the struggling market.

Cointelegraph is a publisher of financial information, not an investment adviser. We do not provide personalized or individualized investment advice. Cryptocurrencies are volatile investments and carry significant risks including the risk of permanent and total loss. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Figures and charts are correct at the time of writing or as otherwise specified. Live-tested strategies are not recommendations. Consult your financial advisor before making financial decisions.

Stablecoin launch and NFT integration back COTI’s rise to a new all-time high

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 21:05:00 GMT

COTI price rallied to a new high after a series of partnerships, exchange listings and a pivot toward NFTs lure new investors to the project.

The blockchain ecosystem has evolved significantly over the past decade as smart contract capabilities have moved the industry from being a simple medium of exchange to a bustling ecosystem full of decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible tokens (NFT).

One project that has benefited from the increased capabilities of blockchain technology and the recent launch of smart contracts on Cardano is COTI (COTI), an enterprise-grade fintech platform focused on helping organizations create their own payment solutions and digitize any form of currency as a way to facilitate decentralized payments.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that since bottoming out at a low of $0.0884 on July 20, the price of COTI has rallied 652% to reach a new all-time high at $0.6665 on Sept. 25 as its 24-hour trading volume surged to a record $917 million.

Three reasons for the steady rally in COTI include its launch of the Djed stablecoin on the Cardano network, a series of exchange listings and the launch of COTI’s NFT game which appears to be bringing new users to its ecosystem.

COTI launches a stablecoin on Cardano

COTI recently announced that its platform would be the official issuer of the Djed stablecoin on the Cardano network and the price continued its upward move on that news.

Stablecoins have emerged as one of the key components of the cryptocurrency ecosystem as a whole and for decentralized finance, in particular, because they provide sufficient liquidity for the market and create a safe haven during times of volatility.

Aside from its DeFi applications, the Djed can also be used to pay transaction fees on the Cardano network as a way to help prevent high gas fees and make the cost of conducting transactions more predictable.

New exchange listings boost trading volume

A second factor behind COTI's price growth is the token’s listing on several large exchanges, including Coinbase, the most active U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange.

This announcement kicked off a series of exchange listings for COTI, including being added to Huobi, Crypto.com, the decentralized exchange 1inch and Celsius, which is an all-in-one banking and financial services platform.

To go along with these exchange listings, the team at COTI also revealed that it has started the process of inviting beta testers to apply for the COTI bank account and debit card for final testing before the full launch of the protocol’s banking solution.

NFT opportunities encourage invest hodling

A third factor helping to boost the value and activity within the COTI ecosystem is the project’s ongoing NFT activities, including the COTI NFT Game and the network’s future plan to help support NFTs on Cardano.

NFTs have been one of the hottest sectors in the cryptocurrency ecosystem throughout 2021 and protocols that offer a lower fee environment have seen increased activity in recent months.

VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro began to detect a bullish outlook for COTI on Sept. 21, prior to the recent price rise.

The VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historical and current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading volume, recent price movements and Twitter activity.

As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for COTI climbed into the green zone on Sept. 21 and reached a high of 77 around ten hours before the price increased 135% over the next five days.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Bears apply the pressure as Bitcoin price revisits the $41K ‘falling knife’ zone

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 19:35:00 GMT

Bitcoin traders say $43,600 needs to be regained to restore the bullish uptrend, but BTC futures and options data are showing signs of distress.

"Don't fight the trend" is an old saying in the markets, and there are other variants of the phrase like "never catch a falling knife." The bottom line is that traders should not try to anticipate trend reversals, or even worse, try to improve their average price while losing money.

It really doesn't matter whether one is trading soy futures, silver, stocks or cryptocurrencies. Markets generally move in cycles, which can last from a few days to a couple of years. In Bitcoin's ( BTC ) case, it's hard for anyone to justify a bullish case by looking at the chart below.

Over the past 25 days, every attempt to break the descending channel has been abruptly interrupted. Curiously, the trend points to sub-$40,000 by mid-October, which happens to be the deadline for the United States Securities and Exchange Commission decision on the ProShares Bitcoin ETF (Oct. 18) and Invesco Bitcoin ETF (Oct. 19).

According to the CoinShares weekly report , the recent price action triggered institutional investors to enter the sixth consecutive week of inflows. There has been nearly $100 million worth of inflows between Sept. 20 and 24.

Experienced traders claim that Bitcoin needs to reclaim the $43,600 support for the bullish trend to resume. Meanwhile, on-chain data points to heavy accumulation, as the falling exchange supply has been dominant.

Perpetual futures show traders neutral to bearish

To gauge investor sentiment, one should analyze the funding rate on perpetual contracts because these are retail traders' preferred instruments. Unlike monthly contracts, perpetual futures (inverse swaps) trade at a very similar price to regular spot exchanges.

The funding rate is automatically charged every eight hours from longs (buyers) when demanding more leverage. However, when the situation is reversed, and shorts (sellers) are over-leveraged, the funding rate turns negative, and they become the ones paying the fee.

A 'neutral' situation involves leverage longs paying a small fee, oscillating from 0% to 0.03% per eight-hour period, which is equivalent to 0.6% per week. Yet, the above chart shows a slightly bearish trend since Sept. 13, when the funding rate was last seen above the 0.03% threshold.

The put-to-call ratio favors bulls, but the trend has changed

Unlike futures contracts, options are divided into two segments. Call (buy) options allow the buyer to acquire Bitcoin at a fixed price on the expiry date. Generally speaking, these are used on either neutral arbitrage trades or bullish strategies.

Meanwhile, the put (sell) options are commonly used as protection from negative price swings.

To understand how these competing forces are balanced, one should compare the calls and put options open interest.

The indicator reached a 0.47 bottom on Aug. 29, reflecting the 50,000 BTC protective puts stacked against the 104k BTC call (buy) options. Still, the gap has been decreasing as the use of neutral-to-bearish put contracts started to get traction after the Sept. 24 monthly expiry.

According to Bitcoin futures and options markets, it might seem premature to call a 'bearish' period, but the last two weeks show absolutely no signs of bullishness from derivatives indicators. It appears that bulls' hope clings on to the ETF deadline acting as a trigger to break the current market structure.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.

BlackRock SEC filings show company gained $369K from Bitcoin futures

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 19:15:00 GMT

Larry Fink, chief executive officer of BlackRock, said in July that the company was seeing "very little in terms of investor demand" for cryptocurrencies.

A filing from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, shows that BlackRock Financial Management has increased the number of its Bitcoin futures contracts since Q1 2021.

According to a Tuesday filing with the SEC, the BlackRock Global Allocation Fund included 54 Bitcoin ( BTC ) futures contracts issued through the Chicago Mercantile Exchange as of July 31. The contracts, which expired on Aug. 27, were worth $10.8 million, appreciating by $369,137.

The gains from the Bitcoin futures represent roughly 0.00138% of the BlackRock Global Allocation Fund, or 8.91 BTC at the time of publication. The company holds $9.5 trillion in total assets under management.

The investment comes following BlackRock chief intelligence officer Rick Rieder saying earlier this year that the firm had “started to dabble a bit” in crypto. However, CEO Larry Fink said in July that the company was seeing “very little in terms of investor demand” for cryptocurrencies.

Before pursuing Bitcoin futures, BlackRock had indirect exposure to the crypto asset through its ownership stake in business intelligence firm MicroStrategy The investment company also mentioned Bitcoin in two prospectus filings with the SEC in January, hinting that it would be exploring using crypto derivatives.

News of the BlackRock SEC filing comes as the price of Bitcoin has dropped more than 4% in the last 24 hours following a month of considerable volatility. As data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro shows, the price of the crypto asset is $41,323 at the time of publication.

ETH 2.0 moves closer to fruition as devs set Altair upgrade for October

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 18:15:00 GMT

Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake continues, with the first mainnet upgrade of Beacon Chain scheduled for late October.

The Ethereum network’s long-planned upgrade to a scalable, proof-of-stake consensus model grows closer as developers set a date for the Altair upgrade.

Altair, which is described as the first mainnet upgrade to the Beacon Chain, is scheduled to take place at epoch 74240, or roughly Oct. 27, according to Ethereum Foundation researcher Danny Ryan.

Ryan described the technical upgrade as follows:

EIP-2982 introduces “punitive parameters” to ensure that the proof-of-stake protocol is economically secure. “Inactivity leak” and “slashing” are the two proposed penalties under the improvement proposal.

Ethereum’s London hard fork arrived almost on schedule on Aug. 5, ushering in the highly anticipated EIP 1559 proposal. Proponents touted EIP-1559 as the deflationary switch because it involved burning base fees, thereby reducing the circulating supply of ETH.

Joseph Lubin, who co-founded Ethereum before moving on to ConsenSys, said London puts ETH on track to become “ultrasound money.” The concept of “sound” or “ultrasound” money was popularized by the Bitcoin ( BTC ) community and refers to an asset that is not susceptible to a sudden depreciation in value or purchasing power.

The ETH price was down sharply on Tuesday, as cryptocurrencies sold off along with other risk assets, including stocks. ETH was last seen trading at $2,822, having declined 6.5% on the day.

Cardano’s Alonzo hard fork was a success but real utility could be a while

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 13:27:00 GMT

After the market “sells the news” after the successful Cardano Alonzo hard fork, there is a slow realization that real utility could still be on the distant horizon for the network.

Cardano ( ADA ) reached a major milestone in its roadmap on Sep. 13 as its blockchain launched Plutus-powered smart contracts as a part of the Alonzo hard fork.

The Alonzo hard fork has been highly anticipated in the Cardano community as well as the cryptocurrency sphere at large.

The smart contract functionality is meant to allow Cardano to become a platform on which developers can build decentralized applications (DApps) and even mint nonfungible tokens (NFTs). This milestone has been hailed as the point in the development of the network where the “mission truly begins.”

However, the news of the execution of this milestone didn’t prevent the network’s native token, Cardano ( ADA ), from falling into the wider slump that has gripped the crypto market since Bitcoin ( BTC ) flashed crashed below $43,000 on Sep. 7 . In the aftermath of the Alonzo hard fork on Sep. 10, ADA dropped 10% to hit an intraday low of $2.3 while BTC and Ether ( ETH ) only fell 4% and 6.97%, respectively.

Marie Tatibouet, the chief marketing officer of crypto exchange Gate.io, told Cointelegraph:

Cardano developer activity amongst the highest

According to a report by Outlier Ventures titled, “Blockchain Development Trends Q2 2020/21,” Cardano is one of the most actively developed blockchains out there, with the highest average monthly commits per month on Github code repositories at 701 commits per month (CPM).

The average CPM for all protocols considered in the report is 107 CPM. These “commits” essentially represent any additions or amendments made to the network’s source code on Github.

In terms of these commits, Ethereum comes in second with 447 CPM, IOTA stands third with 394 CPM with Filecoin and Flow rounding up the top five with 368 CPM and 306 CPM, respectively. This shows that Cardano is 555% more active than Ethereum and 317% than the average of all the blockchain networks connected.

In terms of the total number of developers building a particular blockchain network, Ethereum is still ranked at the top with 168 monthly active developers (MAD). Cardano follows closely in second place with 165 MAD, showing a higher year-over-year increase of 31.8%. The network already has the functionality that allows the creation of NFTs. According to data provided by Cardano to Cointelegraph, there have been 780,436 NFTs minted on the network.

Such an active developer community is a testament to how fast the network is developing and adapting to the changing needs of the ecosystem. Cardano has a high developer count with the highest development activities amongst similar blockchain protocols thus improving the security and transparency of the network. The Alonzo hard fork bringing in the smart contract functionality will only push these trends to greater heights.

Cardano DApps are still on the distant horizon

Even though the Alonzo upgrade, a part of the Goguen phase of Cardano’s roadmap, allows developers to deploy Plutus-powered smart contracts on the network, the network hasn’t quite reached that stage.

Despite the belief in the market that over 2,000 smart contracts have been deployed on the network, according to data from Vercel app, a third-party data provider that uses data from adapools.org, there are only 26 Plutus-powered smart contracts that have been deployed at the time of writing.

There is also a market-wide perception that these smart contracts are in timelock. But, a spokesperson from Cardano clarified to Cointelegraph that the network has had timelock scripts since the Allegra era of the project’s roadmap. These time-locked scripts are used for activities like aiding NFT minting by making NFTs run unique for-instance and multisig schemes. Smart contracts highly differ from these scripts and cannot be placed “in timelock.”

Hunain Nasser, senior analyst at OKEx Insights — the research team at cryptocurrency exchange OKEx — told Cointelegraph:

However, timelocks can be used once DApps are created and widely used. They can also be used to provide users alerts once any changes to a smart contract are triggered. This feature prevents the implementation of these changes instantly, giving users time to review them and act on them if necessary before they get implemented.

It remains to be seen how fast real utility could come to the Cardano network in terms of DApps and other decentralized finance features. But it also could be a case of managing expectations. Johnny Lyu, CEO of crypto exchange KuCoin, told Cointelegraph that even though the Alonzo upgrade is a landmark event for Cardano, one shouldn’t expect lightning-fast achievements in a short period of time.

An instance of smart contracts being fast-tracked into a network can be witnessed in the case of the Binance Smart Chain, the most recent one being the $12.7 million BTC hack from the pNetwork .

“At the same time, I believe that after launch, it will take more than two years for DApps to be deployed and operate at full scale on Cardano, as it was with the Ethereum network, “ Lyu said, adding “I think everyone is ready to start now and offer some new products and applications to users, but it is necessary to make sure that they are safe.”

Since Cardano is a blockchain project that has always focused on the fundamentals, one might assume that they will allow funds to flow through smart contracts only once they are deemed safe and secure. The Founder of Five Binaries, Marek Mahut, who ran the first smart contract on Cardano said that “Safety and scalability are major features for any developer. Cardano’s accounting technology, eUTXO, provides a novel approach, which makes writing secure smart contracts easier.”

The Cardano Foundation held the Cardano Summit 2021 on Sept. 25–26. IOHK, the blockchain research and development company that backs Cardano’s infrastructure, discussed the planned upgrades and improvements to the smart contract functionality at this summit. It remains to be seen when the deployment of actual DApps can be done on the network, but it’s not an instantaneous process.

Corporate brands target NFTs and adoption continues to skyrocket

Mon, 30 Aug 2021 13:07:00 GMT

Apart from creating their own digital collectibles, major brands are also acquiring popular NFTs amid the growing popularity of nonfungible tokens.

The nonfungible token (NFT) space is arguably one of the most popular aspects of crypto and blockchain technology. Indeed, NFTs are often the topic of conversation, garnering significant interest both from inside and outside the industry.

Such is the growing appeal of NFTs outside the crypto space that major brands like Visa and Budweiser are now acquiring popular items from popular collections. These moves are different from the usual corporate interactions with nonfungible tokens that often involve creating their own digital goods.

As is often the case with crypto and blockchain matters, significant adoption from major legacy players triggers a FOMO-driven frenzy. Several NFT collections have seen massive price floor raises as other collectors hop into the trend.

Beyond the current hype, some crypto proponents say NFTs offer more than memetic appeal and can be the “killer app” for Web 3.0. If such assertions prove true, then nonfungible tokens could be a conduit for gamified investments in the emerging decentralized web, becoming the focal point of the next iteration of the internet similar to how e-commerce and social media have dominated the current cyberspace.

Visa buys Crypto Punk

On Aug. 23, Visa announced that it had purchased Crypto Punk #7610 for 49.50 Ether ( ETH ) — about $149,939 at the time of writing. The news arguably caused a stir in the crypto space and even beyond with several CryptoPunks getting snapped up by wealthy buyers keen to get in on the action.

CryptoPunks is among a league of “OG” NFTs from 2017, long before the current hype surrounding nonfungible tokens. Created by Larva Labs back in June 2017, the collection contains 10,000 pixelated images measuring 24-by-24 pixels set in the 8-bit pixel art style.

Punks have been hailed as being the inspiration for the ERC-721 token standard for NFTs and the precursor to blockchain-based generative art.

Upon the initial release, Crypto Punks were available for free to interested collectors. With NFTs gaining in popularity since 2020, the vintage (at least by nonfungible token standard) collection has become increasingly sought after.

According to the Larva Labs website, the cheapest CryptoPunk available for purchase is priced at 119 ETH (about $400,000). Several owners reportedly delisted their Punks in the wake of the Visa purchase amid a wave of fresh interest following the news.

As of the time of writing, the 30-day trading volume for CryptoPunks has crossed over half a billion dollars. CryptoPunks trading activity is over half of the NFT volume recorded in August.

Chinese internet billionaires have also jumped on the train, acquiring CryptoPunks for huge sums of money.

These days, premium NFTs like CryptoPunks seem to have become a status symbol akin to the Lamborghini fascination of crypto’s earlier days. It is now common to see celebrities from inside and outside the crypto world sporting popular NFTs as their profile pictures on social media accounts.

NFT adoption and corporate brand management

Detailing the reason for its CryptoPunks purchase, Visa’s crypto chief Cuy Sheffield stated, “To help our clients and partners participate, we need a first-hand understanding of the infrastructure requirements for a global brand to purchase, store, and leverage an NFT.” While corporate NFT adoption is not a new phenomenon, actually buying an NFT rather than launching a digital collection based on a company’s offerings makes Visa’s move significantly novel.

Jesse Johnson, founder and chief operating officer of Aavegotchi creator Pixelcraft Studios, told Cointelegraph that Visa’s foray into the NFT space is only “the tip of the iceberg.”

Johnson told Cointelegraph that NFT popularity will drive entire industries to re-examine and realign their incentives with their customers.

According to Christian Ferri, co-founder and CEO of NFTPro, a company that provides NFT market guidance to global brands like Prada and Lamborghini, corporate interest in nonfungible tokens covers investments and marketing, as well as driving increased brand engagement among the younger demographics.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Ferri said that the current hype around expensive NFT collectibles will subside, stating:

There is already growing NFT interest in the corporate world with several major brands looking to establish a presence in the market. Social media giant Facebook has stated that NFTs will be part of its digital asset wallet service Novi.

Reports from China say Bytedance, the parent company of the popular social media platform TikTok might also be mulling an NFT foray. Bytedance founder Zhang Yiming reportedly stated the company’s planned NFT venture in a WeChat NFT group on Aug. 26.

NFTs, gamified investments and Web 3.0

With NFTs becoming the conduit for digital ownership, some commentators have begun to highlight the gamified investment potential of nonfungible tokens, especially within the context of the emerging decentralized web architecture. In some ways, NFTs are perhaps shaping up to embody the transformation brought on by e-commerce and social media in today’s cyberspace.

According to Ferris, “NFTs will be the backbone for the third wave of commerce, or virtual commerce.” From digital avatars to virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR), gaming and metaverses, NFTs are being tipped to permeate several layers of the evolving digital matrix.

This increased penetration also brings up discussions about possible interactions with major pillars of the digital world like e-commerce and social media. Indeed, some companies are already looking to develop infrastructure that will exist at the intersection of NFTs and social media, gaming and e-commerce among others.

“NFTs are empowering real ownership of digital items that can often be used as utilities,” Johnson told Cointelegraph, adding:

Indeed, play-to-earn gaming has become a major component of the NFT space with titles like Axie Infinity commanding the attention of players across the globe. The growing popularity of play-to-earn NFT games is displaying the possibilities that may lie at the intersection of gaming, blockchain, and the virtual economy.

Speaking to Cointelegraph earlier in August, Jenny Q. Ta, founder of blockchain-based social media platform CoinLinked, remarked that NFTs could be the missing link in the quest to disintermediate the internet. According to Ta, NFTs will facilitate content ownership in Web 3.0, creating a whole new virtual economy.

Ta’s CoinLinked was recently acquired by NFT aggregator platform HODL Assets. Following the acquisition, HODL Assets is looking to launch its NFT marketplace service that will also combine e-commerce and social media features.