Getting Started With Crypto

investor, as investing directly in Crypto Currency (CC) requires the use of new tools and adopting some new concepts. So if you do decide to dip your toes in this market, you will want to have a very good idea of what to do and what to expect.

Buying and selling CC’s requires you to choose an Exchange that deals in the products you want to buy and sell, be they Bitcoin, Litecoin, or any of the over 1300 other tokens in play. In previous editions we have briefly described the products and services available at a few exchanges, to give you an idea of the different offerings. There are many Exchanges to choose from and they all do things in their own way. Look for the things that matter to you, for example:

- Deposit policies, methods, and costs of each method

- Withdrawal policies and costs

- Which fiat currencies they deal in for deposits and withdrawals

- Products they deal in, such as crypto coins, gold, silver etc

- Costs for transactions

- where is this Exchange based? (USA / UK / South Korea / Japan…)

Be prepared for the Exchange setup procedure to be detailed and lengthy, as the Exchanges generally want to know a lot about you. It is akin to setting up a new bank account, as the Exchanges are brokers of valuables, and they want to be sure that you are who you say you are, and that you are a trustworthy person to deal with. It seems that “trust’ is earned over time, as the Exchanges typically allow only small investment amounts to begin with.

Your Exchange will keep your CC’s in storage for you. Many offer “cold storage” which simply means that your coins are kept “offline” until you indicate that you want to do something with them. There are quite a few news stories of Exchanges being hacked, and many coins stolen. Think about your coins being in something like a bank account at the Exchange, but remember that your coins are digital only, and that all blockchain transactions are irreversible. Unlike your bank, these Exchanges do not have deposit insurance, so be aware that hackers are always out there trying everything they can to get at your Crypto Coins and steal them. Exchanges generally offer Password protected accounts, and many offer 2-factor authorization schemes – something to seriously consider in order to protect your account from hackers.

Given that hackers love to prey on Exchanges and your account, we always recommend that you use a digital wallet for your coins. It is relatively easy to move coins between your Exchange account and your wallet. Be sure to choose a wallet that handles all the coins you want to be buying and selling. Your wallet is also the device you use to “spend” your coins with the merchants who accept CC’s for payment. The two types of wallets are “hot” and “cold”. Hot wallets are very easy to use but they leave your coins exposed to the internet, but only on your computer, not the Exchange server. Cold wallets use offline storage mediums, such as specialized hardware memory sticks and simple hard copy printouts. Using a cold wallet makes transactions more complicated, but they are the safest.

Your wallet contains the “private” key that authorizes all the transactions you want to initiate. You also have a “public” key that is shared on the network so that all users can identify your account when involved in a transaction with you. When hackers get your private key, they can move your coins anywhere they want, and it is irreversible.

Despite all the challenges and wild volatility, we are confident that the underlying blockchain technology is a game changer, and will revolutionize how transactions are conducted going forwar

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crypto TREND – Second Edition

In the first edition of CRYPTO TREND we introduced Crypto Currency (CC) and answered several questions about this new market space. There is a lot of NEWS in this market every day. Here are some highlights that give us a glimpse of how new and exciting this market space is:

World’s largest futures exchange to create a futures contract for Bitcoin

Terry Duffy, president of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) said “I think sometime in the second week in December you’ll see our [bitcoin futures] contract out for listing. Today you cannot short bitcoin, so there’s only one way it can go. You either buy it or sell it to somebody else. So you create a two-sided market, I think it’s always much more efficient.”

CME intends to launch Bitcoin futures by the end of the year pending regulatory review. If successful, this will give investors a viable way to go “long” or “short” on Bitcoin. Some sellers of Exchange-Traded Funds have also filed for bitcoin ETF’s that track bitcoin futures.

These developments have the potential to allow people to invest in the crypto currency space without owning CC’s outright, or using the services of a CC exchange. Bitcoin futures could make the digital asset more useful by allowing users and intermediaries to hedge their foreign-exchange risks. That could increase the cryptocurrency’s adoption by merchants who want to accept bitcoin payments but are wary of its volatile value. Institutional investors are also used to trading regulated futures, which aren’t plagued by money-laundering worries.

CME’s move also suggests that bitcoin has become too big to ignore, since the exchange seemed to rule out crypto futures in the recent past. Bitcoin is just about all anyone is talking about at brokerages and trading firms, which have suffered amid rising but unusually placid markets. If futures at an exchange took off, it would be nearly impossible for any other exchange, like CME, to catch up, since scale and liquidity is important in derivatives markets.

“You can’t ignore the fact that this is becoming more and more of a story that won’t go away,” said Duffy in an interview with CNBC. There are “mainstream companies” that want access to bitcoin and there’s “huge pent-up demand” from clients, he said. Duffy also thinks bringing institutional traders into the market could make bitcoin less volatile.

Japanese village to use crypto currency to raise capital for municipal revitalization

The Japanese village of Nishiawakura is researching the idea of holding an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) to raise capital for municipal revitalization. This is a very novel approach, and they may ask for national government support or seek private investment. Several ICO’s have had serious problems, and many investors are sceptical that any new token will have value, especially if the ICO turns out to be a another joke or scam. Bitcoin certainly was no joke.

INITIAL COIN OFFERING – ( ICO )

We did not mention ICO in the first edition of Crypto Trend, so let’s mention it now. Unlike an Initial Public Offering (IPO), where a company has an actual product or service for sale and wants you to buy shares in their company, an ICO can be held by anyone who wants to initiate a new Blockchain project with the intention of creating a new token on their chain. ICO’s are unregulated and several have been total shams. A legitimate ICO can however raise a lot of cash to fund a new Blockchain project and network. It is typical for an ICO to generate a high token price near the start and then sink back to reality soon after. Because an ICO is relatively easy to hold if you know the technology and have a few bucks, there have been many, and today we have about 800 tokens in play. All these tokens have a name, they are all crypto currency, and except for the very well known tokens, like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin, they are dubbed alt-coins. At this time Crypto Trend does not recommend participating in an ICO, as the risks are extremely high.

As we said in Issue 1, this market is the “wild west” right now, and we are recommending caution. Some investors and early adopters have made large profits in this market space; however, there are many who have lost a lot, or all. Governments are considering regulations, as they want to know about every transaction in order to tax them all. They all have huge debt and are strapped for cash.

So far, the crypto currency market has avoided many government and conventional bank financial problems and pitfalls, and Blockchain technology has the potential to solve many more problems.

A great feature of Bitcoin is that the originators chose a finite number of coins that can ever be generated – 21 million – thus ensuring that this crypto coin can never be inflated. Governments can print as much money (fiat currency) as they like and inflate their currency to death.

Future articles will delve into specific recommendations, howeve

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Crypto TREND 2017-01

Everyone has heard how Bitcoin and other crypto currencies have made millionaires of those who bought as recently as a year ago. Gains of 1,000% or more are not just possible, they have been common place with many of these crypto currencies. Someone who bought Bitcoin in May 2016 at less than $500, would have had a gain of 1,400% in about 17 months. Then over the past few days, we saw Bitcoin lose almost $1,000, so to say these crypto currencies are volatile would be a massive understatement.

Since the inception of Bitcoin in 2008, we at Trend News have been skeptical of crypto currencies’ ability to survive, given that they present a very clear threat to governments who want to see and tax all transactions. But while we may still be cautious on the actual crypto currencies, we are very aware of the potential of the underlying technology that powers these electronic currencies. In fact, we believe that this technology will be a significant disruptor in how data is managed, and that it will impact every sector of the global economy, much like how the internet impacted media.

Here are some questions & answers to get us started…

Q: What are Crypto Currencies?

The most well known crypto currency (CC) is BITCOIN. It was the first CC, started in 2008. Today there are more than 800 CC’s, including Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash, Zcash, Ripple, Monero, and they are all “virtual”. There are no “physical” coins or currency.

Q: How do CC’s work?

CC’s are virtual currencies that exist in very large distributed databases. These databases use BLOCKCHAIN technology. Because each Blockchain database is widely distributed, it is thought to be immune to hacking, as there is no central point of attack and every transaction is visible to everyone on the network. Each CC has a group of administrators, often called “miners”, who validate transactions. One CC called Ethereum uses “smart contracts” to validate transactions. Crypto TREND will provide more details in upcoming news publications.

Q: What is BLOCKCHAIN?

Blockchain is the technology that underpins all CC’s. Each transaction for the purchase, sale, or exchange of CC’s is entered into a BLOCK that is added to the chain. This technology is complex and will not be explained here, but it has the potential to revolutionize the financial services industry, as transactions can be executed quickly and easily, reducing or eliminating fees. The technology is also being examined for applications in many other industries.

Q: Are CC Exchanges regulated by government?

For the most part, the answer is NO, which, for some users, is a big attractions of this market. It is the “wild west” right now, but governments in most developed countries are examining this market to decide what regulation may be needed. A big decision is whether to treat CC’s as a currency or a commodity / security. Canada and USA have so far declared that CC’s are legal, however the situation remains fluid as for reporting and tax implications. Crypto TREND will be following and reporting on these developments.

Q: How do I invest in this market?

You can buy, sell, and exchange CC’s using the services of specialized “Exchanges” that act as a brokerage. You start by selecting an Exchange, setting up an account, and transferring fiat currency into your account. You can then place your BUY and SELL CC orders. There are many exchanges around the world. Opening an account is fairly simple and these exchanges all have their own rules about initial funding and withdrawals.

Crypto TREND will be recommending CC Exchanges in future.

Q: Where do I keep my CC?

To have the freedom to move your crypto currencies around, and to pay bills, you will need to have a digital wallet. These wallets come in several formats, such as desktop, cloud based, hardware (USB), mobile phone, and paper. Many of them are FREE, however, security is a big factor as no one ever wants to lose their wallet or have it stolen. Crypto TREND will be recommending digital wallets in future.

Q: What can I do with my CC?

As well as investing in CC products, you can also use crypto currency for some financial transactions, such as money transfers and paying bills. The list of companies accepting crypto currency is growing fast, and includes big hitters like Microsoft, GAP, JC Penny, Expedia, Shopify, Bloomberg.com, Dish Network, Zynga, Subway, and WordPress.

Q: What’s next?

As we start off, we will keep each of the Crypto TREND articles short and keep the scope of each one as narrow as possible. As we noted earlier, we believe that the crypto currency technology will be a game changer and potential investment opportunities like this come by once or twice in a lifetime. Make no mistake, early investing in this sector will be only for your most speculative capital, money that you can afford to lose.

Even if you are not wanting to invest at this time, gaining an early understanding of this new disruptive technology will put you in an advantageous position to profit from our recommendations as we move forward.

Expect to see more news and specific recommendations from Crypto TREND as we start this journey into what may seem to be a foreign jungle at first. This is a volatile market and may not ap

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Crypto Currencies Volatility, a Profitable Rollercoaster

his year we can observe that cryptocurrencies tend to move up and down even by 15% of value on a daily basis. Such changes of price are known as a volatility. But what if… this is totally normal and sudden changes are one of the characteristics of the cryptocurrencies allowing you to make a good profits?

First of all, the cryptocurrencies made it to the mainstream very recently, therefore all the news regarding them and rumors are “hot”. After each statement of government officials about possibly regulating or banning the cryptocurrency market we observe huge price movements.

Secondly the nature of cryptocurrencies is more like a “store of value” (like gold had been in the past) – many investors consider these as backup investment option to stocks, physical assets like gold and fiat (traditional) currencies. The speed of transfer has as well an influence upon volatility of the cryptocurrency. With the fastest ones, the transfer takes even just couple of seconds (up to a minute), what makes them excellent asset for short term trading, if currently there is no good trend on other types of assets.

What everyone should bear in mind – that speed goes as well for the lifespan trends on crypto currencies. While on regular markets trends might last months or even years – here it takes place within even days or hours.

This leads us to the next point – although we are speaking about a market worth hundreds of billions of US dollars, it is still very small amount in comparison with daily trading volume comparing to traditional currency market or stocks. Therefore a single investor making 100 million transaction on stock market will not cause huge price change, but on scale of crypto currency market this is a significant and noticeable transaction.

As crypto currencies are digital assets, they are subject to technical and software updates of cryptocurrencies features or expanding blockchain collaboration, which make it more attractive to the potential investors (like activation of SegWit basically caused value of Bitcoin to be doubled).

These elements combined are the reasons why we are observing such huge price changes in price of cryptocurrencies within couple of hours, days, weeks etc.

But answering the question from the first paragraph – one of the classic rules of trading is to buy cheap, sell high – therefore having short but strong trends each day (instead of way weaker ones lasting

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Some of the Best Crypto-Currencies to Invest in Now for Free and Secured Financial Exchange

Crypto-currency as a modern form of the digital asset has received a worldwide acclaim for easy and faster financial transactions and its awareness among people have allowed them to take more interest in the field thus opening up new and advanced ways of making payments. With the growing demand of this global phenomenon more,new traders and business owners are now willing to invest in this currency platform despite its fluctuating prices however it is quite difficult to choose the best one when the market is full. In the list of crypto-currencies bit-coins is one of the oldest and more popular for the last few years. It is basically used for trading goods and services and has become the part of the so-called computerized block-chain system allowing anyone to use it thus increasing the craze among the public.

Common people who are willing to purchase BTC can use an online wallet system for buying them safely in exchange of cash or credit cards and in a comfortable way from the thousands of BTC foundations around the world and keep them as assets for the future. Due to its popularity, many corporate investors are now accepting them as cross-border payments and the rise is unstoppable. With the advent of the internet and mobile devices,information gathering has become quite easy as a result the BTC financial transactions are accessible and its price is set in accordance with people’s choice and preferences thus leading to a profitable investment. Recent surveys have also proved that instability is good for BTC exchange as if there is instability and political unrest in the country due to which banks suffer then investing in BTC can surely be a better option. Again bit-coin transaction fees are pretty cheaper and a more convenient technology for making contracts thus attracting the crowd. The BTC can also be converted into different fiat currencies and is used for trading of securities, for land titles, document stamping, public rewards and vice versa.

Another advanced block-chain project is Ethereumor the ETH which has served much more than just a digital form of crypto-currency and its popularity in the last few decades have allowed billions of people to hold wallets for them. With the ease of the online world,the ETH have allowed the retailers and business organizations to accept them for trading purposes, therefore, can serve as the future of the financial system. Also being an open source the ETH assists in collaborating the projects of various firms and industries thus increasing their utility. Again unlike the bit-coin which is used for money exchanges in a digitalized network the ETH can also be used for multiple applications besides financial transactions and do not require prior permissions from governments due to which people can use

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