Mediaboss Marketing

Crypto prices were a little sleepy to kick off the first week of May, but investors remain confident in its long-term up trend, and charts show there could be another short-term crypto rally underway, according to Canaccord Genuity. Bitcoin is on pace to end the week up less than 1%, according to Coin Metrics. Meanwhile, ether is looking to notch a 4% gain on the week, thanks in part to its meme-driven rally Friday . Bitcoin and ether ended April higher by 3.3% and 4.3%, respectively. However, there could be a two- to four-week rally phase underway in both bitcoin and ether , with upside potential of about 32% and 12% from current levels, respectively, Canaccord chart analyst Javed Mirza said in a note Thursday. "A multi-week close above important resistance ~$26,249 on BTC and ~$1,935 on ETH would strongly suggest the corrective phase in place since late 2021 was over and that BTC and ETH were building for a retest of the all-time price highs," he wrote. Bitcoin has not traded below $27,000 since March 17. Meanwhile, ether only reached the $1,900 level for the first time this year at the beginning of April. Bitcoin was last trading at about $29,500, according to Coin Metrics, and making its way back to the $30,000 mark it's struggled to reclaim since hitting it in April for the first time in 10 months. Ether is hovering just below $2,000. The next level for bitcoin to test is at $30,493, he said. After that, "important resistance" is at $38,202. Mirza also said bitcoin remains above its 50-day moving average ($28,343), which is also its first level of support, and its 200-day moving average ($21,900). "A multi-day close above these levels would confirm the short- and intermediate-term trends are now up, a strong technical positive," he said. CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed reporting

Here is the original post:

Bitcoin could rally 30% in the next month, says Canaccord Genuity - CNBC

Meme coins inspired by internet memes and Shiba-Inu-themed coins are currently rallying. After PEPEs three-digit price rally over the past week, most meme coins have started yielding gains for holders.

Also read: Ethereum battles intense selling pressure from spike in ETH deposits to crypto exchanges

@00forrest, a crypto expert and trader, argues that meme coin price rallies typically precede a cycle peak in Bitcoin and Ethereum. PEPE, the meme coin inspired by PEPE the frog meme, recently yielded three-digit gains for holders over the past week before its recent pullback.

Alongside PEPE, Shiba-Inu-themed meme coins like Baby Doge Coin (BabyDoge), Dogelon Mars (ELON), and Wojak (WOJAK) started their price rallies. The two meme coins rank in the top 10 in the category by market capitalization.

Top 10 meme coins in the category by market capitalization

PEPEs trade volume exceeded that of Dogecoin, Shiba Inu and Baby Doge Coin over the past week with its massive price rally. The expert noted that meme coin peaks are correlated with Bitcoin and Ethereum peaks, as seen in the chart below:

ETH/USD 1W price chart

The analyst believes market participants are in the denial phase, and this could be the start of a brutal bear market. The meme coin price rally will likely catalyze capital rotation into other assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

With the Bitcoin and Ethereum cycle tops, analysts believe that meme coin profits could rotate into cryptocurrencies in the top 10 crypto projects, blockchain gaming and NFTs.

Read more:

What the recent meme coin pump means for Bitcoin and Ethereum - FXStreet

Bitcoins Taproot upgrade is a pivotal moment for the cryptocurrency as it brings with it a host of improvements designed to enhance network efficiency and privacy. In fact, this upgrade is considered one of the most significant updates in Bitcoins history, and its expected to have a major impact for years to come.

As per Glassnode, Taproot transactions made up more than 37% of the Bitcoin networks spent outputs, indicating a growing demand for the upgrade. This was also reflected in the adoption and utilization metrics, with a record-breaking 60% of all transactions on May 1 leveraging Taproot.

So, what does the Bitcoin Taproot upgrade mean for investors?

The Taproot upgrade aims to achieve a faster, more efficient, and private network. This update introduces the ability to batch multiple signatures and transactions together, simplifying the verification process for transactions on the Bitcoin network.

Since the upgrade, the number of daily BTC on-chain transactions has skyrocketed, surpassing half a million. On May 1, the daily transaction count reached an all-time high of 682,000.

According to a tweet, Rafael Schultze, Co-founder & CTO of Glassnode, this surge represents a more than two-fold increase compared to the 2022 baseline, which remained steady at approximately 250,000 transactions per day throughout the preceding year.

In short, the Taproot upgrade is driving an unprecedented level of network efficiency and transaction volume for the alpha coin, creating new opportunities and challenges for investors and traders alike.

Since the Taproot upgrade is a technical change, most users are unlikely to notice its implementation. However, investors should pay close attention to this development as it could have significant long-term effects on the leading cryptocurrency.

One key benefit of the upgrade is lower transaction fees. This is due to the decrease in data size for complex transactions, which creates more space for processing additional entries on the blockchain.

Moreover, the Taproot upgrade directly impacts the cost-efficiency and functionality of the Lighting Network. The Lighting Network becomes more versatile for developers, enabling them to build on it more cheaply and securely for users.

The implementation of the Taproot upgrade establishes a technical framework for accelerating peer-to-peer financial services in the emerging DeFi ecosystem on the Bitcoin network. This expansion of the crypto utility creates new opportunities for entrepreneurs looking to invest in the cryptocurrencys potential over the long term.

Regarding the impact of the Taproot upgrade on BTC price, it remains to be seen. At the time of writing, the price of Bitcoin is $29,596.31, showing a slight 0.9% increase in the last 24 hours and over the past seven days.

However, analysts suggest that the Taproot upgrade has significantly boosted the coins value as confidence in the network continues to grow. It will be interesting to see whether institutional and mainstream participants stick to existing platforms or switch to Bitcoin.

-Featured image from Paxful

Read the rest here:

Bitcoin Taproot Drives Transactions To ATH - What This Means For Investors - Bitcoinist

In Silicon Valley, Tim Draper is venture capital royalty. A third-generation investor, Draper was an early backer of some of the most pivotal technology to come out of California, from Hotmail to Skype. In recent years, his focus has been on Bitcoin and the broader ethos of decentralization, famously paying $19 million for 30,000 Bitcoin in 2014 that had been seized in the U.S. government takedown of dark web marketplace Silk Road.

While some of his bets have not paid offincluding an investment in Theranos and repeated predictions that Bitcoin would reach $250,000he is continuing to throw his chips in with the pioneer cryptocurrency. In an interview with Fortune, Draper said he expects Bitcoin to soar in value amid economic uncertainty in the U.S.

If the bear gets that angry to where the banks start falling apart, that actually means that Bitcoin will have a bull market, he told Fortune. Itll be a raging bull in the middle of the bear.

Bitcoin is currently sitting at just under $29,000. Its up nearly 75% since the beginning of 2023 amid the failures of major U.S. banks Signature, Silicon Valley Bank, and First Republic.

Drapers support of Bitcoin does not extend to the entire crypto ecosystem. While he backed pioneering projects like the blockchain Tezos, he said hes wary of companies that are too centralized. Draper said he twice turned down an investment opportunity in Sam Bankman-Frieds now-failed exchange FTX, arguing that there was no utility for its proprietary token, FTT, except for speculation.

As FTX rose in popularity in 2021 and 2022, Draper said he thought he had missed something, but was vindicated in November when the company collapsed in spectacular fashion.

I just thought it was a race to the bottom, Draper said about CeFi, or centralized finance, companies like FTX.

His concern now is with crypto regulation, as lawmakers debate legislation to establish guardrails for the industry and agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission target firms with enforcement actions. Draper said that when he speaks with startups in the space, they ask him about regulation, which had never before been the case.

If theyre regulating by enforcement, theyre just slapping people down and fining them and suing them, he told Fortune. I dont want to waste years of my life in court and trying to avoid some problem.

Draper, who has advocated for breaking up California into six states, said that the only solution is to have a new political party in charge.

This is as controlling as the U.S. government has ever been, he said. Theyre ruining business, theyre killing the golden goose, and Silicon Valley is breaking up because of it.

Here is the original post:

Billionaire investor Tim Draper predicts Bitcoin bull market, says controlling government is killing the golden goose of Silicon Valley - Fortune

There've been rivers of ink written on all aspects of cryptocurrency ever since that fateful day of the Bitcoin whitepaper publishing. Still, one question that's repeatedly brought to the limelight (and understandably so) surrounds energetic and environmental sustainability. Now, the White House itself is adding fuel to the fire through its DAME Tax proposal, whose aim is, and we quote: "making cryptominers pay for costs they impose on others."

How, you ask? By phasing in an additional 30% tax penalty for cryptocurrency mining firms on any energy they consume in that process. According to the White House, this is "an example of the President's commitment to addressing both long-standing national challenges as well as emerging risks in this case, the economic and environmental costs of current practices for mining crypto assets." The idea is simple: Bitcoin mining consumes a lot of power; this consumption drives electricity prices up; which is bad for everyone unfortunate enough to share a grid with a cryptocurrency mining firm.

It seems that the White House's hand has been forced by their very own report, which estimates total Bitcoin mining energy consumption in 2022 at an eye-watering 50 billion kilowatt-hours (in fact, the estimate places consumption anywhere between the low of 30 billion kWh and a high of 60 billion kWh). That's greater power consumption than all operating computers in the United States put together - and within the margin of error of the countrywide electrical consumption for as basic a necessity as lighting.

It's also more energy than Americans consume through their TV sets, and it's right here, in a nice graph:

Let's get this straight right off the bat: public and private lighting is definitely (and inarguably) more important than Bitcoin mining.

However, some arguments favoring the proposal seem to be mired in inconsistencies. Back when Intel announced its "Bonanza Mine" cryptocurrency mining chips, we took a relatively detailed look at Bitcoin's global power consumption and the utility that can already be extracted from it: anyone who has taken profits can attest to its utility; anyone who sold anything to someone and got paid in Bitcoin can attest to its utility; so can anyone who crossed an embattled border while invisibly carrying their wealth, or the citizens of El Salvador, where Bitcoin is legal tender. I'd be interested to know which process the White House used to quantitatively analyze cryptocurrency applications' social benefits before concluding that they "are yet to materialize."

There's also the question of what amount of Bitcoin's energy consumption actually hails from carbon-intensive sources; according to the Bitcoin Mining Council (BMC), a global forum of mining companies that represents 48.4% of the worldwideBitcoin mining network, it's estimated that in Q4 2022, renewable energy sources accounted for58.9%of the electricity used to mine bitcoin - against an estimated 36.8% as of Q1 2021.

It'll be interesting to see what results from this legislative push. For one, a 30% tax for cryptocurrency mining firms would drive most of them out of business, resulting in a concentration of hashing power in the hands of the few firms with strong enough financials to stand above the waterline. That would be terrible for Bitcoin, whose network security assumes that processing power is distributed, not concentrated. We wouldn't go so far as saying that Bitcoin Core devs would be open to changing Bitcoin's security model from Proof of Work (the cause for the monumental energy consumption) to Proof of Stake (Ethereum did this transition through its Merge, basically cutting its energy consumption on transaction validation by over 99%). But Ethereum isn't Bitcoin, and Bitcoin isn't the only Proof of Work cryptocurrency out there.

Read more from the original source:

U.S. Bitcoin Mining Consumed 50 Billion kWh of Energy in 2022 - Tom's Hardware