One week in review:
May 11–17 We've selected the hottest materials of the past week for you to stay up to date with the latest crypto news: | | #1. Bitcoin price charts hint at the most exciting breakout in over a year | | | The halving has been and gone — and so far, it hasn't been the cataclysmic event that some in crypto circles feared. Cointelegraph's Keith Wareing says Bitcoin is on the cusp of ending a 46-week descending channel if it manages a weekly close above $9,200. | | | According to Wareing, achieving this "will be the single most bullish sign that Bitcoin has seen since before the 2017 bull run" — with $9,980 as the next level of resistance and a target of $11,600 lying ahead. Failing to hold $9,200 means $8,790 is the first level of support, followed by $7,600. Even if this happens, Wareing says he would maintain a bullish bias. | | #2. Ransomware gang demands $42 million or it releases Trump's "dirty laundry" | | | Already under fire over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. President Donald Trump might have another problem on his hands: a leak of compromising information ahead of November's all-important election. | | | The REvil ransomware group — also known as Sodinokibi — claims it has got its hands on files that would embarrass Trump after it hacked a law firm representing some of the world's biggest film stars. "There's an election going on, and we found a ton of dirty laundry on time," the hackers said. | | #3. Crypto Twitter fails to explain Bitcoin to an exhausted JK Rowling | | | It started with a simple tweet to a crypto journalist. The renowned author of the Harry Potter series, one of the world's richest women, had written: "I don't understand Bitcoin. Please explain it to me." She was confronted with a barrage of complicated charts, GIFs of baboons, and endless howls of outrage from Bitcoin devotees who demanded to know why she hadn't bought into the asset yet. | | | Rowling later tweeted that she feared she'd be unable to log into Twitter ever again without someone getting angry that she wasn't a hodler. "One day you'll see a wizened old woman in the street, trying to trade a Harry Potter book for a potato. Be kind. She did try to understand," Rowling wrote. | | #4. Prediction of the Week Veteran investor says Bitcoin price surge to $467,000 is "achievable" | | | The sky-high predictions for BTC prices are coming in thick and fast, folks. Real Vision founder Raoul Pal believes Bitcoin can reach $467,000 in the long term — joining hedge fund managers such as Mark Yusko in insisting that the coin can increase 4,714% from current levels. | | | A crucial milestone for this to happen seems to involve BTC's market cap overtaking gold's, with Pal predicting that "a $10 trillion number is easily achievable within that process." It is worth noting that Bitcoin has a loooong road ahead to make this a reality. If you combine the value of every BTC in circulation, you get a figure of about $179 billion — barely 2% of the precious metal's $9-trillion market cap. | | #5. FUD of the Week The VC who argued "death spiral" scenario might be right after all | | | Prior to the halving, Unbounded Capital managing partner Zach Resnick had warned that BTC was at risk of a death spiral that would see transaction fees peak, block times increase and the mempool become congested. All three of these things have now started to happen, meaning the signs of the apocalypse could be upon us. | | | Resnick argues that the "death spiral" scenario isn't priced in and that the BTC community underestimates the probability that it could happen. Although he estimated there's just a 2% or a 3% chance that the halving would kill off the blockchain completely, he told Cointelegraph that BTC is being priced as if this was impossible. In any case, Resnick believes there's another dangerous scenario that's more likely: "I put at least a 10% chance on kind of a big flash crash." | | #6. FUD of the Week Kim Jong Un may be using stolen crypto to offset economic fallout | | | Reports suggest that North Korea is ramping up crypto-based phishing scams in an attempt to prevent a financial meltdown during the coronavirus pandemic. According to the U.K. Mirror, seclusive leader Kim Jong Un is backing a gang of hackers known as the Lazarus Group, who appears to be launching a campaign of advanced persistent threat attacks. ESTsecurity, a Seoul-based firm, claims Lazarus is "increasingly engaging" in cybercrime activities — and some of these attacks are happening in the U.S. | | Feel free to explore the most important news with Hodler's Digest by Thomas Simms:
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