Bitcoin is finally beginning to test $10,000 again, a level we haven’t seen since the end of January. Since this past crash was quite substantial and lasted longer than previous recent crashes, people are actually excited again when Bitcoin reaches each $1k milestone, leading to more reporting by media and more FOMO.
Transaction fees for Bitcoin are declining as on-chain volume is decreasing – these fees are anticipated to further decline as Coinbase adopts Segwit addresses. Hopefully in the future they also decide to implement batching as well.
Ethereum has slid slightly against Bitcoin, falling below 0.1 BTC a few days ago. There is heavy debate going on right now regarding EIP 867, or Standardized Ethereum Recovery Proposals. These discussions touch on the subject of how much authority Ethereum developers should have and touch on subjects such as legality, Ethereum’s philosophy and general governance concerns.
The concerns over governance in Ethereum has been an opportunity for other platform cryptoassets like EOS, which boast different governance structures. At this stage, I’m still invested in Ethereum but no longer picking up anymore because I feel it has gotten rather frothy in relation to Bitcoin.
Litecoin has been the real story in the past 48 hours due to a number of catalysts. Charlie Lee has been hyping upcoming events, including a quote-on-quote “huge unexpected surprise.” Coinbase Commerce is a new product offering by Coinbase which will help adoption for cryptoassets listed on the platform, currently Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum and Litecoin.
This has led to some excitement for Litecoin, but the primary catalyst appears to be the announcement from Litepay (missed opportunity, Litpay would have been so much cooler!) will be operational for accepting Litecoin as payment similar to what Bitpay does starting on February 26th.
There’s also an upcoming hard fork of Litecoin called Litecoin Cash which will occur at block height 1,371,111 or roughly somewhere around February 18th to 19th. There’s some speculation that people are buying in for this fork, but realistically it seems like another joke fork that likely won’t even be worth claiming the coins for so I heavily doubt that. There’s also a 1% premine, always a wonderful sign.
Moving forward, I might be considering a more income-based approach as this is a more conservative way to take-profits in a rather risky market. Might make a video on that in future (along with my million other ideas currently sitting in limbo). What are your thoughts on the market?