BITCOIN NEWS

China's Bitcoin Exchanges Are Shifting Business Models

Nov 3, 2017 at 21:30 | Wolfie Zhao
Following China's crackdown on trading against the yuan, some of the country's major bitcoin exchanges are now shifting to the OTC market.

UK Ministry of Justice: Blockchain Could Help Verify Crime Evidence

Nov 3, 2017 at 16:00 | Nikhilesh De
An official for the U.K. Ministry of Justice believes blockchain could help the government secure and verify digital evidence.

An official for the U.K. Ministry of Justice believes blockchain could help the government secure and verify digital evidence.

Alistair Davidson, a technical architecture lead at the Ministry, published a blog post Thursday which outlined a notable blockchain use case related to law enforcement: using the tech to create records for officer-worn camera footage.

While Davidson's blog post is largely hypothetical, it's a noteworthy exploration of how blockchain could find its way to being used by public-sector entities like the Justice Ministry. He noted that such utilization would be especially useful in court, particularly if the prosecution wanted to use the ledger record to prove the video’s authenticity, according to the post.

Davidson wrote:

"This property of distributing trust could be genuinely transformational in situations where public trust of government might not be taken for granted."

The ledger would not actually store the video, he stated. Rather, it would contain a hash of the video’s data and metadata, as well as a listing of its location within the government’s storage area.

If the videos are uploaded to a publicly available cloud storage, “the blockchain would be readable by anyone, anywhere - but only writable by the police,” Davidson writes.

In a technical overview published by the Ministry of Justice, the government explains that while a blockchain is immutable, it can only verify the assets stored after they are listed. Files may still be modified prior to being listed on the blockchain.

U.K. police image via Shutterstock

Bitcoin Price: First Signs of a Tired Bull?

Nov 3, 2017 at 15:01 | Omkar Godbole
The bitcoin bull market may be reaching a point of exhaustion, according to price action analysis.

The bitcoin bull market may be reaching a point of exhaustion.

After the cryptocurrency printed a fresh record high of $7,454.05 on Coindesk's Bitcoin Price Index (BPI) earlier today, BTC has failed twice to hold above $7,400 mark.

The price action, when viewed on the technical chart, shows a "textbook" bull market exhaustion pattern – the first legitimate sign of a tired market after days of solid rally.

Doji candle formed at previous record high.
Overbought RSI.
Potential bearish doji reversal and bearish price-relative strength index (RSI) divergence.
Formed when the open and close for a stock or tradeable asset are virtually the same, a doji candle is a neutral pattern, often read as a sign of exhaustion if it occurs at the top or bottom of the trend. On the chart above, the doji candle has appeared at the record high, suggesting the possibility of bull market exhaustion.

However, only a bearish follow-through (next candle is negative) would signal bullish-to-bearish trend change. A bearish doji reversal would be confirmed if the current 4-hour candle ends with losses (i.e. is red).

The story doesn't end here, though. A bearish price RSI divergence would be confirmed as well, if the current 4-hour candle is red. Bearish price RSI divergence occurs when prices print higher highs, while the RSI prints lower highs.

On the above chart, we see higher highs on the price chart: $7,445 (yesterday's high) and $7,450 (today's high), yet, the RSI is yet to confirm a lower high. If the current 4-hour candle drops into the red, the RSI would form a lower high and thus, a bearish price-RSI divergence would be confirmed.

View

Confirmation of the bearish doji reversal and bearish price RSI divergence could yield a much needed healthy correction to the $6,700–$6,400 range.
The bull run may resume if prices consolidate around $7,400 levels over the next 24–48 hours.
Burnout image via Shutterstock

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Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide, investment advice. Please conduct your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency.