Hi everyone. This market update will feature some exciting news on BTC fees (good for investors), overviews of Litecoin's recent price increase and Monero's increase, and other crypto news.

Bitcoin is Back

Price Update

After a short-term dip a few days ago, Bitcoin is doing remarkably stable and trading only a few hundred dollars below it's all-time high. This is a great testament to the stability and liquidity of Bitcoin, other than the many predictions analysts and experts are pouring in.

Very recently, Jihan Wu, the co-founder of Bitmain and the owner of the Antpool mining pool confidently told a Bloomberg reporter that he wouldn't be surprised if BTC reached $100,000 in 5 years. Additionally, Ronnie Moas of Standpoint Research predicted that BTC will be worth up to $20,000 in the next 3 years. He also predicted that the entire cryptocurrency market will be worth $2 trillion in the next decade.

The Hard Fork Debate

The two simplest reasons for the August BCH hard fork was that Bitcoin fees were too high and the network was hard to scale. Bitcoin Core supporters believed in SegWit (Segregated Witness), and argued that SegWit would be able to bring down fees and scale the network. Bitcoin Cash supporters did not think SegWit would be able to make big enough of an impact, and thought that a blocksize increase (from 1MB to 8MB) would be the only fix.

Remember that users themselves don't have to have an opinion to hold either of these coins, and many people do hold both. But simply, that was why the hard fork happened: a split over how to bring down fees and scale the network. Regardless of which side you support, any good news on either side is good news for all crypto holders and investors.

SegWit is Working and Fees are Plummeting

About three days ago, Segregated Witness (SegWit) activated on the Bitcoin Core (BTC) chain. Fees were still high, however, due to miners not being quick enough to mine SegWit blocks. But today, things started to kick in. Bitcoin fees and confirmation times are monumentally lower now compared to before SegWit activation. You can see my article on this over here, for proof that the fees are much, much lower.

I did my own analysis by sending many transactions today with super low fees and analyzing the confirmation times. My best proof of the low fees was that I sent a transaction with a size of over 1500 bytes and a fee of less than 14 satoshis per byte (or <0.00014 BTC/KB). It confirmed within fifteen minutes, with a fee of less than a dollar, with five inputs and two outputs (compared to regular transactions with one input/one output).

This is amazing news not just for Bitcoin investors but also for anyone holding Bitcoin or using Bitcoin. Additionally, I think this will have a positive impact on the price in the future especially when more miners start mining SegWit blocks.

Set Your Own Fees

On my previous post here, I explain how to use a website called Bitcoin Fees (by the 21 Company) and show you proof of the price plummet. It's clear that Bitcoin fees are dropping... so why are many wallets (such as Electrum) with "dynamic fees" or "network-based fees" showing such high fees?

When fees drop, it normally takes time for wallets to respond because wallets use past transaction fees to "predict" the future. When past transaction fees don't match up with future transaction fee necessities, wallets may suggest transaction fees that are too low or too high. Until wallets adjust for this price drop, I highly recommend using the service described in the above link for your own fees.

Setting your own custom fees based on the Bitcoin Fees link allows you to use the best fee for what you want. Simply look at the confirmation time estimates at the rightmost column on the website for the time you want your transaction to confirm in. Then, choose the corresponding fee in the leftmost corner. If your wallet uses satoshis-per-byte (sats/byte) then you're all good. Otherwise, simply divide that number by 100,000 to get your BTC-per-kilobyte fee (BTC/kB).

Litecoin is Surging

Litecoin has also been doing great in the past week, reporting a small/stable increase from ~$45 to ~$50 a few days ago, and a great surge to about $65 in the past day. Litecoin prices have increased by more than 1300% during the past year, and have reached their top all-time high in the past 24 hours. LTC is well-known for being the fifth ranked cryptocurrency by market cap and featuring faster confirmation times and "improved storage efficiency" compared to other cryptos.

Monero Still Increasing

After an unbelievable surge in the past few days, Monero is still on the go and is still increasing! Monero has almost tripled since just a few days ago, and is showing great stability in this new price zone. XMR is well-known for being a great privacy-focused cryptocurrency, and this is great news not just for Monero investors/holders but also for privacy-centric cryptocurrencies in general. In the past week, privacy-focused cryptos have seen huge increases from Dash to Monero.

Other Crypto News

The market itself is doing pretty well, currently at a market cap of almost $157.5B and a 24-hour volume of over $5B.

Though it's gains aren't huge, Ethereum (ETH) is doing quite well and is currently trading at its top price for almost two months, at about $350. It's "sister coin" Ethereum Classic (ETC) also posted a 5% increase over the last 24 hours, along with OmiseGo (OMG). Altcoins Golem, Decred, Siacoin, and Byteball have also shown increases in the past day.

So far, this is a good day for most crypto holders and investors.

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Thanks,
— @mooncryption