MARKET VIEW: 29.01 BTC Lightning update & Tether Scandal *** Bandwidth glitch did not allow me to post yesterday

BTC to release its Lightning network update

We all have heard about the LGN update to be released sometime beginning of 2018, after some problems with the SegWit implementation news are out that we are about to see the most significant scalability update to BTC so far, with the possible result of making it, once again, the King of the Cryptos. Technical details

The primary goal of this update (to put it in simple terms) is to make transactions that run in the Bitcoin protocol, fast and cheap. As we know and I have said before, BTC was suffering from "too fast growing" syndrome, making the net laggy and expensive, with sometimes 300K transactions in the backlog. The operations are a peer-to-peer, allowing micropayments to be confirmed almost immediately.
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Some people using Mainnet

As reported by Cointelegraph (link) some people are already using the Mainnet network, instead of the Testnet, as suggested by the developers. This is creating delays for the dev team and also making some of the transactions to disappear in the ether (pun intended). I expect some updates are coming soon, but we should let them work on it, debugging, and then the party begins.

Developer Team Tweets Warning

Expected results

As mentioned above, creating a network of payment channels directly between users could make, BTC, usable for almost every thinkable commercial transaction. At a fraction of the current cost, plus exponentially faster, this would be the answer to the BTC deniers.

Once the Lightning update is fully working on the Mainnet, we could expect a jump in price, not because of speculators but due to the increase in transactions and users exchanging for BTC and the opposite.

To summarize if successful this update will bring;

• Faster transactions
• Lowest price possible, fraction of a cent
• Offline* (trxs happen on a P2P network to be later added to the block, i.e. through a Tor Server)
• No miners needed (Miners are shaking)
• Tor servers compatible which will provide highest privacy settings

BTC Market overview

Currently, BTC is stagnating after failing to break the 11.7K resistance and hold above. As per the graphic below, we can see an upwards triangle is forming, with a possible retest of the 11,700 resistance. Fibonacci levels are quite clear on the weekly chart. The right side is that investors could take advantage of the clear channel and try some luck scalping, with tight profit and stop-losses.

Larger version

USD-T The Tether drama continues

As some may know already, many exchanges hold trading pair against an invention, called Dollar Tether, as also there is EURT. This token created by the Tether company is a solution for some exchanges which can not hold FIAT positions, such as Bitfinex, Bittrex, etc. The main idea is to escape regulatory issues, and at the same time providing liquidity which can be transferred from account to account. The problem so far is that many claims that there is no real back up in Fiats from the coin provider.

The problem was pointed out for many months by a Twitter user by the name of Bitfinex'ed Twitter who has been denouncing that Tether which is linked to Bitfinex are running one of the biggest crypto scams of the recent times. This user has made many posts and essays investigating if Tether is holding assets to back up the "printing" of Tethers.
Due to the mainstream media taking note of this probable issue, the company behind Tether, has decided to contract an external auditor to check Tether accounting books and bank accounts. The hired company, Friedman LLP, decided to make public his decision of cutting all ties to those mentioned above, making this issue even fishier.
Story link

The writer as a former PwC Sr. Consultant, can say first hand that this happens if there are any liability or reputational risks for the Auditor, or the company target being non-cooperative to make the report. Needless to say, this is worrisome.

A Ticking Bomb?

Well, if Tether has no USD back up of all the 2Bn in Tether that is now outside, then the price of BTC is highly artificially backed up by a massive scam. If you can print USDT freely and buy BTC with those, then we have a problem. Now, if the Scam is declared or let's say the company raided because of Market Manipulation, we could face the biggest crush in the Crypto Markets seen so far.

“Tether could account for nearly half of bitcoin’s price rise, not even allowing for follow-on effects and the psychological effects of rallying the market repeatedly.”

You can read this extensive report on the matter by an anonymous analyst, which claims that the Market it's being manipulated and that a 20-80% crash in price is possible due to this artifice. Even worse a small amount of Tether deposited in Nostro accounts at Bitfinex has the effect of pushing BTC price higher.
The report claims that there is no organic growth in clients purchasing USDT against FIAT but just an artifice that prints coins to be sent to Bitfinex and manipulate the Market!!! Report link

The latest news about the Auditor cutting ties with the Audit is not what we need to regain confidence. Let's see how this story develops, and I feel it will do this very same week. Personally, I do not sustain or refute the arguments, but consider that we live in an economy sustained by fractioned lending ran by Banks, the problem here is that there is no regulation at all.

Happy trading, happy HODLing. Yours truly CryptoProphet

I am really sorry to post this one day later, but Steemit was glitchy and did not let me upload or upvote the whole day. I wanted to inform you first about this, but sometimes the system would not work as we expect it to. Please take my appologies.