Market Report: 31th Oct. 2018 — Subscribe to our newsletter.

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CRYPTO NOTE

The daily view from our desk

On the spookiest day of the year, why not treat yourself to a truly terrifying costume. Too scary? What about finding a severed head in your backyard? Or receiving a message from your girlfriend to say she surgically removed her bellybutton? In more wholesome ‘news’, this dog loves jumping into big piles of leaves.

WE PROPOSE A SOLUTION

We’ve proposed a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust

This is it. The day when your feed gets inundated with articles covering Bitcoin’s first decade — even if most only talk about pizzas and lambos. Because ten years ago, by 18:10 UTC, a mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto(s) shared nine pages with a mailing list of misfit cryptographers, hosting the elegant whitepaper in the homonymous domain — registered earlier on the 17th of August 2008. Oh, if only you had read it earlier!

But would knowing about Bitcoin sooner change anything? The concept of a global monetary system with decentralised governance wasn’t born that day. Nor was the technology that is bringing such system to life. And most people do nothing about the original cryptoasset when they first learn about it. Because first one needs to feel the power of its idea — an exercise that should be regularly repeated. Here, we recommend Dan Held’s “Planting Bitcoin” great tetralogy: Part 4 should be published today here!

WE PROPOSE A RANGE

What will happen to bitcoin as it continues its sideways movement?

“Today is the day”, DonAlt argues, in regard to this October’s potentially spooky monthly close. Because if Satoshi intentionally chose to share their idea on Halloween, bears now have a good opportunity to ruin bulls’ attempt of warding off the ghosts of 2013–15’s crypto winter. Hsaka provides a less eerie alternative, believing the current low volume and volatility will likely cause bitcoin to hold this range for another month.

That would be the “path of maximum pain” since it doesn’t satisfy anyone — provided you only trade BTC, as Quijote reminds. Even though alts didn’t move on average more than 0.7% over the past day, there have been some opportunities over the past few weeks. We suggest following Cantering Clark and his transparent trading journal to help assess what’s happening around the block without feeling the FOMO of random pump shills!

WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR

Filter the noise and stay ahead of the pack

▪ Jemima Kelly continues to provide the best critique of the cryptoasset space. The latest one focuses on crypto conferences and, naturally, it’s not about Devcon4.

▪ In September, the UK’s Treasury Committee published a daunting report urging the rapid regulation of cryptoassets. Now, five business and legal leaders led by Baker Botts responded, arguing “bad regulation has the potential to be worse than no regulation”.

▪ As Devcon4 continues, we recommend Brave New Coin’s update written by Kieran Smith on “what 30 million transactions tell us about the state of Ethereum”

WHAT TO READ TODAY

An insight a day could give you more profits to play

▪ Mosaic Research analysed “token sale data for smart contract protocols” to investigate how wealth is distributed over time — an “existential concern for all blockchains”.

▪ Chainrift’s Ferdous Bhai writes about “who governs the Bitcoin network”, its three main groups, and offers a “satirical take on an emerging new class of Bitcoiners”.

▪ To conclude this Bitcoin focused anniversary newsletter, why not check out Jimmy Song explaining his six-month rift with Roger Ver. The bet is on!

FOUNDATIONAL TRIVIA

Because the building blocks of crypto needn’t be irrelevant

Uppercase Bitcoin is used in reference to the blockchain network and the ecosystem, while lowercase bitcoin to the units of currency transferred or traded around.