Traditional Traders Are Ready to Go Crypto and Prefer Bitcoin

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Senior trading executives believe that larger trading companies are about to take the crypto plunge, and could be set to provide the market with a timely boost, per a new study. Bitcoin/USD is the most preferred trading pair, it added.

In a report named Institutional Adoption of Digital Asset Trading, compiled by the Acuiti management intelligence platform, in conjunction with the CME Group and the Bitstamp crypto exchange, authors claimed that survey data “suggests the digital assets market is on the cusp of significant growth from traditional trading firms.”

The findings were based on a survey of 86 senior executives “across the sellside, proprietary trading firms and the buyside.” The authors stated that its respondents from non-bank Futures Commission Merchants, proprietary trading firms and the buyside “tended to be C-suite [the executive-level managers],” while banking and brokerage respondents were primarily “heads of function at managing director level.” The findings were announced this week. However, the authors did not specify whether the survey was conducted before or after the market crash in March.

In either case, according to the survey, although most “traditional trading firms” still refuse to handle crypto, the tide could be about to turn.

The authors wrote,

“97% [of trading firms] will consider the opportunity again in the next two years or less and 45% are planning to revisit the idea in six months or less.”

Traditional Traders Could Be Ready to Go Crypto, Prefer Bitcoin - Survey 102
Source: Acuiti

What’s stopping them? Yes, you guessed it – it's regulation again.

>>> READ MORE


Quick and Easy Way to Multiply Your Portfolio (and Protect it) with Crypto Lending

The moment the crypto community has been waiting for has finally arrived, (for now). Out of nowhere, Bitcoin has demolished resistance levels and the crypto market is showing bullish signals. In times like these, your portfolio will multiply by itself, but if you really want the most out of this bull run, let’s see how crypto lending can help. Alternatively, we’ll show you a few tips to hedge your portfolio in case this “pump” becomes a “dump.”

HOW TO BUY MORE CRYPTO FAST IN A BULL MARKET: YOUHODLER

In both bullish and bearish markets, time is an important factor. Depositing fiat money from a bank to crypto exchange can take too long. To really capitalize on market movements, you need cash and you need it quick. YouHodler’s FinTech platform offers a lightning-fast solution for crypto lending users. After signing up and passing a quick KYC procedure, users can put up their crypto as collateral (BTC, BCH, BSV, ETH, LTC, XRP, and XLM) and receive a cash loan in minutes.

HOW TO MULTIPLY YOUR CRYPTO IN A BULL MARKET

Let’s use an example. You have 100 LTC and you want to use that as collateral for a cash loan. In exchange, you get around $5,000 without having to sell your LTC assets. If the market is bullish like it is now, you can use this loan to buy more LTC, effectively multiplying your holdings. If the market keeps growing, the gains...


Bitcoinexchangeguide.com: Crypto Analysis Company Mainbloq Launches New Algorithm To Automate Trading Activities


Here come the crypto trading algorithms

After spending a few decades on the street I got to see first-hand how the trading algorithm revolution lead to sophisticated and complex strategies that were necessary to execute trades efficiently and effectively. This revolution is coming to cryptocurrency.

First, let’s define what a trading algorithm is—simply put, algorithms are a method of executing orders using a set of rules based on a multitude of dimensions (volume, time, venue) in order to fan out orders to accomplish certain objectives (speed, secrecy, price).

The most important thing to remember is that not all algos are created equal. That’s why we’ve assembled a team of street veterans with experience crafting algorithms for some of the most successful shops.

Our algorithms include a blend of well-established algorithms along with custom algorithms created by our team. Unlike most existing cryptocurrency algorithms, all of our algorithms execute across multiple venues. Our algorithms can be blended according to each individual trader’s strategy.

 

  • BASKET - Executes multiple trades of multiple coins simultaneously and over a period of time using TWAP or other time-based strategies.
  • TWAP (Time Weighted Average Price) -  Executes trades evenly over a specified time period
  • VWAP (Volume Weighted Average Price) - Executes trades evenly based on trading volume.
  • THOR - Executes one order across multiple venues so they arrive at each venue at the same time to minimize market impact.
  • ICEBERG - Executes orders in random slice sizes over a period of time over multiple venues to minimize market impact.
  • Pairs Trades - Executes two trades of individual coins while maintaining a balance between the long and the short side of the trade.
  • IWAP (Information Weight Average Price) - A custom Mainbloq algorithm that trades in windows of fixed notional while varying the duration.
  • ISR (Implementation Shortfall Reducer) - A custom Mainbloq algorithm that reduces slippage and balances market impact by controlling the rate of execution.

 

These algorithms are just the start. We’re crafting sophisticated strategies to ensure our clients can execute effectively and efficiently. We also work with our clients to create tailored algorithms so they can execute their trading strategies.

Our mission at Mainbloq is to bring the sophistication of traditional finance to digital assets. Our streaming smart order router is the most efficient way to trade cryptocurrencies across multiple exchanges. Our algorithms help traders execute their strategies smarter. You might be thinking, what comes next? You’ll just have to wait and see...


Ethereum Governance is Currently Underrated says Vitalik Buterin

When it comes to funding development of Ethereum, Buterin stands behind his push to allow wallet developers to charge a 1 gwei fee per transaction made through their software.

In the most recent episode of Into the Ether, Vitalik Buterin appears to discuss all things Ethereum. One of the subjects that came up was the Ethereum governance model. Eric Conner asked Buterin about on-chain governance models, and his thoughts on how Ethereum’s governance stacks up against them.

Current Governance Model Underrated: Vitalik Buterin

Buterin says that the current Ethereum governance model works pretty well, considering the problems it has guided the protocol through.

I actually think that Ethereum governance is under-rated at this point. Because it’s not something that we can attach a cool name to and advertise. And honestly, moderation is a less exciting pitch for people than either on-chain votes, maximum coin holder engagement, or on the other hand immutability. We as a community have never tended to go for extremes. But in reality, on the one hand people complain about governance as a process. But on the other hand, in terms of concrete outcomes that Ethereum governance has achieved, it’s done really well.

It’s implemented the issuance reductions. The issuance reductions seem to be something that most people tend to agree with. […] When there was a crisis back in the year 2016 DOS attacks, it managed to implement, roll, stack out, test and roll out a hard fork all within a time span of 6 days. That’s not something we want to repeat but it’s clearly something we can do if we really wanted to.

When there was a Constantinople bug, it managed to delay the fork within a few hours. It is achieving the things that you might reasonably want a governance of a protocol to achieve, which is to make changes people want and not make changes people want. The one thing that it’s not achieving is dispute resolution or...


Mt. Gox’s Mark Karpeles Found Guilty, Given 2.6-Year Suspended Sentence

Mark Karpeles, former CEO of the long-defunct bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, has been found guilty and given a suspended sentence of two years and six months.

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal on Friday, the Tokyo District Court found Karpeles guilty of wrongfully making electronic records connecting to Mt. Gox’s books, but innocent on charges of embezzlement and breach of trust.

However, Karpeles will be suspended for four years, meaning he won’t do time in jail if staying on good records in the next four years.

The court’s verdict comes almost five years after Mt. Gox filed for liquidation in April 2014 after claiming to have been hacked for 850,000 bitcoin, some of which was later found.

According to the WSJ report, Karpeles’ lawyers wrote in their final...


Insights from the "future of crypto trading" meetup with FRST in Chicago

What do you get when you add a bitter cold and windy city, over 50 cryptocurrency enthusiasts, and three informative presentations? The Chicago Ethereum Meetup of course!

As you may have read, we made a short presentation to the group about our smart order router and algorithms we’re developing. We talked to founders of a handful of digital asset traders and we’re humbled by the feedback we received about our technology.

If you weren’t lucky enough to be at the meetup, don’t despair, I’ve embedded a video of my presentation below. Take a look at let us know what you think!

FRST’s presentation was mind-opening, it’s unreal to see how much information is available at the wallet and transaction level and how it can be used to trade cryptocurrencies more intelligently. You can read more about FRST here

The final presentation was by Andrew Gordon, an accountant specializing in cryptocurrency tax law. Tax time for crypto traders can be a nightmare, but he shared some great information about how to streamline and simplify the process. You can learn more about him here.

If there was one main takeaway from the meetup it’s that there are so many areas of the digital assets ecosystem that are currently unexplored. It’s said that 99% of the ocean floor is currently unexplored and I believe we are currently in the same place with blockchain and digital assets.


MIT Bitcoin Expo: Legislators Discuss Regulation, Potential of Blockchain Technology

Hyperbitcoinization enthusiast and writer

 MIT Bitcoin: Legislators Discuss Regulation, Potential of Blockchain Tech
MIT Bitcoin: Legislators Discuss Regulation, Potential of Blockchain Tech

On March 9–10, 2019, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology hosted a two-day event, the MIT Bitcoin Expo 2019. Put together by the student-organized MIT Bitcoin Club, the conference welcomed more than just Bitcoin voices from every corner of the industry. One of those voices was that of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Commissioner Hester Peirce.

Peirce sat down with Gary Gensler, ex-chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and senior advisor to the director of the MIT Media Lab, to discuss the progress of the SEC’s efforts to regulate the cryptocurrency industry. Notably, Gensler and Peirce launched into a discussion on what regulators can do better to protect investors from fraud and malicious actors.

Before the debate began, both Gensler and Peirce expressed their appreciation for the emerging technology. “It’s a new way to have tamper resistant data amongst the consensus of multiple parties,” Gensler said. “My research is mostly around the business of blockchain technology and … trying to find where are the real use cases where traditional data structures don’t work as well.”

Peirce expressed her own support for the space in relation to the SEC’s ongoing efforts to properly regulate it. “We have rules on the books that we have to enforce, but on the other hand, we don’t want to stop people from doing things that are going to make society a better place to live, that are going to make people’s lives easier, and enable people to interact in ways that they have not been able to in the past.”

Later in the presentation, the two veteran regulators went on to discuss what the government can do to protect investors by possibly regulatinged cryptocurrency exchanges.

Gensler believes that “exchanges are the gateway to get good public policy, particularly around AML laws, but also around investor protection.” He continued, “In essence, that there’s not a manipulated market with frontrunning and manipulation with the order books and the like.”

The discourse was...


LGO Markets, the New Industry Standard for a Safe, Secure & Transparent Digital Asset Exchange

LGO Group CEO Hugo Renaudin

LGO Group announced Monday the launch of LGO Markets, a digital asset trading platform dedicated to institutional clients. Trading on LGO will start on March 11th, 2019.

Institutional investors have been waiting for a reliable and suitable infrastructure to enter the cryptocurrency market. With this in mind, LGO Markets has been specifically designed to remove the main hurdles faced by institutions: risk and lack of transparency.

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The company is committed to providing a highly secure and trustworthy environment for its clients. Data and volume manipulation are prevented through the use of blockchain technology. Trading on LGO Markets also means no counterparty risk as clients hold their funds (non-custodial). LGO Markets aims to be fully compliant with regulations and is currently applying for a BitLicense and a FINRA broker-dealer license.

LGO Markets’ platform will initially offer a physically settled Bitcoin to USD spot market. Hugo Renaudin, CEO of LGO Markets added: “This could be considered as the simplest financial product, yet it does not exist in the cryptocurrency market. By bridging the processes of traditional financial exchanges and the benefits of blockchain transparency, LGO is built to be the reference venue for institutional digital asset trading .”

As for now, more than ten institutional clients have already joined the platform. They are mainly OTC trading desks, hedge funds, crypto businesses, and market makers.

The company is aspiring to bring innovative solutions to the financial markets, where all representations of value can be exchanged seamlessly, transparently and with less risk thanks to the blockchain technology. Frédéric Montagnon, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of LGO Markets, added: “This launch is only our first step towards achieving our long term mission. We see an opportunity to accompany the whole financial industry to transition to blockchain and distributed ledger technology. By rolling out our offer on the Bitcoin market, we position ourselves to become the leading exchange for blockchain-based assets - whether cryptocurrencies or tokenized traditional financial contracts .”


Coinbase Allows Crypto Traders to Claim Bitcoin SV

bitcoin sv coinbase crypto
Coinbase users can finally claim the Bitcoin SV tokens created by last Fall's Bitcoin Cash hard fork. | Source: Shutterstock

In a note to users today, Coinbase announced that it has finally made Bitcoin SV balances available for withdrawal. Users have been complaining for months about their Bitcoin SV, which peaked shortly after launch at over $200. It has since then been in steady decline, and the announcement by both Coinbase and Waves Platform today that BSV balances will be made available might stimulate a dumping frenzy on the coin.

Coinbase Allows Crypto Traders to Claim Bitcoin SV

bitcoin cash price
Bitcoin SV was the product of last year’s Bitcoin Cash hard fork. | Source: Shutterstock

The note reads, in part:

“The competing chain, known as Bitcoin SV, resulted in a forked coin now commonly referred to as BSV. When the hard fork occurred, the BSV blockchain used the amount of BCH associated with an address at the time of the fork to determine the amount of BSV that would be allocated to the parallel address on the BSV blockchain. As such, the amount of BSV now available in your Coinbase.com account is the same as the amount of BCH that was in your Coinbase (Coinbase.com and Coinbase...