Payments company Square today announced today in its Q3 earnings statement that its Bitcoin revenue was $1.81 billion, an 11% increase from last year, from trading on its Cash App.
The company said that its profits from its Bitcoin investment were therefore $42 million—approximately 2% of Bitcoin revenue.
While $1.81 billion in revenue from Bitcoin trading may seem impressive, it is a significant decrease—roughly 23%—when compared to the previous quarter. In Q2, the company generated $2.72 billion in Bitcoin revenue—and profits of $55 million.
The reason, Square said, was that stability in the cryptocurrency’s price drove down trading activity. In other words, Bitcoin’s price wasn’t budging much, so people were less interested in trading the cryptocurrency.
“Bitcoin revenue and gross profit benefited from year-over-year increases in the price of Bitcoin and number of Bitcoin activities,” the statement said.
“Compared to the second quarter of 2021, Bitcoin revenue and gross profit decreased on a quarter over-quarter basis, driven primarily by relative stability in the price of Bitcoin, which affected trading activity compared to prior quarters.”
The company, headed up by Bitcoin-booster (and part-time Twitter CEO) Jack Dorsey, said that total net revenue jumped 27% to $3.84 billion—with $1.13 billion in gross profits.
Square added that Cash App, a mobile app that lets users buy Bitcoin, “delivered strong growth” as a whole for the company, generating $2.39 billion of revenue and $512 million of gross profit, a 16% and 33% year over year increase, respectively.
It’s investigating an exploit of a private key linked to its Binance Smart Chain and Polygon deployments.
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before. DeFi protocol bZx, a lending protocol built atop Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain, has been hacked for at least $55 million, according to blockchain security firm SlowMist.
bZx told Decrypt, “That $55m hasn’t been verified internally.”
Tweeting about the incident, the protocol team stated, “The bZx smart contracts themselves were not compromised. This incident only impacted the Polygon and BSC deployments via a compromised key.” Ethereum contracts weren’t compromised, it says.
Last year, the protocol was on the receiving end of two hacks, which hobbled its ability to take advantage of rising popularity in the nascent decentralized finance (DeFi) industry, which leverages blockchain technology to cut out middlemen from loans, savings, and swaps.
In February 2020, when the total value of crypto assets committed to Ethereum-based DeFi protocols was worth less than $1 billion, bZx got caught off-guard by a margin-lending exploit. In one of the first instances of a flash loan exploit (flash loans allow people to take out huge sums of cryptocurrency to make an arbitrage play so long as they instantly pay back the funds), bZx came out short 1,300 wrapped ETH. The theft, worth $366,000 then, would be valued at close to $6 million today.
A September 2020 exploit drained 30% of the funds locked into the bZx protocol, then worth $8 million. Though bZx paused the protocol, it later reported that “those funds outlined have been debited against our insurance fund.” In other words, actual users with open margin positions didn’t get hurt.
Now, with the Ethereum DeFi market having ballooned to over $170 billion and BSC and other chains getting in on the act, the price tag (which bZx is working to verify or update) is getting higher. Regardless, says bZx, it has the funds in its DAO treasury to cover the exploit.
Video game publisher Square Enix plans to release more NFT-driven projects, including crypto video games.
It recently released a series of Ethereum-based NFT trading cards in Japan, which sold out.
Traditional video game publishers are starting to embrace NFTs and crypto gaming, with third-party giants like Electronic Arts and Ubisoft expressing interest or declaring their intentions in recent days. Now Japanese publisher Square Enix of “Final Fantasy” fame has joined the pack.
Today, during a financial briefing covering the six-month period ending on September 30, Square Enix—which also publishes “Tomb Raider” and “Dragon Quest”—described plans to further explore the NFT space by offering collectibles and blockchain-driven video games.
The storied gaming publisher recently dipped its toe into the NFT market with a trial run, in partnership with developer Double Jump.Tokyo/MCH+. Square Enix released NFT digital trading cards in Japan based on the video game and anime franchise Shi-San-Sei Million Arthur, which were minted on Immutable X, a layer-2 scaling solution atop Ethereum.
According to Square Enix’s report, the NFT cards were released on October 14 and sold out. The publisher plans to add secondary market trading support via LVC, a marketplace created by Yahoo Japan and a subsidiary of popular messaging app Line, and then explore other initiatives around NFTs.
“[We] have recognized that NFTs have high affinity with our assets,” the report states. “[The] proof of concept phase is over. Will transition to full commercialization phase.”
An NFT acts like a deed of ownership to a rare digital item, whether it’s a trading card, illustration, video file, or functional video game item. The market blew up near the start of the year and has only accelerated of late, with $10.67 billion of trading volume in Q3 alone, per data from DappRadar.
Square Enix writes that it is now “contemplating robust entry into blockchain games,” citing a “changing environment” for digital entertainment, including “increasingly diverse profile of/incentives for people involved in gaming.”
“Games are further expanding from centralized into decentralized formats,” the report reads. “In addition to the sort of content creation we have traditionally engaged in, we will focus on blockchain games premised on token economies as a form of decentralized content.”
Following the summer explosion of Ethereum-based game Axie Infinity, which has generated more than $2.8 billion worth of transaction volume to date, traditional game publishers have used their latest financial reports to indicate interest in or plans for the crypto space.
Ubisoft, which has already dabbled in the NFT space and supported crypto developers, recently said that it would make its own NFT-based games following an investment in Animoca Brands. On Wednesday, Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson said during the publisher’s latest earnings call that he sees NFTs and crypto as “an important part of the future of our industry,” although he cautioned that it was “still early.”
The crypto gaming industry has also seen a number of significant funding announcements of late, including Mythical Games raising $150 million this week from investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, the NFL’s 32 Equities fund, and retired NBA star Michael Jordan.
Animoca’s The Sandbox metaverse game raised $93 million earlier this week, plus crypto exchange FTX, Solana Ventures, and Lightspeed Venture Partners announced a $100 million co-investment fund for Solana-based games.
Bragging rights and more than $69 billion are at stake in a cryptocurrency court battle underway in Miami.
Legal arguments started Monday in a trial that could (possibly) establish who was the true creator of Bitcoin—and who has rights to Satoshi Nakamoto’s 1.1 million BTC wallet.
A civil trial pitting Ira Kleiman vs. Craig Wright seeks to establish who was the real person behind the Bitcoin founder’s pseudonym. Wright, an Australian computer scientist, has made his claim since 2016, but Kleiman says his late brother David, a friend of Wright’s, was the co-creator and is entitled to a share of the Bitcoin nest egg.
Given Bitcoin prices early Tuesday morning, the wallet’s holdings would make its possessor the 15th richest person in the world (assuming they started with no net worth), according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index. That amount is higher than the net worth of members of the Walton family, Carlos Slim, and Charles Koch.
Kleiman alleges that his late brother David collaborated with Wright on the creation and early development of Bitcoin, making his heirs entitled to half of the wallet’s contents.
Even as Kleiman tries to make his case for a share of Wright’s funds, there’s substantial skepticism from crypto experts that Wright is, in fact, Satoshi Nakamoto. He has not yet publicly shown he has access to the Nakamoto wallet, which only encourages his detractors. And there are older accusations that the proof he has provided was fraudulent.
That raises a question: If Kleiman wins the case and but Wright not Satoshi (or has lost access to the wallet), will Kleiman still be unable to access the Bitcoin at the heart of the dispute?
The Miami case, at its heart, is not about Satoshi’s identity. It’s looking instead at the business partnership between Wright and Kleiman and whether they were, in fact, partners or just friends.
Popular crypto analyst Benjamin Cowen tells his 592,000 YouTube subscribers that BTC is showing strength after posting its highest-ever monthly close of approximately $61,400.
Cowen also notes the largest crypto asset by market cap is trading well above its 20-week simple moving average (SMA) and 21-week exponential moving average (EMA), two technical indicators that he refers to collectively as the “bull market support band.”
He says the 20-week SMA sits around $46,800 and the 21-week EMA is at $50,100.
Explains the analyst,
“These would be the lines in the sand we would want to hold to maintain the integrity of the bull market, so as long as we’re above these lines, things are still good.”
Bitcoin is trading at $63,143.51 at time of writing, up more than 4% in the past seven days.
Cowen also recommends keeping an eye on the 8-week simple moving average.
“Remember we have our trusty 8-week SMA that perhaps we can also potentially hold as support. We were able to stay above the 8-week SMA earlier this cycle.
In the first leg of the market cycle you can see we more or less stayed above that 8-week moving average all the way up, and then once we broke through it, it meant we were going to test the bull market support band.”
The 8-week SMA is nearly $55,000, according to the analyst.
As the daily chart reveals, the Bitcoin price is trading near the resistance level of $65,000 as the recovery comes slowly.
BTC/USD Long-term Trend: Ranging (Daily Chart)
Key levels:
Resistance Levels: $68,000, $70,000, $72,000
Support Levels: $57,000, $55,000, $53,000
BTCUSD – Daily Chart
At the time of writing, BTC/USD is seen trading at $62,864 after soaring above the 9-day MA and 21-day moving averages in the early hour of today’s trading. The first digital asset is also seen pulling back to where it is currently trading and may likely head downwards if the bears step back into the market.
Bitcoin Price Prediction: Bitcoin (BTC) May Range-bound
On the bullish side, it is important for the Bitcoin price to remains above the 9-day and 21-day moving averages, otherwise, there may come a bearish breakdown when BTCUSD falls below that barrier. The 9-day MA and the 21-day MA are about to cross each other as the technical indicator Relative Strength Index (14) is sending moderate signs where an oscillation to the higher boundary may confirm the proper trend which is more likely a bullish trend at the time of the outcome.
However, BTC/USD will confirm the bullish trend if the market price moves above $65,000. Meanwhile, the Bitcoin price may follow the bearish trend if the price moves back below the moving averages and face the lower boundary of the channel. Should this happen, the king coin may drop to the critical supports of $57,000, $55,000, and $53,000. Otherwise, a strong bullish spike may push the price towards the resistance levels of $68,000, $70,000, and $72,000.
BTC/USD Medium-Term Trend: Ranging (4H Chart)
Looking at the 4-hour chart, the Bitcoin price is currently crossing above the 21-day moving average. If the price continues to rise further and move above the upper boundary of the channel, it could reach the nearest resistance levels at $65,000, $67,000, and $69,000 respectively.
BTCUSD – 4 Hour Chart
Moreover, if the bears push the coin below the 21-day moving average, the price of Bitcoin may likely reach the closest supports at $61,000, $59,000, and $57,000. Presently, the technical indicator Relative Strength Index (14) is seen moving below the 55-level, crossing above it may confirm the bullish trend for the market.
Bitcoin price is struggling to gain pace above $63,500 against the US Dollar. BTC could start a fresh rally if it clears $63,500 and $64,000 in the near term.
Bitcoin is facing resistance near the $63,500 and $64,000 levels.
The price is now trading above $62,500 and the 100 hourly simple moving average.
There is a major contracting triangle forming with support near $62,000 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair (data feed from Kraken).
The pair could start a fresh rally if there is a clear break above $63,500.
Bitcoin Price Consolidates
Bitcoin price made another attempt to gain traction above the $63,500 and $64,250 resistance levels. However, BTC failed to settle above the $63,500 level and started a fresh downside correction.
There was a sharp decline below the $62,000 support zone and the 100 hourly simple moving average. The price even spiked below $61,000. A low was formed near $60,810 and it is now correcting losses. There was a break above the $62,000 resistance zone and the 100 hourly SMA.
Bitcoin surpassed the 50% Fib retracement level of the recent decline from the $64,327 swing high to $60,810 low. It is now consolidating above the $62,000 level and the 100 hourly SMA.
On the upside, an immediate resistance is near the $62,800 level. The first major resistance is near the $63,000 level. There is also a major contracting triangle forming with support near $62,000 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair.
The main resistance is still near the $63,500 level. It is near the 76.4% Fib retracement level of the recent decline from the $64,327 swing high to $60,810 low. A clear break above $63,500 resistance may possibly call open the doors for a fresh rally. The next major resistance sits near the $65,000 level.
Fresh Dip In BTC?
If bitcoin fails to clear the $63,500 resistance zone, it could start a fresh decline. An immediate support on the downside is near the $62,200 level.
The first major support is now forming near the $62,000 level and the triangle lower trend line. A clear close below the $62,000 support could open the doors for a move towards the $60,000 level.
Technical indicators:
Hourly MACD – The MACD is slowly losing pace in the bearish zone.
Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI for BTC/USD is now below the 50 level.
Major Support Levels – $62,000, followed by $60,800.
Major Resistance Levels – $62,800, $63,500 and $64,000.
Squid Game (SQUID) coin became a hot commodity immediately, climbing all the way up to $2,861. Yesterday, it plummeted to $0.
This follows a trend in crypto investing where the value spikes in reaction to hypes. It’s not a sustainable way to invest. Nick Black, Cryptocurrency Expert at Alternative Wealth Daily, offered some insight in the wake of cryptos like Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) spiking. To him, they’re “junk coins in junk communities.”
This particular cryptocurrency rode off the coattails of Netflix’s latest hit, “Squid Game.” The irony is that the show is about a group of people who are in debt (quite a few of them due to gambling) and are given the chance to win a life-changing sum of money through a series of competitive games. And those who gambled on the show’s success were met with loss.
Meanwhile, the creators of SQUID coin made $2.1 million off the whole ordeal. It’s a particular kind of scam called a “rug pull” that happens when a crypto’s creator takes the cash and leaves investors with nothing.
For experienced crypto traders, there were obvious red flags. But too many fell victim to the hype surrounding the crypto and lost money over it.
Here’s what happened with the SQUID coin – and what you can do to avoid the next one…
SQUID Coin: Don’t Fall Victim to the Hype
There were plenty of reasons to avoid SQUID coin. Its website was only three weeks old, riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. The crypto’s Telegram channel didn’t allow outside comments, and its Twitter didn’t allow for users to reply to any posts.
If you’re ever curious about the legitimacy of a crypto or company, these elements are generally a good way to gauge their credibility. Particularly when it comes to the website. Chances are, if it doesn’t seem professionally done, it isn’t.
The biggest red flag of them all was that no one could sell the coin after purchasing it. This should’ve led many traders to question the crypto’s legitimacy, but it didn’t. Even mainstream news outlets like the Yahoo News, Business Insider, and CNBC didn’t question the “Squid Game”-based cryptocurrency, despite it soaring by 83,000% in just a few days.
Of course, this isn’t the first time scammers have taken advantage of a trend. Earlier this year, there was Mando, a crypto that illegally used images from Disney+’s “Mandalorian.” And this certainly doesn’t mean that it won’t happen again either. It doesn’t help that it’s difficult at times to tell the difference between what is a legitimate cryptocurrency and what isn’t.
Though there are ways to help guide you when it comes to investing in cryptos.
Advice for Crypto Investors: Stay out of the Animals
The SQUID coin situation is a perfect example of why not buy into hype. Even those who bought DOGE and SHIB at the height of their hype back in May were met with losses of 55% and 72%, respectively.
While these two cryptos are more legitimate, they function in the same manner as SQUID coin. These coins don’t have a lot value aside from retail investors on Twitter and Reddit pumping the cryptos during times of hype.
Nick’s advice: “If it’s an animal or food product, don’t own it.”
But for those of you who might own cryptos like this, just know that they are like lottery tickets. Once you manage some gains off these, take those profits and roll them into quality investments that don’t require you to constantly monitor it.
These coins are only valuable because people are pumping money into them without another thought. Eventually, those who hold a lot of the token on the rise will sell it back, and everyone else suffers for it.
This is exactly what happened with SQUID coin.
Possibly the Easiest (and Most Lucrative) Way to Make Money on Crypto
Navigating the cryptocurrency market can feel a bit like throwing darts at a board, especially when volatility comes to “crash the party.”
That’s why Tom Gentile, America’s No. 1 Pattern Trader, developed a method for spotting winners in a little-known slice of the crypto market – through any market condition imaginable.
It’s a method with a 95% win rate, and Tom’s used it to beat the stock market by 640% in the last year.
This corner of the crypto market is projected to get a $14.2 trillion boost in the next four years – and Tom’s just the person who can show folks how to tap into it for the biggest potential gains.
Popular crypto asset Shiba Inu (SHIB) is outpacing its primary competitor as the crypto exchange Kraken appears ready to list the dog-themed memecoin.
SHIB has officially surpassed Dogecoin (DOGE) in terms of market cap and is now the ninth-largest crypto asset by that measure.
The meme token “flippening” occurred a little more than a month after crypto exchange giant Coinbase listed SHIB on all trading platforms. Now, another top US exchange is looking to get in on the action.
According to Kraken’s official Twitter account,
“Brian C. Hoffman [product lead at Kraken] said if we get 2,000 likes we will list SHIB tomorrow – but he doesn’t think we can do it.
SHIBArmy where you at?”
🐶♥️🐶♥️🐶♥️🐶♥️🐶@brianchoffman said if we get 2,000 likes we will list $SHIB tomorrow – but he doesn't think we can do it.#SHIBArmy where you at?
The tweet, posted early morning on November 1st, has since garnered over 62,000 likes. Kraken has yet to list SHIB at time of writing.
Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, listed SHIB in May, triggering a 167% rally in the Dogecoin-inspired crypto. It has since added a SHIB/DOGE trading pair as well.
SHIB is currently trading at $0.00006774, up 60.3% in the last week, according to CoinGecko. It is up 119588347.2% over the last year.
Dogecoin is currently trading at $0.27, with a market cap of $35,814,791,425 compared to SHIB’s $36,892,112,898.
here are many arguments for an upcoming altcoin season.
TOTAL2 is breaking through its all-time high and has created a long-term cup and handle pattern.
BTCD is dropping, and Bitcoin’s price consolidation is catalyzing increases on many altcoins.
Bitcoin (BTC) is up 65% in 21 days and has set a new all-time high (ATH) of $67,000. After that, it has been consolidating around $60,000 for the last 2 weeks. Such price action of the largest cryptocurrency provides potentially ideal conditions to initiate altcoin season.
In this article, BeInCrypto takes a look at some technical arguments for the hypothesis of an upcoming altcoin season. The total altcoin capitalization is breaking through the all-time high, and its fractal corresponds to the analogous structure from the 2017-2018 bull market. Additionally, Bitcoin’s dominance is dropping, and many top altcoins are breaking out of their multi-month consolidation or just breaking through their all-time highs.
Altcoin cap ready to explode
The chart of total altcoin market capitalization (TOTAL2) is on the verge of its all-time high of $1.49 trillion, set on 12 May 2021 (yellow line). The second time this level was almost reached was on 7 September. Moreover, the chart seems to respect the rising support line (blue), which has been in place since the bottom at $608 billion on 20 July.
Cryptocurrency trader @Parabolic_Matt pointed out on Twitter that technical indicators on the weekly time frame also look bullish. In his opinion, the chart has created an ascending triangle formation. It also resembles a cup-and-handle pattern with a technical target at $2.63 trillion. Measured from today’s altcoin market valuation, this would be a 58% rise.
In addition, the weekly RSI has just broken out above the descending long-term trendline (red circle), which was in place since February 15, 2021. This is also a bullish signal that offers a chance for a strong altcoin season in the coming weeks. @Parabolic_Matt concludes:
“The ALT Coin market cap looks like it’s about to EXPLODE! (…) November may bring #ALTSEASON.”
Another argument in favor of altcoin season is provided on Twitter by another crypto market analyst @TechDev_52. In a 2-week time frame, he compared the fractal of total market capitalization from the turn of 2017-2018 and today.
In his opinion, the structures show similarities, which are confirmed by the 2-week RSI. In his opinion, the RSI of altcoin capitalization is following a 3-step bull market pattern. The first two peaks (red and blue) were reached earlier this year, while the last one (yellow) is ahead and is expected to happen in early 2022. According to the analyst, this could take TOTAL2 to values in the $5-7 trillion range.
Another way to look for arguments for a possible altcoin season is to look at the chart of Bitcoin dominance (BTCD). We see a 20% increase in BTCD between September 10 and October 19. However, Bitcoin’s dominance has been declining since then.
Moreover, BTCD failed to form a higher high relative to the 49% level reached on July 30, 2021 (red circles). This is a bearish signal that may indicate a continuation of the decline in Bitcoin’s dominance, which has continued since the beginning of 2021. Long-term support is found at the 39.5% and 35.5% levels.
Additional analysis of BTCD in relation to the Bitcoin price was recently done on YouTube by crypto market commentator Kevin Svenson. He highlighted 3 moments in 2021 that initiated a decline in BTCD. Each time they were correlated with a consolidation of the BTC price after a violent surge.
In the chart below, we see the BTC price spikes (green arrows) and the subsequent consolidation (red circles). The beginning of this repetitive process occurred on 14 January, 31 March and 10 August. At the same time, on the bottom chart of BTCD, we see that these moments initiated a sharp decline (red arrows).
Current market conditions are very reminiscent of all previous periods. Bitcoin has completed a surge, set a new ATH at $67,000 and is currently consolidating. In contrast, Bitcoin’s dominance has started a decline. If it continues, it will certainly lead to an altcoin season.
The end of a long-term consolidation
The final argument in favor of an upcoming altcoin season are the charts of the major altcoins. Many of these have just broken out from long-term consolidation and validated previous resistance as support. Others, on the other hand, have already recently broken through their ATH and are continuing their rally.
The main determinant of the altcoin market’s condition is Ethereum (ETH). The second cryptocurrency by market capitalization just broke through its historical ATH of $4384 reached on May 12, 2021 (yellow line) and continues its upward movement.
We observe a similar situation on the charts of Polkadot (DOT) or Solana (SOL). Meanwhile, such TOP 20 cryptocurrencies as Binance Coin (BNB), Polygon (MATIC) or Chainlink (LINK) are in the process of breaking out of long-term consolidation patterns.
LINK, for example, broke out above the resistance area in the $29-30 range and simultaneously closed above the long-term falling resistance line (blue). Once these levels are validated as support, the altcoin is ready to continue the uptrend and attempt to break through the important resistance area at $35. If successful, LINK will not have many resistance levels before the ATH at $53.
