Last week in cryptocurrency

Welcome to Volume one of Last Week in Cryptocurrency, by yours truly, Matthew Lawler.

It’s been an action packed couple of weeks! We’ve seen Bitcoin hit $5000, drop to $2900, and bounce within a few hours back to $3800.

There was a lot of fear in the markets, due to China coming out with their ban in ICO’s. Then, a few days later, the announcement that they were also banning bitcoin exchanges that exchange Yuan for crypto. The move was very characteristic of China, and many have speculated that this would happen, and…it did. It’s very nice to have that behind us, especially with the market’s looking mostly green once again.

Like many others, I do see a lot of traction on the notion that these bans are temporary, as it is not in China’s interest to drive down the value of their biggest winner in Crypto (NEO), among many other intriguing projects, and ultimately usher out of town their many entrepreneurs that have resided in the China-dominated Bitcoin mining and hardware startups that are a source of income for China.

A more thorough investigation into the history of NEO, and it’s parent company, OnChain’s relationship with the Chinese government is very confidence building for the future of NEO and, in general, the promise of a strong lead from China in blockchain innovation.

The Empire Strikes Back

”It’s not a battle between business and government. It’s a battle between the centralized empires of the world and a decentralized rebel alliance of every day people, an eternal battle.” - Daniel Jeffries, Hackernoon

It does not feel like stretch to call the enormous stream of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) during the last two weeks a coordinated attack on Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency from the mainstream media, more thoroughly articulated in this article from Daniel Jeffries at Hackernoon, ‘The Empire Strikes Back with a coordinated War on Crypto. You probably heard about JP Morgan’s CEO, Jamie Demon, calling Bitcoin a “Fraud” and a “Ponzi Scheme”. That’s quite a statement to come from the top level of a company that has a considerable history of fraud, not the least of which is their part in architecting the 2008 market collapse by bundling triple-A rated mortgages with sh*t mortgages, and selling them as if they were Triple A.

While the Bitcoin price was tanking with all the negative press, JPMorgan and Jamie Demon were seen loading up on Bitcoin

The Timeless War for Freedom from oppression

We are continuing to witness the timeless battle between those that lord money and power, and the populace seeking freedom from oppression of this power. We have seen Bitcoin evolve from being merely ‘play money’ in 2014 and 2015, to becoming a legitimate asset class in 2017. The powers that have been are very concerned that Bitcoin is threatening it’s reign, and are doing everything they can to attack it. And when they find they cannot stop it, they will transfer their wealth into cryptocurrency. What we just saw this week, was that Bitcoin and it’s users either don’t care that China has sought to limit access to it, or else the world is calling China’s bluff—or perhaps both are the case. In my opinion, These are very positive signs for the future of cryptocurrency.

One More thing…Privacy

Many, including myself, are increasingly beginning to value privacy oriented cryptocurrencies, especially with growing concerns of government crackdowns. Monero, Zcash, Dash, and Pivx have been popular ‘privacy’ coins so far. The new privacy coin on the block is Verge, and it won some of my dollars this week, as it looks to be one of the most undervalued coins (currently trading at $.006 - yes, a fraction of a penny), especially when it comes to the privacy segment. It may also boast the best privacy technology, which is the promise of their new Wraith protocol which is being teased to launch before the end of this month.

Curious what the crypto community on twitter thought had the most upside for the remainder of the year, I ran this poll, with some interesting results.

#crypto nation! Who has the most upside for the remainder of 2017? $NEO $XVG $OMG ?

— Matthew (@iconartus) September 19, 2017

During the first 10-15 minutes, NEO took a dominant lead. Then the Verge community started retweeting the poll, and everything I’d been hearing about the Verge community was proven. They have an incredibly active community of fans that are very enthusiastic about this coin. And admittedly, it’s getting contagious : )

Thanks for reading, and I hope this perspective provides some value to you!

*Disclaimer! I don’t have a crystal ball, there will be continued volatility to the upside and the down! Invest at your own risk! Have fun living through the greatest wealth transfer in the history of man!

Cheers,
Matthew