With bitcoin’s (BTC) move to five-month highs Tuesday, a notable bull cross of key moving averages has formed for the first time in nearly four years. The crypto market leader jumped to $5,627 on Bitstamp earlier today – the highest level since Nov. 18 – having revived the short-term bullish case with a repeated defense of key support at $5,170 last week.

When you talk to tech industry insiders about where Bitcoin is heading, two vastly different comparisons are inevitable: the tulip bulb and the internet. Bitcoin’s critics say the digital tokens are like the tulip bulbs of 17th-century Holland. They generated a wild, speculative rush that quickly disappeared, leaving behind nothing but pretty flowers and wrecked bank accounts.

Added to numerous hacks and scams damaging the cryptoverse are the fraudulent practices of Estonia-based bitcoin trading platform, Paxful Inc. Recently, after listening excessive complaints against Paxful Inc., United Global Resolve for Peace (UGRP) petitioned the illicit nature of practices by Paxful Inc. to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

The volatility of bitcoin price has surged nearly 200 percent from a monthly low of 1.26 percent to 3.31 between April 1 and April 2, according to Bitvol.info. Currently, the volatility stands at 3.54 percent.

Xapo CEO and director at PayPal, Wences Casares, recently made some spectacular claims about the potential price of Bitcoin in the future in an essay that was published in Kana and Katana, stating: “In my (subjective) opinion those chances of succeeding are at least 50%. If Bitcoin does succeed, 1 Bitcoin may be worth more than $1 million in 7 to 10 years. That is 250 times what it is worth today (at the time of writing the price of Bitcoin is ~ $4,000).”

Coinbase, the world’s largest Bitcoin broker, operated by Coinbase Inc, which has its headquarters located in San Francisco, U.S. It is fully licensed to do money based transactions not only in the UK, EU and U.S. (registered as MSB with FinCEN) but also in other countries in the world. Recently, it received an E-Money License from the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) of the UK.

The National Development and Reform Commission has included “cryptocurrency mining” on its list of activities that it is looking to restrict or prohibit. The purported reason is to “clean up the environment” — but the evidence does not back this up. One of the most common criticisms levied at cryptocurrency mining is that it uses too much energy. Many of taken this to mean that mining Bitcoin (BTC) is, effectively, killing the environment.

An online platform that provides a basic health plan to protect individuals in China against 100 critical illnesses has reached 50 million users since it launched in October 2018. The app is called Xiang Hu Bao, which means ‘mutual protection’. It was created by mobile payment app Alipay, part of Ant Financial Services Group – which was spun out of billionaire Jack Ma’s Alibaba.

Over the years, Bitcoin has gained a reputation for having a “toxic” community of users around it. This accusation is mostly thrown at Bitcoin by proponents of altcoins and those who have supported various Bitcoin hard fork attempts in the past. Of course, this is an oversimplification of the Bitcoin community. Crypto Twitter, which is the main hub of online cryptocurrency conversations these days, does not make up anywhere near the entire Bitcoin user base.

China’s top economic planning body has proposed new rules that would see the closure of all local cryptocurrency mining facilities if enacted – a move that would potentially end the country’s dominance in the energy-hungry, yet lucrative industry. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) on Monday unveiled amendments to its guidance for adjustments to the nation’s industrial structure, including categories that are encouraged, restricted and eliminated.

Bitcoin searches tripled after it surged past the $5,000 mark, at midnight of second April, 2018. This is evident from the Google Trends showing the number of searches for the word ‘bitcoin’ hitting the highest since November 2018. The following graph from Google Trends clearly puts the search spike in the context of its previous trend.

As a digital peer-to-peer currency, Bitcoin was created to allow the free flow of value without the intervention of centralized banking systems or trusted third-parties. Like many new technologies, Bitcoin is many things to many people. For an ideologist, the primary innovation of Bitcoin might be as a censorship-resistant currency that no one can take away from you. For an institutional investor, the value of Bitcoin might be as a store of value and a useful hedge against traditional equity markets, similar to gold.

Japan Railways Group, the biggest railway and subway operator in Japan that is used by millions of Japanese individuals on a daily basis, is considering the integration of crypto assets like bitcoin as a payment option. According to ANN News, a mainstream commercial television news network in Japan run by TV Asahi Corporation, JR Group is currently planning to establish a cryptocurrency company, possibly an exchange in partnership with a major bank, to integrate cryptocurrencies.

On March 28, 2019, the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain recorded a total of 393,698 confirmed transactions as both its hash rate and coin price climbed steadily over the past month. Confirmed transactions are now at the highest value since the beginning of January 2018 and are just 20 percent lower than the highest ever recorded value of 490,644 transactions per day achieved at the absolute height of the 2017 bull run — indicating that interest is picking up for the dominant cryptocurrency.

The rapid upside movement of bitcoin, which occurred in minutes, is said to have been triggered by two major factors. At $4,200, there were around $80 million worth of sell orders. As the sell orders were absorbed by buyers, it liquidated $500 million worth of short contracts.

Something major is happening to Bitcoin in 480 days – the Halvening. Bitcoin is created when the blockchain rewards the individual (or group) for validating transactions. The network gives Bitcoin to miners for adding blocks to its chain. This is reimbursement for the costs associated with maintaining the network, like electricity and hardware upkeep. Miners typically sell it immediately to cover their overheads, thus releasing new Bitcoin into the ecosystem.

Appearing on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Twitter and Square CEO, Jack Dorsey, stated that the Internet will eventually have a currency, which he Appearing on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, stated that the Internet will eventually have a currency, which he thinks will likely be Bitcoin.

You are in the most intense Crypto Winter ever felt. By the end of today, we will have survived more straight days (411) of falling Bitcoin $BTC▼0.15% value than at any other point in its 10-year history. The previous record for downward price movement in cryptocurrency was the stretch between November’s end 2013 and mid-January 2015, when Bitcoin‘s price fell from $1,100 to just $200.

According to the legislature website, Wyoming has passed the bill allowing for cryptocurrencies to be recognized as a form of money. The bill was presented on 22nd Jan where it captured the attention of the entire crypto world. It passed all its readings on 29th, 30th, and 31st of January, and was finally introduced to the state’s House of Representatives on 1st of February.

A cryptocurrency exchange in Canada has lost control of at least $137 million of its customers’ assets following the sudden death of its founder, who was the only person known to have access the the offline wallet that stored the digital coins. British Columbia-based QuadrigaCX is unable to access most or all of another $53 million because it’s tied up in disputes with third parties. The dramatic misstep was reported in a sworn affidavit that was obtained by CoinDesk.

New research suggests that just two groups are responsible for a majority of cryptocurrency hacks up to now. Chainalysis , a company that provides blockchain software, made the claim in a recent report.

Data from Blockchain, tracking the number of unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs), confirmed transactions by day and exchange volumes in USD for Bitcoin, reveals lows not seen since 2017. Its fall from all-time highs of $20,000 in December 2017 formed the downside of what has become a boom-and-bust cycle for Bitcoin. As Bitcoinist reported, a run-up, crash and slow build-up to a new high has in fact characterized BTC/USD since its inception.

Opinion: Cryptocurrencies are useless. Blockchain solutions are frequently much worse than the systems they replace. Here's why. In his 2008 white paper that first proposed bitcoin, the anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto concluded with: “We have proposed a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust.” He was referring to blockchain, the system behind bitcoin cryptocurrency. The circumvention of trust is a great promise, but it’s just not true. Yes, bitcoin eliminates certain trusted intermediaries that are inherent in other payment systems like credit cards. But you still have to trust bitcoin—and everything about it.

What Are Bitcoin Wallets? It is a storage of a set of secret keys which are used to access the Bitcoin public address. You need the address so that you can access the public Bitcoin and carry out transactions. The set of keys stored in the Bitcoin wallet determines the amount of Bitcoins you own and how you can spend them.

Bitcoin rose on the global financial scene immediately after the global economic recession that was seen in 2008. As people started to look for an alternative to the traditional fiat currencies, cryptos stepped in. Although bitcoin trading could not get much attention in its first few years, the past couple of years have proved to be quite valuable for the asset.

JP Morgan is the first US bank to launch a Cryptocurrency. In a surprise move, the investment bank has launched a stablecoin like token which will be used anywhere from settling cross border payments to using the bank’s treasuries.

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are experiencing a bearish experience, but that hasn’t dampened the experience of this phenomenon. Russian cybersecurity titan Kaspersky and Coinmap have conducted a study that proves critics wrong. The research shows that Bitcoin adoption has grown 700 percent in the last five years while one in every ten online buyers has paid for purchases using cryptocurrencies.

Pompliano says the shift to Bitcoin as a reserve currency is happening “right before our eyes”. “Sovereign nations are already settling transactions in Bitcoin. Don’t blink,” he tweeted. “Bitcoin is becoming the global reserve currency right before our eyes.”

Use this quick quiz to see how well you really know the history behind the world’s most iconic cryptocurrency.

Speaking during a recent panel, Stephen Pair discussed the recent hard fork activity around the Bitcoin blockchain as a result of the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) split last November. “95 percent of our payments are done in Bitcoin,” he said quoted on social media by commentator StopAndDecrypt. While the figure itself is unsurprisingly, Pair’s advocacy contrasts dramatically with comments he made just two years ago. As StopAndDecrypt noted uploading videos of two appearances, at the Consensus conference in May 2017, BitPay appeared to want to abandon Bitcoin altogether.

Over the past few days, we have seen a sudden rise in the cryptocoin market by more than $4 billion, with Bitcoin put front as it moved $3,700. There are many other cryptocurrencies in the online coin trading market such as Ethereum and Ripple which also showed large gains as each rose by more than 3% against BTC. Even if we continue to see that the price of bitcoin, Ethereum, and any other digital currencies decline, there are some crypto experts who expect that the market will assuredly recover in a big way before the end of 2019.

A famous cryptocurrency enthusiast and billionaire Tim Draper believes that Bitcoin will be everywhere just in two years, while fiat currencies will become archaic. He is sure that the mass adoption will be driven my general public, because people will realize the benefits of decentralized money. Reacting to JP Morgan’s decision to issue its own coin, Mr. Draper’s said that it was a great news for the industry as it has a potential to draw attention to the cryptocurrnencies in general.

In an age where governments are trigger happy at censoring or shutting down networks, it is reassuring to know that Bitcoin can operate sans internet. Network censorship, after all, is not some dystopian storyline but a power exercised by many democratic governments across the world. Thankfully, there are solutions that enable people to send and receive bitcoin even in a worst case scenario. For an advanced technology, it turns out that cryptocurrency can get surprisingly low-tech.

Fiat’s time is nigh, and its use will be by and large confined to criminals within the next five years, says Tim Draper, a well-known American venture capitalist, and unapologetic Bitcoin bull. Draper, who seems unfazed by last years declining crypto prices, made this rather bold prediction during his recent interview with Fox Business.

“No bank operates for the good of the people, they operate to make an unlimited profit (as interest) on each loan they give out”, writes Khunsha Javed, editor of BlockPublisher, in a piece titled ‘Fiat Currency is Designed To Put You In Debt, Bitcoin Will Save You‘. One of the world’s most famous tech entrepreneurs, Elon Musk recently appeared on ARK Invest’s podcast as he said that bitcoin’s (BTC) structure is “quite brilliant“.