Private Equity Moris Beracha Wuani

By Martin Young The fallout from last week’s US senate hearings on Facebook’s Libra project is still being felt across the crypto ecosystem. Many are blaming the social media giant for Bitcoin’s recent correction but in reality it is just part of the natural rhythm of the market. Bitcoin Back at Four Figures Following a week of consolidation Bitcoin fell back below $10k during Asian trading today. It is the third dip into four figures since BTC hit its 2019 high of $13,800 at the end of June. The previous two times have seen lower lows so in all likelihood BTC will fall to $9k or below in this correction. According to Tradingview , BTC dipped to $9,870 a couple of hours ago. The move has resulted in a 5 percent slide on the day and another thousand dollar decline from its weekend high of $11,000. Analysts are expecting a further fall into the $8,000 zone which will present buying opportunities for many. The down trend is clearly intact and with lower highs f...

By Vildana Hajric   While U.S. lawmakers zero in on Facebook Inc.’s ambitious plan to upend the global financial system via its cryptocurrency project, technical indicators are flashing major warning signals when it comes to the price of digital assets. Based on the GTI VERA convergence-divergence indicator, the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index -- which tracks some of the largest digital assets and is comprised 30% of Bitcoin -- received its first sell signal since early June. The indicator detects positive and negative trends, and the last time it flashed a warning sign on June 4, the index fell about 10% in one trading session.  It’s been a volatile month for crypto assets. Prices surged in June after Facebook announced plans to launch its own digital coin called Libra, which the company hopes will one day trade much like the dollar. The launch added to optimism that digital assets are becoming more widely adopted by mainstream instituti...

Bitcoin fell nearly $2,000 in a matter of minutes in a sharp crash, a reminder of the cryptocurrency’s volatility even as it has soared this month to its highest level since last year’s boom-and-bust cycle. In late New York trading hours on Wednesday, bitcoin fell from $13,850 to under $11,900 in under an hour, according to Refinitiv data. That took some of the sheen off a rally that has seen bitcoin jump from just over $5,000 at the beginning of May, evoking memories of the cryptocurrency’s last boom-and-bust cycle. By Thursday morning in London bitcoin was tumbling again and trading at around $11,500. Some attributed the slump to a brief shutdown of Coinbase, a San Francisco-based platform which is among the most popular of cryptocurrency exchanges. But Alistair Milne, chief investment officer of the Altana Digital Currency Fund, said that the rapid correction was “inevitable — you simply don’t go up this quickly and sustain it forever, followed by consolidation”. ...

By  William Suberg Amazon  would only consider discussing the creation of its own  cryptocurrency  like  Facebook’s Libra in several years’ time, a senior executive said at a  conference  on June 10. Speaking at Fortune’s Brainstorm Finance 2019 event, Patrick Gaulthier, vice president of Amazon Pay, said the kind of value transfer system Facebook unveiled this week was a step too far in the current climate. “It’s fresh, it’s speculative; at Amazon, we don’t really deal with the speculative, in the now,” he said. Facebook continues to cause a stir in cryptocurrency, financial and government circles in the wake of the first publicity material around Libra going live. Billed as a network designed to allow users to send money like messages or pictures on social media, the scheme has  attracted  scorn for its technical setup and roadmap, while some lawmakers have already gone as far as to request the company  halt d...

Facebook is set Tuesday to unveil a bid to bring cryptocurrency payments into the mainstream, reportedly with the endorsement of governments and financial giants. The world's biggest social network is expected to outline details of a virtual currency launching next year that it hopes will avoid the rollercoaster volatility of "blockchain" technologies such as bitcoin. Facebook is setting up a consortium called "Libra" which, according to the Wall Street Journal, has been joined by more than a dozen companies including Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Uber. The companies along with venture capitalists and telecommunications firms will reportedly invest around $10 million each into the consortium. Facebook has been trying to ward off hostile regulatory scrutiny after a series of privacy abuses and the spread of fake news. The consortium will be managed externally and will seek to build trust among consumers by pegging the virtual coin to a basket of c...

By Falon Fatemi Today's business landscape is demanding that companies spearhead large-scale changes in order to survive and remain competitive. In an ever-changing political, social, and economic climate, constant organizational change is the new normal. Few advancements promise to help organizations cross critical business chasms more profoundly than artificial intelligence. When it comes to business operations, artificial intelligence has enormous potential to catapult companies beyond the status quo and adapt to new dynamics.  1. Enhancing the customer experience According to research by Walker, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator by 2020. The centrality of customer experience in today's business landscape has motivated many companies to adopt a more holistic approach to customer experience improvement. Companies such as Intuit, EMC, and Adobe all have core custom...

By Martin Young The FOMO has finally returned to crypto markets as scenes reminiscent of late 2017 start to unfold this week. Bitcoin has been the clear leader with dominance almost touching 60 percent and a surge over $8,000 for the first time since July last year. Bitcoin is King At 60% The BTC maximalists are full of hopium again today as their daddy blasted past another resistance zone and hit a new high of $8,050 a couple of hours ago. Asian trading has seen a slight pullback but the bulls are still grabbing the markets by the horns and keeping BTC buoyed up. Trading at just below $8k, Bitcoin is up 14 percent on the day in its second thousand dollar surge this week. At the weekend BTC pumped from $6,300 to $7,500 and many expected a correction which has yet to materialize. Over the past 24 hours BTC has pumped from just over $7,000 to top $8k for the first time in ten months. Market dominance is a touch under 60 percent which is the highest it ha...

By Inside Bitcoins Ali Raza | This period is clearly one of the most exciting for the crypto world. Even electronic payment behemoth PayPal is also getting in on some crypto action. It was PayPal’s chief financial officer John Rainey who made the startling revelations in an interview with Yahoo! Finance. Even though the payment giant is also devoting some resources to the development of cryptocurrency, Rainey stated that digital currency is not going to be their major priority for now. He thinks there is still more to be done regarding universal acceptance for digital assets before they can fully roll out buy crypto with PayPal . Bitcoin is Under Consideration Even though other big brands like Fidelity were putting in a lot of resources into crypto investments, PayPal had kept many in suspense by almost ignoring the booming sector. This is despite the fact that Rainey said that PayPal actually included Bitcoin as one of their payment alternatives for merchants...

    By Adrian Zmudzinski     Blockchain Capital partner Spencer Bogart claimed that the crypto endeavors of social media giant Facebook could result in the cryptocurrency user base doubling or tripling. Bogart made his remarks during an interview with Bloomberg published on May 8. In the interview, Bogart confirmed that he thinks Facebook Coin — whether it will be a stablecoin or a different kind of crypto asset — will act as a stepping stone, introducing the masses to the idea of cryptocurrencies. He explained that once people own Facebook Coin: “It’s like being on the internet; so people can spin out and they can start owning bitcoin, they can start owning ether. Some percentage of the user base is likely to do so, and again I think that’s gonna be a dramatic catalyst.” Bogart then stated that the more important thing is that Facebook’s initiative “lit a fire in the pants of every major fintech and financial institution in the U...

By Catie Keck Facebookcoin, or whatever we’re calling it, is reportedly getting even closer to becoming a reality. Following previous reports that such an project was underway, the Wall Street Journal , citing sources familiar with the matter, reported Thursday that Facebook has been in talks with “dozens” of financial groups about its super-secret cryptocurrency initiative, which is apparently code-named “Project Libra.” Take from that information whatever you wish. According to the Journal, Facebook sees the project as a way to further integrate itself into the lives of its users—no surprise there—by developing a coin that can be used on Facebook and across the internet as easily as users use their Facebook credentials as login information for other websites and services. Unsurprisingly, because this is Facebook, the company is also reportedly looking at ways to link the project to ads: One idea being considered is that users could click ads to buy a pr...

  By Jeff Kauflin A new movement is pumping oxygen into the cryptocurrency industry despite asset prices that remain 75% lower than where they were in late 2017. It’s called DeFi, short for decentralized finance—it’s the notion that crypto entrepreneurs can recreate traditional financial instruments in a decentralized architecture, outside of companies’ and governments’ control. And with fresh allegations of misused funds against the centrally controlled cryptocurrency tether, the argument for decentralized applications has become even more relevant. Bitcoin and Ethereum are the original DeFi applications. Both are controlled by large networks of computers, not central authorities. Many investors use bitcoin like gold, as a store-of-value investment that protects against inflation, while Ethereum has been instrumental—and controversial—in helping startups crowdfund their operations. But newer apps are dominating the DeFi...

By Ana Alexandre A recent study by recruiting site Glassdoor published Oct. 18 found that crypto and blockchain-related job opportunities significantly increased in the U.S. this year, despite the slump in cryptocurrency prices. In the course of its analysis, Glassdoor examined a large number of online U.S. job postings on their site containing keywords related to blockchain, Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrency. To ensure more accuracy, the company also included more general blockchain-related terms, while excluding jobs from third-party recruiting firms. To estimate salaries, Glassdoor used its “Know Your Worth” instrument. Per the report, as of August 2018 there were 1,775 unique blockchain-related job openings in the U.S., while at this time last year there were 446 similar job ads, which represents a 300 percent year-over-year increase. The highest proportion of job openings is concentrated in 15 cities, including New York City and San Francisco, wit...

Moris Beracha.-  Facebook has announced a new policy banning ads for well-known digital currency exchange or nominations or for initial coin offerings (COI). Services that "promote financial products and services frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices" are also prohibited. With the publication of this announcement, Facebook sets a position on digital currencies, considering that ads are "deceptions". The new policies will be extended not only to the Facebook home page, but also to Instagram and Facebook Audience Network, a platform to display their ad campaigns on third-party sites. The CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, showed his willingness to explore the benefits of the blockchain, to see if it could help Facebook. Although Zuckerberg has not expressed a position against this technology, this decision has been taken before the wave of scams around this fever. Facebook has accompanied the announcement with its us...