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As the year kicks off with an all-time high market cap for Bitcoin on its eighth birthday, 2017 promises to be an exciting year for Bitcoin,...

The post What Experts Are Predicting for 2017 in Bitcoin and Blockchain Tech appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Kraken, a global bitcoin exchange headquartered in San Francisco, announced the launch of Monero (XMR) trading, which effectively enables...

The post Monero Continues Upswing With Kraken's Launch of XMR Trading appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

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The post Financial Times Writer Says Bitcoin is Worth “Zero”. A Response. appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

 BitPagos, a bitcoin and digital payments startup that was a Battlefield finalist at TechCrunch Disrupt New York 2016, has raised $1.9 million Series A funding round to expand its services in its native South America. Read More

Throughout his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump attacked China for keeping its currency artificially low.

He promised he would label China a currency manipulator on his first day in office, and even tweeted, "Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (the U.S. doesn't tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don't think so!"

While Trump has not yet taken office, his economic team has started to take shape. Back on December 12, Trump named former Goldman Sachs President and COO Gary Cohn as the next director of the National Economic Council. At the time, Trump said of Cohn:

"He will help craft economic policies that will grow wages for our workers, stop the exodus of jobs overseas and create many great new opportunities for Americans who have been struggling. He fully understands the economy and will use all of his vast knowledge and experience to make sure the American people start winning again."

Interestingly, Cohn seems to have a differing opinion on China, and more specifically its currency. Whereas Trump thinks the yuan is too weak, Cohn believes the currency is just the opposite, too strong. In an interview with the Bloomberg back in January 2016 that was highlighted by the Library of Economics and Liberty, Cohn said (emphasis ours):

"The Chinese have taken multidecade views on what they’re doing. They built up their surplus capital account over many, many years. It is going down. It is undeniably going down, and you can see it in the numbers. They may take some actions in the next few months to deal with that. You know, look, so I believe that they’re going to end up devaluing the currency? I do believe they will end up devaluing the currency.”  

"At the start of 2015 there were three countries in the world that were willing to have a strong currency. The Swiss, the Chinese, and the U.S. The Swiss pulled the rip cord overnight. They just ripped it off and said, 'We are done. We are done having a strong currency. It is too expensive to defend this.'

"And now you have two countries, two countries in the world that are willing to have a relatively strong currency, and it is unsustainable that the rest of the world try and devalue against these two currencies. It is not fair to those two countries. And I think we have got to do something with this. We will never have those real conversations, but if we woke up tomorrow and every central bank in the world raised their interest rates by 300 basis points, the world would be a better place. No currency should move because all the relationships would be the same, but insurance companies would work, pensions would work, savers would work, we would get people out of bank-loan funds, we would get people out of bond funds and they could put their money back in banks and back in government bonds where it belongs."

China weakened the yuan by more than 7% in 2016 in an attempt to navigate its economy through a rough patch.

While Cohn's views on the Chinese currency could very well have changed over the course of the past year as it weakened, he at least seems to understand the reasons as to why Beijing is making the yuan weaker, and that there still could be further weakness ahead.

In fact, Deutsche Bank strategist Gautam Kalani says the yuan is "the most expensive" currency in the world on a trade-weighted basis, and that its the most attractive currency to short. 

While Kalani didn't go into specifics, that's likely because as the dollar strengthens on expectations for Federal Reserve interest-rate hikes, the yuan gets weaker and money pours out of China.

"Beyond the headline data, other indicators point to increasing capital outflows and bearish sentiment on the yuan," Bloomberg economist Tom Orlik wrote in a note following the latest release of China's foreign-exchange reserves, which showed gross reserves decreased by $69.1 billion, the largest drop in 10 months, to $3.05 trillion in November.

SEE ALSO: China is behind the latest bitcoin craze

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NOW WATCH: Watch Yellen explain why the Federal Reserve decides to raise rates

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The post Barry Silbert Optimistic of Global Bitcoin Exchange Volumes appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Argentinian bitcoin startup Ripio has raised $2.3m in Series A capital.

Source

Supercomputers are ultrahigh-performance machines that crunch numbers at dazzling speeds in order to advance research in aerospace, climate...

The post Blockchain Technology to Power Next-Generation Distributed Supercomputers appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Bitcoin, digital currency and blockchain technology experienced another explosive year in 2016. While bitcoin breached the all-time high in...

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The post Bitcoin Will Get Native Support in Microsoft Excel This Year appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Spanish banking group BBVA has released a new research note on blockchain that argues for more immediate regulation.

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The IRS is pursuing Coinbase account data and is likely to get it, despite the current legal wrangling over the IRS Summons. Are Bitcoin transactions really private and confidential?

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The post Dutch and Korean Mainstream Media Extensively Cover Bitcoin Rally appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Think Coinbase's IRS issues are about bitcoin alone? The implications are far more broad, CoinDesk's Noelle Acheson argues.

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Digital currency bitcoin jumped above $1,000 (£815) for the first time in three years on Sunday, trading as high as $1,029 ($1,038) on Tuesday, according to CoinDesk data.

This chart shows just how much the currency has increased over the past year (from November 9, 2015 to December 23, 2016). Business Insider's Jonathan Garber reports on what's behind the move, attributing it to the continued rush of money out of China.

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NOW WATCH: Why Korean parents are paying for their kids to get plastic surgery

The US Treasury complex is opening up 2017 the same way it spent much of the final two months of 2016, lower.

Early selling has taken hold as risk assets across the globe rally on the first trading day of the new year.

The weakness has run yields up as much as as 6 bps in the belly of the curve. Here's a look at the scoreboard as of 7:07 a.m. ET:

• 2-year +3.8 bps @ 1.226%
• 3-year +4.6 bps @ 1.497%
• 5-year +5.6 bps @ 1.983%
• 7-year +6.1 bps @ 2.306%
• 10-year +6.1 bps @ 2.505%
• 30-year +5.6 bps @ 3.121%

Treasurys saw significant selling in the weeks following the election amid speculation Trump will bring back inflation to the United States thanks to his protectionist trade agenda and plans for massive infrastructure spending. That selling ran Treasury yields up more than 90 basis points in longer dated yields. 

While yields have come back in a bit, they still remain near their highest level in since the fall of 2014. After hitting a high of 2.63%, the 10-year has fallen back into the 2.50% area, which Morgan Stanley Strategist Matthew Hornbach called "important."

Tuesday's selling is having little impact on the yield curve as the 5-30-year spread holds at 114 bps. The curve has actually flattened from 137 bps since the election, a sign that maybe inflation won't be coming back like many are anticipating. 

SEE ALSO: China is behind the latest bitcoin craze

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NOW WATCH: The US is $19.9 trillion in debt — here are the countries we owe the most

Here is what you need to know.

Stock markets all over the world are opening 2017 with a bang. China's Shanghai Composite (+1%) paced the gains in Asia and Italy's MIB (+1.7%) leads the advance in Europe. Here in the US, the Dow is on track to open higher by 0.9% near 19,932.

The dollar is flying. The US dollar index is higher by 0.6% at 103.39, and on track to close at its best level since the end of 2002. The greenback is higher against all of its major peers with its biggest gains coming against the euro (+0.8%).

Bonds are getting crushed. Heavy selling has yields across the Treasury curve up about 6 basis points apiece with the 10-year reaching 2.51%. Selling isn't limited to just the US, as yields are also screaming higher across Europe, where the UK 10-year is up 9 bps at 1.33%.

Crude oil soars to an 18-month high. West Texas Intermediate crude oil trades up 2.3% at $54.93 per barrel following confirmation both Kuwait and Oman have lived up to their promises to cut production, Bloomberg reports. Meanwhile, Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, is higher by 2.2% at $58.08 per barrel.

Bitcoin is above $1,000.The cryptocurrency trades up 0.8% at $1,020 per coin after crossing the $1,000 mark for the first time since 2013 on Monday.

China is tightening control of capital. Beijing announced new rules aimed at slowing the flow of capital out of China. The measures include requiring citizens taking money out of the country to pledge it won't be used to buy property overseas and calling on banks to report any overseas transactions valued at $10,000 or more, Reuters says. State-run media organization Xinhua has denied the measures are capital controls.

UK manufacturing is booming. Markit UK Manufacturing PMI hit 56.1 in December, making for the best print in 30 months. "The UK manufacturing sector starts 2017 on a strong footing. The headline PMI hit a two-and-ahalf year high in December, with rates of expansion in output and new orders among the fastest seen during the survey’s 25-year history," wrote Rob Dobson, senior economist at IHS Markit, which compiles the survey. The British pound is little changed near 1.2275 versus the dollar.

2017 could be a busy year for tech IPOs. Blue Apron, Dropbox, Snap, and Spotify are among the tech startups that are candidates to go public this year.

Cantor Fitzgerald hires Anshu Jain. Cantor has named Jain president about one and a half years after he resigned as co-CEO of Deutsche Bank following a series of regulatory troubles.

Twitter's China boss is out. Kathy Chen has quit after eight months on the job, Reuters reports. In a tweet announcing her departure, Chen wrote, "Now that the Twitter APAC team is working directly with Chinese advertisers, this is the right time for me to leave the company."

US economic data flows. Markit manufacturing PMI will be released at 9:45 a.m. ET before both ISM Manufacturing and construction spending cross the wires at 10 a.m. ET.

Join the conversation about this story »

Here is what you need to know.

Stock markets all over the world are opening 2017 with a bang. China's Shanghai Composite (+1%) paced the gains in Asia and Italy's MIB (+1.7%) leads the advance in Europe. Here in the US, the Dow is on track to open higher by 0.9% near 19,932.

The dollar is flying. The US dollar index is higher by 0.6% at 103.39, and on track to close at its best level since the end of 2002. The greenback is higher against all of its major peers with its biggest gains coming against the euro (+0.8%).

Bonds are getting crushed. Heavy selling has yields across the Treasury curve up about 6 basis points apiece with the 10-year reaching 2.51%. Selling isn't limited to just the US, as yields are also screaming higher across Europe, where the UK 10-year is up 9 bps at 1.33%.

Crude oil soars to an 18-month high. West Texas Intermediate crude oil trades up 2.3% at $54.93 per barrel following confirmation both Kuwait and Oman have lived up to their promises to cut production, Bloomberg reports. Meanwhile, Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, is higher by 2.2% at $58.08 per barrel.

Bitcoin is above $1,000.The cryptocurrency trades up 0.8% at $1,020 per coin after crossing the $1,000 mark for the first time since 2013 on Monday.

China is tightening control of capital. Beijing announced new rules aimed at slowing the flow of capital out of China. The measures include requiring citizens taking money out of the country to pledge it won't be used to buy property overseas and calling on banks to report any overseas transactions valued at $10,000 or more, Reuters says. State-run media organization Xinhua has denied the measures are capital controls.

UK manufacturing is booming. Markit UK Manufacturing PMI hit 56.1 in December, making for the best print in 30 months. "The UK manufacturing sector starts 2017 on a strong footing. The headline PMI hit a two-and-ahalf year high in December, with rates of expansion in output and new orders among the fastest seen during the survey’s 25-year history," wrote Rob Dobson, senior economist at IHS Markit, which compiles the survey. The British pound is little changed near 1.2275 versus the dollar.

2017 could be a busy year for tech IPOs. Blue Apron, Dropbox, Snap, and Spotify are among the tech startups that are candidates to go public this year.

Cantor Fitzgerald hires Anshu Jain. Cantor has named Jain president about one and a half years after he resigned as co-CEO of Deutsche Bank following a series of regulatory troubles.

Twitter's China boss is out. Kathy Chen has quit after eight months on the job, Reuters reports. In a tweet announcing her departure, Chen wrote, "Now that the Twitter APAC team is working directly with Chinese advertisers, this is the right time for me to leave the company."

US economic data flows. Markit manufacturing PMI will be released at 9:45 a.m. ET before both ISM Manufacturing and construction spending cross the wires at 10 a.m. ET.

Join the conversation about this story »

[…]

The post Scammers in Australia Demand Bitcoin and Gift Cards from Facebook Users appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

The digital currency Bitcoin sees its value top $1000 (£815) for the first time in three years due to increased demand from China.