HOME

Gold silver slump on strong US dollar rising bond yields

Leave a comment

Gold, silver slump on strong U.S. dollar, rising bond yields

Gold and silver prices are lower in midday U.S. Trading Wednesday and hit two-month lows. The safe-haven metals are being hit hard by a surging U.S. dollar and rising government bond yields. The bulls also continue to get punished by the chart-based bears who continue to press their case amid weakening near-term technicals. June gold futures were last down $15.40 at $1,888.70 and May Comex silver was last down $0.049 at $23.485 an ounce.

A feature in the marketplace this week is the soaring value of the U.S. dollar, as the U.S. dollar index today hit another two-year high. Meantime, the Euro currency today hit a five-year low. The greenback is seeing safe-haven demand amid the geopolitical crisis. The Euro zone is getting hammered by soaring energy costs, as much of Europe gets its energy from Russia. Russia on Tuesday cut off natural gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria.

Global stock markets were mixed overnight. U.S. stock indexes are higher at midday, on corrective bounces after big losses Tuesday. This week is the busiest U.S. corporate earnings week of the quarter, which will help drive stock prices. So far most of the earnings reports have been upbeat. However, at present geopolitics is trumping corporate earnings as risk aversion remains elevated amid the Russia-Ukraine war that is the biggest battlefield in Europe since World War Two. Inflation worries are also near the front burner of the marketplace.

Major Russian gold miner opts for exports versus imports as local banks buy gold at discount

The other key outside market sees Nymex crude oil futures prices weaker and trading around $100.75 a barrel. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note is presently fetching 2.8%.

Technically, June gold futures prices hit another two-month low today. A price downtrend line is in place on the daily bar chart. Bears have gained the slight overall near-term technical advantage and have momentum on their side. Bulls' next upside price objective is to produce a close above solid resistance at $1,950.00. Bears' next near-term downside price objective is pushing futures prices below solid technical support at $1,850.00. First resistance is seen at $1,900.00 and then at today’s high of $1,908.10. First support is seen at today’s low of $1,881.60 and then at $1,875.00. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 4.5.

May silver futures prices hit a nine-week low today. A price downtrend line is in place on the daily bar chart. The silver bears have the overall near-term technical advantage. Silver bulls' next upside price objective is closing prices above solid technical resistance at $25.00 an ounce. The next downside price objective for the bears is closing prices below solid support at $23.00. First resistance is seen at today’s high of $23.765 and then at $24.00. Next support is seen at today’s low of $23.275 and then at $23.00. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 3.5.

May N.Y. copper closed up 245 points at 446.50 cents today. Prices closed nearer the session high today and saw short covering. The copper bears have the overall near-term technical advantage. A price downtrend line is in place on the daily bar chart. Copper bulls' next upside price objective is pushing and closing prices above solid technical resistance at 470.00 cents. The next downside price objective for the bears is closing prices below solid technical support at the January low of 428.80 cents. First resistance is seen at 450.00 cents and then at Tuesday’s high of 452.45 cents. First support is seen at this week’s low of 438.30 cents and then at 430.00 cents. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 4.0.

By Jim Wyckoff

For Kitco News

Time to buy Gold and Silver on the dips

Tim Moseley

HOME

Being happy alone – the power of being alone

Leave a comment

Being alone is not always easy, but spending time just with yourself holds great power.
Why, and how you manage to be happy alone, I will tell you here and enjoy reading.

The most important relationship is the relationship with ourselves
We care about everything and everyone and sometimes about every trivial thing, sometimes without knowing what for. Yet the most important relationship is the relationship with ourselves. But because we are constantly on the move on the outside, our inner self atrophies. The hectic existence becomes a self-runner, spinning in circles so long and so fast that it makes us dizzy. Then we fall over and are thrown back on ourselves.
And then we lie there …

Escape from oneself – or being alone to develop personally
There are moments when you feel abandoned not only by the world, but also by yourself. After a break-up, a loss or at some other turning point in life, being alone can feel terribly lonely.
Enduring this, or rather enduring oneself, is difficult, but important for our personal development.

Being happy alone can be hard
We have a tendency to want to avoid unpleasant things immediately: Let's get away from this gloomy place that currently knows no laughter and no happiness, that no one visits and that is always rushing from one to the other, so as not to have to endure and feel one's own feelings and so as not to be plunged into the depths by one's own abysses, we think, numbing ourselves with stimuli and running faster and faster in an attempt to outrun ourselves and the challenges of life.

But this will not succeed. We cannot run away from life's trials because they are interwoven with us to the very depths. We should solve them.
If we run away from them, they will always appear before us. They force us to immerse ourselves so that we can develop in the threads of life and go our way.
Therefore, we should not want to run away from loneliness, but meet it courageously.

Why being alone is important
Being alone is important. Perhaps all the more important the lonelier it feels. In a world where one is permanently accessible, one should make oneself temporarily unreachable. We don't have to sink into complete isolation and punish ourselves with solitary confinement. It is simply a matter of not constantly avoiding our own encounters with distractions in the depths – and also the heights – of life.
The truth is: even the greatest distraction cannot separate us from ourselves. We always remain true to ourselves. Even when we have not been true to ourselves and our attitudes or resolutions.
The truth is: we are never alone in the world.
It's all the worse when this feeling feels so real – happiness only shallow and yet any human closeness seems distant.
When everything is colourful but appears to us in black and white, when everything is animated but only emptiness sprouts for us, when we are burnt out because the inner fire has gone out, we should throw the focus back on ourselves. Put our life in perspective, lean back into ourselves and look at what is wrong right now.

Be happy alone? Connect with yourself
When our tank is empty and only a sticky trail of oil drips behind us, we need to refuel – fill ourselves back up with ourselves. Breathe into ourselves a spirit of life that speaks our voice, walks in our rhythm, beats our beat and gives us a warm embrace from within.

We don't have to turn the whole world upside down or travel around the globe to do this – all it takes is time with ourselves.

Inner stability when it's stormy on the outside
We can anchor our roots deep inside so that we stand firm in the storms of life. Gentle breezes will come, storms will come, but hurricanes will also sweep over us, sometimes changing our whole lives.
And then?
One thing is certain, the more firmly we stand in ourselves, the less can bring us down.

Aloneness transforms
We don't always have to be able to prance through the world with a beaming smile, bubbling over with joy or feeding on our own endorphin cocktail. We are allowed to be weak – but we have to be strong in order to gain new strength. Because true strength is to endure one's own weakness, to dive into it, to draw from the depths and to grow from it.

Aloneness is the key to ourselves
Being alone is always what we make of it. The key to change can lie in honestly and lovingly letting ourselves in, because then we can open up the many (protective) shells and recognise who we really are. What we need and where we want to go.

Having time for ourselves gives us strength and contentment
Without external influences we become calm. We connect with ourselves, process the past and recharge our batteries. We give ourselves time and attention and take care of ourselves.
And in the moment when we are content with ourselves – not needing any stimuli, events or confirmation from outside, accepting our own shadow sides and not blaming anyone else for our happiness – a powerful force full of independence, personal responsibility and genuine contentment awakens.

Being happy alone – this is how it works
Therefore: If life overruns you or is a self-runner and you no longer know whether you are running after your own life or away from it, then just stand still.
Sit back.
Do nothing or what is good for you.
Hold on, catch yourself and catch yourself again when you have run too far away. Take yourself by the hand and pick yourself up where you are – this way you become yourself again and being alone becomes not only less lonely, but your source of strength.

 

Tim Moseley

HOME

Gold firms as investors digest China inflation and global economic contraction

Leave a comment

Gold firms as investors digest China, inflation, and global economic contraction

Gold futures opened at $1899.60, traded to a low of $1896.30, and then recovered back above $1900 per ounce. As of 4:18 PM EDT gold futures basis, the most active June 2022 contract is currently trading up $9.30 and fixed at $1905.30. Gold’s reversal from its price decline over the last seven trading days is being supported by multiple factors and events.

Most evident is renewed concern by investors regarding China’s worsening Covid-19 infection rates, which has resulted in lockdowns in major Chinese cities which now include areas of Beijing. Over 500,000 cases of Covid-19 have been reported in Shanghai as hazmat-wearing patrols continue to enforce lockdowns throughout the city.

Shanghai is a major port city, and its shutdown has led to the absence of goods being shipped abroad, disrupting the supply chain to the United States of electronics and semiconductors vital to the automotive and electronics industry.

Real concerns about a global economic contraction resulting from China’s lockdowns shook equity markets worldwide. Shipping disruption was a root cause that led to Chinese equity markets selling off dramatically, which had a tremendous impact on U.S. equities today as all major indices experienced deep declines. The Dow lost 809 points or 2.38%, the S&P 500 declined by 2.81%, and the tech-heavy NASDAQ composite dropped dramatically, losing 3.95% or 514 points.

The uptick of Covid-19 infections in China and subsequent lockdowns have raised concerns that inflation will continue to rise and has not peaked as the Federal Reserve has maintained it would. When added to current geopolitical uncertainty regarding the war in Ukraine, these issues are at the core of today’s bullish market sentiment in gold as a safe-haven asset and hedge against both inflation fears and the emergence of risk-off market sentiment. Tapering the bullish market sentiment for gold is dollar strength, along with the potential for the Federal Reserve to initiate a series of rapid rate hikes of ½ a percent at each of the next two FOMC meetings.
 

By Gary Wagner

Contributing to kitco.com

Time to buy Gold and Silver on the dips

 

 

Tim Moseley

HOME

Twitter HQWhere Hell Froze Over

Leave a comment

Twitter HQ…Where Hell Froze Over!

by Jeff Brown, editor, The Bleeding Edge

 

Twitter HQ...Where Hell Froze Over!

 

What an incredible turn of events

As a response to Elon Musk’s offer to acquire Twitter on April 14, Twitter’s board immediately adopted a poison pill defense to ensure the acquisition by Musk wouldn’t happen. I can imagine the board members chortling over the poison pill vote saying, “It’ll be a cold day in hell before Musk takes us over…”

Of course, I’m just paraphrasing. I’m sure much fouler language was used. But the funniest part is that hell did just freeze over. The board was “forced” to accept the offer from Musk at a buyout price of $54.20 a share, or roughly $44 billion. I used the word “forced” for a reason. Twitter’s board made a critical mistake… They left themselves exposed and in a weak position. 

They neglected their fiduciary responsibility as members of the board who are supposed to be acting in the best interest of shareholders. That’s where they failed. The way the poison pill was designed would have resulted in a material decrease in the value of Twitter and its share price. The major shareholders of course knew that. The board, in one fell swoop, created enemies of those who they were supposed to be working on behalf of.

 

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey struggled with his dysfunctional board for years.

He’s a brilliant entrepreneur, but even the best can be stifled by a bad board. And we just got a glimpse of how big the struggle was for him. So with so much hate and distaste for Musk and his beliefs, why did the board capitulate?

The answer is that they had no choice. The 12 days that followed after Musk’s original offer were most certainly a scramble. With an offer like that in the air, it meant that Twitter was “in play.” The board had to canvas the investment banks and private equity markets to see if there were any other possible bidders out there at a higher price… Preferably one that was seen as being less principled than Musk.

 

 

Clearly, there were none

Otherwise, the board wouldn’t have agreed to the “no shop” provision in the deal that prohibits Twitter from taking another offer. And the board’s foolish poison pill gave Musk even more influence over the large shareholders of Twitter. The shareholder base was clearly able to force the hand of the board to accept the offer from Musk.

The criticism has been harsh from some. It’s typically along the lines of, “Rich people shouldn’t be allowed to control media companies.” Yet it’s perfectly OK to those critics that Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post, and Mark Zuckerberg controls Meta (Facebook).

The other tired complaint is that Twitter will now be awash with misinformation and disinformation under Musk’s control. The most ironic part about comments like that is that Google, Facebook, and Twitter all banned scientific research and/or world-renowned epidemiologists, virologists, and cardiologists from their platforms during the pandemic, considering them all to be in the class of “misinformation.” It pains me to even write those words, they are so absurd.

What is it about Musk’s ideas that are so hated by this toxic minority?

  • “Twitter has become the de facto town square, and it’s really important that people have both the reality and perception that they are able to speak freely within the bounds of the law.”

  • Musk plans to remove the political bias from Twitter’s algorithms and make the source code available in order to prevent "behind the scenes manipulation, either algorithmically or manually.”

  • He pledged to defeat the “spambots” that have been used by bad actors and nation-states to negatively influence not only society but also elections.

  • The plan is to authenticate all humans who use the platform.

  • He believes that freedom of speech is a fundamental right and that it is a necessity for a free and democratic society.

It’s hard to disagree with the above… In fact, this is precisely what needs to happen in order to unleash the value of Twitter.  To use Musk’s words, Twitter’s “behind the scenes manipulation” has fomented hate and division, and it has also resulted in a deeply undervalued company.

 

Musk can and will fix Twitter as a platform

He managed to pick up Twitter at an incredible price. Presuming that Musk takes Twitter public again at some time in the next two or three years, he is going to make a fortune – at least two or three times his investment.

Can Musk fix Twitter? Absolutely. Just have a look at what he’s built to date:

  • Tesla (worth $1 trillion) – the world’s most successful clean energy company

  • SpaceX (valued at $100 billion) – the world’s most successful aerospace company

  • Boring Company (valued at $5.7 billion) – the world's most innovative boring company

  • Neuralink (valued at $2.1 billion) – is on the verge of a breakthrough for brain-computer interface technology

Any one of these accomplishments would be an outlier, but four of them? Plus, we know there will be more to come, presuming Musk doesn’t work himself to death. 

But the incredible thing about his deal with Twitter is that if he is successful in affecting the changes that he intends, it may very well be the greatest contribution he’ll make… Is the restoration of one of our most fundamental and cherished rights, freedom of speech.

 

New Opportunities Are Emerging For Citizens of The World.

Freedom and democracy may appear to be struggling to stay alive in America, but there may be a knock-out punch ready to be released. The evolution of the blockchain-enabled metaverse is going to enable the 'Citizens of the World' to gain their own Freedom by democratizing power and creating a new world with new rules, new players, and new opportunities. For 99.99% of us, the metaverse will improve our real-world lives through the democratization of power and opportunity.

Along with the major long-term trend of society towards decentralization and smaller-scale organizations, there are new opportunities developing to help 'Preparers' in the cryptocurrency sector. Businesses are beginning to issue their own Crypto Coins that can be traded on Cryptocoin Exchanges.

Markethive.com for example will be releasing its HiveCoin (HIV) in the coming weeks. It has tremendous upside potential that is outlined in a Video by Founder Tom Prendergast, "Entrepreneur Advantage…".

Not only that, if you go to their website and register as a FREE Member, you will be given 500 HiveCoins for "FREE" along with access to several Earning Opportunities and online tools to increase your HiveCoin balance.

Be sure to check it out today – Markethive.com

Markethive

Tim Moseley

HOME

Elon Musk buying Twitter

Leave a comment

The social network Twitter was opened to the public almost 16 years ago, on July 15, 2006. It allows users to post and read posts posted by other users, known as tweets.
US billionaire Elon Musk has agreed to buy the Internet company Twitter for $ 44 billion. The company announced it 25th April 2022. Musk will gain control of the influential social network used by millions of people around the world. Following the completion of the transaction, Twitter shares will be withdrawn from the exchange they entered in 2013.

Already in early April, Musk announced that he had bought a 9 percent stake in Twitter. In mid-April, he came up with an offer to take over the entire company. The company said today (25th April) that its board of directors unanimously approved the transaction.

Now the agreement has yet to be approved by shareholders and regulator.
According to Musk, it is necessary for Twitter to be transferred to private ownership in order for it to develop and become a real platform for free expression.

"Freedom of speech is the foundation of a functioning democracy, and twitter is a digital square where fundamental issues for the future of humanity are discussed," Musk said in a press release to Twitter today. "Twitter has huge potential. I look forward to working with this company and the user community to leverage it," he added.

The future of Twitter is uncertain,  boss Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal told employees after announcing the deal. 
The takeover is expected to be completed within a few months, with Musk indicating for a long time that he wants to fundamentally change the way the social network works with tens of millions of users around the world.
However, the details of his plans, which apparently concern the moderation of the content and transparency of the platform, are not clear, which is also reflected in Agrawal's words. "Once the agreement is reached, we do not know which direction the platform will go," he told Reuters.
According to Musk, it is necessary for Twitter to be transferred to private ownership in order for it to develop and become a real platform for free expression.

Comments from web:

And it has recently been written that shareholders will try to dilute Musk's share and somehow prevent a "hostile" takeover. Suddenly he buys Twitter. The turnaround is really interesting.

….
As the rich man begins to buy the media, his entry into politics approaches.

                           Thanks for reading

                                                                Margaret

 

Tim Moseley

HOME

HOLY MOLY Bitcoin amp Crypto About to Have a HUGE WEEK Elon Musk Buys Twitter

Leave a comment

HOLY MOLY! Bitcoin & Crypto About to Have a HUGE WEEK! | Elon Musk Buys Twitter

Yes, welcome back everybody to altcoin daily, my name's austin in today's video. I want to share with you the latest news involving bitcoin involving elon, musk and twitter, involving higher cap crypto coins, lower cap crypto coins and, much more so like always check the timestamps down below. In the video description hit the like button and let's jump in starting with bitcoin grayscale renews push with the sec for a bitcoin spot etf. The securities and exchange commission has so far approved only btc, futures, etfs and, of course, the biggest difference on why spot etfs are so much better is because the contracts have to be settled in real bitcoin, meaning that the etf has to buy and own real bitcoin. Instead of the futures, where you can just speculate on the future price and you never actually have to own the btc and based on some new information, grayscale is a very confident that this one will be approved and here's.

 

Why, in a letter sent last week to the sec, seen by the financial times, grayscale's attorneys argued that the manner in which the regulatory agency, the sec, approved the fourth bitcoin futures etf techrium earlier this month, opened the door for a bitcoin spot etf. So here is the precedent that they say the sec just set and it has to do with the 1940s act versus the 1933 act. This is gon na sound, maybe very complicated, but here's. The explanation, grayscale's attorneys, argue the point that the first three bitcoin futures etfs were approved by the sec under the investment company act of 1940. However, the techrium etf was approved under the securities act of 1933, which is a first and according to grayscale's attorneys.

 

We believe the tequim order confirms the fundamental point that when it comes to approving exchange-traded products, there is no basis for treating spot bitcoin products differently from bitcoin futures products wow. This could be the bitcoin catalyst we have been waiting for. If this gets approved, the sec will likely decide on grayscale's etf application by july of this year and just weeks ago, grayscale ceo did state that he'd consider suing the sec if the bid gets rejected. So this is all coming to a head, something to keep on the radar next piece of news involving elon musk, twitter and the crypto market dogecoin surges on reports that twitter will now consider elon, musk's buyout offer and actually right in the middle of taping of filming. This today, twitter and elon musk will reach a deal on a buyout to be announced shortly.

 

So this is happening, and this is happening today and how did the crypto market respond? Well, the popular memecoin dogecoin jumped more than 12 percent in the past hour. Following the reports on this buyout and actually twitter stock also jumped more than five percent, actually much more than that. Now, amid the news now, what does that mean for you as a twitter user as a crypto holder as of this morning, elon musk states. I hope that even my worst critics remain on twitter, because that is what free speech means so give me your thoughts on this down below, in my opinion, any move that stifles censorship and promotes freedom.

 

I think that's good next piece of quick news involving ethereum warning. The board ape yacht club, instagram and discord have both been hacked. Do not click the links board. Api club's, instagram account and discord. Server were both hacked on monday, with an unofficial, mint link being sent out to followers in a direct tweet from the bayc.

 

There is no mint going on today. It looks like diyc's instagram was hacked, do not mint anything click, links or link your wallet to anything and if you're wondering what was the bait, what were they telling their instagram followers that they would get if they, if they clicked the link? The fraudulent link claimed that users could meant to land in the board api club's upcoming, other side meta, which is due to launch later next week, so in their upcoming metaverse, that we don't really have that. Many details on that was the bait, which of course, was fake. It is estimated that around 54 of those nfts valued around 13.

 

million dollars were stolen by the hackers. So please use this as a cautionary tale and next up, let's talk altcoins and again feel free to check the timestamps find the altcoin news that is most relevant to you, but next up, shiba inu launches a burning portal to reward ship token holders. So this is a major upgrade for the shiv ecosystem. The team behind the popular meme coin, shiba inu has launched a new burning mechanism designed to decrease the token circulating supply, while rewarding hodlers with a yield generating token. So the shib burning portal went live over the weekend with the team tweeting on monday that over 8 billion tokens actually now almost 12 billion tokens have now already been burned.

 

Now. Why would an individual do this? Yes, it potentially makes everybody else's tokens more scarce, but then you lose your tokens. So why would you choose to burn your tokens? Well, the ship burning portal was launched in collaboration with royosus vision, roy, she and erc20 token, aimed at supporting the growth of the ship ecosystem users who decide to burn their ship.

 

Tokens are given another token called burnt ship which pays rewards in roy. She tokens at varying rates, according to the developers, point four nine percent of all roy. She transactions will be distributed to the owners of burnt ship tokens wow. Quite the experimentation going on in crypto. Give me your thoughts on this down below and next up.

 

I want to take 60 seconds and give a big shout out to sponsor of the channel the ftx app for some background. Us is one of the largest and most respected exchanges with fees up to 85 percent cheaper than competitors so check out the link down below or use code altcoin daily. When you sign up and number one, you can earn a free crypto on every trade over ten dollars, that's a huge incentive and also get up to a hundred dollars back in crypto with altcoin daily. So how do i take advantage? How do i get free crypto with altcoin daily, well download the ftx app and enter code altcoin daily when you sign up fund your account, start buying selling trading and then earn up to 100 in crypto?

 

I will include a link down below for you to check out all the details, but essentially how you would make that happen when you trade, 100 or more earn 10 in crypto, when you trade, 500 or more earn 50 in crypto, and when you trade, 1, 000 Or more earn 100 in crypto get started today with code altcoin daily or by using this qr code. And, of course, let me know down below your thoughts. What you like about the ftx app take advantage link down below and next piece of lower cap, altcoin news step in impersonators, stealing user seed phrases warn security experts so use this as a cautionary tale. Do not let hackers steal your seed phrases just as a reminder, step in is a solana based game where gamers buy non-fungible token nft sneakers to begin playing and basically, while we're seeing so much play to earn hype in the crypto space step in is sort of Like exercise to earn or walk to earn the app monitors users movement through the gps of their mobile phones and gives them in-game tokens called green satoshi tokens gsts. These coins can then be traded for usdc or seoul, allowing users to cash out.

 

So that's steppin, but the news today is this: peckshield, a prominent blockchain security firm exposed the existence of numerous phishing websites for the web3 lifestyle, app step in on monday. So, basically, just like the board, a biat club news that we discussed earlier users were signing over their wallets for maybe scam, giveaways or just signing transactions and then signing away their funds to these phishing scammers. Next piece of news on altcoin injective injective pro the premier derivatives dex built on objective, is now the first ever exchange to launch an nft floor price perpetual market with the board ape yacht club, slash wrapped eth listing, meaning users can now trade. The popular board api club collection with as little as one dollar, so, if you believe in a decentralized future, this is what you like to see and essentially what this the problem that they're solving is the multi-hundreds of thousands of dollars. Nft price tag on these board api clubs likely has kept most users from that exclusive club.

 

Well, now, board api club floor price perpetuals on injected pro lowers the barrier to entry by enabling users to trade based on the floor price of the collection without having to purchase the nft itself. So again, we have tools like this, not necessarily for board api club. Yet but tools like this on centralized exchanges, cool to see now decentralized derivative exchanges, implementing upgrading and providing more value to users. Next piece of growth, news for the lrand ecosystem, we're excited to announce the moment. You'Ve been waiting for ithium is officially coming to the mayor.

 

Exchange, so if you like eagle, do you like this and just for some perspective on what is ethium? And i am a token holder. Ethium empowers data ownership in web3 and metaverse ecosystems and creates new market value for your data, and we enable this by providing decentralized data brokerage technology if that still doesn't make sense. Basically, it's a suite of tools that enable high value data to be bridged from web 2 to web 3, keeping you in control and then traded via peer-to-peer sales, our data nfts. Let you fully own and control your data and, in addition, our nfme id technology allows you to immerse yourself in the metaverse, an nft representation of your data on the blockchain, so keep the power with the users.

 

This is a part of the lrund ecosystem, always cool to see the growth and final quick piece of news for ethereum openc openc has just acquired ethereum nft aggregator gym in their push for pro users. So jim, that's the name of the company lets users batch, buy nfts from multiple platforms to save on fees and openc plans to integrate its functionality. This is interesting because this means openc is potentially about to have a pro side, just like coinbase and coinbase pro. Maybe we'll see an open c and openc pro two versions of the same platform in a direct quote from openc as the nft community grows, we've recognized a need to better serve more experienced pro users and offer more flexibility and choice to people at every level of Experience and again just for perspective, gem is a single platform that connects various nft marketplaces, including openc, looks rare and wearable and lets users purchase assets from any of them in a single transaction, so cool to see the progress cool to see the growth of the ethereum Nft ecosystem, that is the video. My name is austin.

 

Tim Moseley

HOME

Gold silver plummet as raw commodity sector pounded on Covid fears

Leave a comment

Gold, silver plummet as raw commodity sector pounded on Covid fears

Gold and silver prices are sharply down and hit two-month lows in midday U.S. trading Monday. Gold dropped below the psychologically important $1,900 level. The entire raw commodity sector was hit hard today by concerns regarding demand as Covid cases in China, the world’s second-largest economy, are spreading rapidly. Serious near-term technical damage was inflicted in gold and silver today, which has emboldened the chart-based bears. June gold futures were last down $38.20 at $1,896.10 and May Comex silver was last down $0.579 at $23.69 an ounce.

Global stock markets were mostly lower overnight, led by the biggest drop in Chinese shares in two years. U.S. stock indexes are pointed solidly lower at midday. There are growing worries about the economic toll of China’s strict zero Covid policy, as lockdowns spread to Beijing. The Chinese yuan dropped to its lowest level against the U.S. dollar since late 2020. The Covid flareup that shut down much of Shanghai appeared to worsen over the weekend. China ordered mandatory tests in a district of Beijing and shut down some areas of the capital of more than 20 million people. This situation is expected to further disrupt already strained global supply chains and likely drive already problematic inflation still higher.

The Russia-Ukraine war that shows no signs of de-escalating continues to sap trader and investor risk appetite. Metals traders on this day decided to focus more on the bearish implications of less demand for gold and silver coming out of China, and less of the bullish implications of keener risk aversion in the marketplace.

Here's what latest gold price pattern tells investors about the metal's next move

The key outside markets see Nymex crude oil futures prices sharply lower today and trading around $96.50 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index is solidly higher and hit a two-year high early today. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note is presently fetching around 2.776%.

Technically, June gold futures prices hit a two-month low today and a price downtrend has been started. Bulls have lost their overall near-term technical advantage. Bulls' next upside price objective is to produce a close above solid resistance at $1,950.00. Bears' next near-term downside price objective is pushing futures prices below solid technical support at $1,850.00. First resistance is seen at $1,915.00 and then at $1,925.00. First support is seen at today’s low of $1,891.80 and then at $1,883.00. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 5.0

May silver futures prices hit a nine-week low today and a price downtrend is in place now. The silver bears have the overall near-term technical advantage. Silver bulls' next upside price objective is closing prices above solid technical resistance at $25.00 an ounce. The next downside price objective for the bears is closing prices below solid support at $23.00. First resistance is seen at $24.00 and then at today’s high of $24.24. Next support is seen at today’s low of $23.42 and then at $23.00. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 4.0.

May N.Y. copper closed down 1,620 points at 441.90 cents today. Prices closed near the session low today and hit a 2.5-month low. The copper bears have gained the overall near-term technical advantage. A price downtrend is now in place on the daily bar chart. Copper bulls' next upside price objective is pushing and closing prices above solid technical resistance at 470.00 cents. The next downside price objective for the bears is closing prices below solid technical support at the January low of 428.80 cents. First resistance is seen at 450.00 cents and then at 455.00 cents. First support is seen at today’s low of 440.65 cents and then at 435.00 cents. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 4.0.

By Jim Wyckoff

For Kitco News

Time to buy Gold and Silver on the dips

 

 

Tim Moseley

HOME

SpaceX is getting serious about putting humans on Mars

Leave a comment

SpaceX is getting serious about putting humans on Mars…

by Jeff Brown, editor, The Bleeding Edge

 

All eyes are on Elon Musk and Twitter right now. So, I wouldn’t blame us if we missed another major announcement from Musk.

But this is one we don’t want to miss. Musk’s latest announcement is out of this world and has huge implications for space exploration.

Elon Musk just announced that SpaceX plans to build 1,000 Starships over the next 10 years. This will give SpaceX the ability to send one million people to Mars by 2050. It’s getting real…

We have talked about SpaceX’s Starship several times in The Bleeding Edge.

The Starship is the world’s first reusable all-purpose spacecraft. It’s made of stainless steel and shaped like a giant corn silo. Which makes it a bit crazy that this is the spacecraft that will power NASA’s manned mission to the Moon in 2024.

As for its measurements, the latest version of the Starship is 394 feet tall and 30 feet wide. It’s capable of carrying over 100 metric tons into space. Here’s a visual:

 

SpaceX’s Starship

Source: Space Flight Insider

 

Here we can get a sense of just how massive the Starship is. This is the spacecraft that will enable humanity’s first interplanetary colony.

And that brings us to perhaps what is Musk’s most innovative idea for Mars expeditions…

Mars is rich in raw materials like oxygen, carbon dioxide, and water ice. These materials can be used to create methane, which is a great fuel propellant.

Musk’s plan is to build a fuel manufacturing facility on Mars. That will be a major priority for some of the first manned missions to the Red Planet.

 

 

Being able to make fuel on Mars will reduce the need to carry extra fuel into space in order to support return missions. By manufacturing fuel on Mars, it will enable many of the Starships to return back to Earth to be reused again, which will reduce the overall costs of inhabiting Mars.

But in order to pull this off, we’ll need a lot of spacecraft. That’s why the announcement of 1,000 new Starships is so incredible.

What makes this announcement even more meaningful is that all the technology to make this happen exists today. Musk and his team at SpaceX have already built the heavy launcher, and the Starship has already had a series of successful suborbital flights.

Musk thinks that with reusability and mass production, SpaceX can ultimately get the cost of an individual ticket to Mars down to about $100,000. That’s not exactly cheap.

But it is a price point that those who are willing to make the journey could save up for. I could even envision companies sending some of their executives and employees to the Red Planet to support the expansion of their businesses. Who wouldn’t want to be part of building a multi-planetary business operation? 

The bottom line is that we could very well have a manned presence on Mars within the decade. This idea would have sounded crazy 10 years ago… but not today. The technology exists. And SpaceX already has a clear plan in place to make it a reality.

Of course, there are still some major milestones that SpaceX must hit before any missions to Mars.

The company is gearing up for its first orbital launch of the Starship next month from its Boca Chica facility in Texas. That’s the next step. Presuming things go well and SpaceX has a series of successful test flights, it is theoretically possible to support a manned mission to the Moon in 2024.

After that, Mars won’t be that far behind.

 

New Opportunities Are Emerging For Citizens of The World.

Freedom and democracy may appear to be struggling to stay alive in America, but there may be a knock-out punch ready to be released. The evolution of the blockchain-enabled metaverse is going to enable the 'Citizens of the World' to gain their own Freedom by democratizing power and creating a new world with new rules, new players, and new opportunities. For 99.99% of us, the metaverse will improve our real-world lives through the democratization of power and opportunity.

Along with the major long-term trend of society towards decentralization and smaller-scale organizations, there are new opportunities developing to help 'Preparers' in the cryptocurrency sector. Businesses are beginning to issue their own Crypto Coins that can be traded on Cryptocoin Exchanges.

Markethive.com for example will be releasing its HiveCoin (HIV) in the coming weeks. It has tremendous upside potential that is outlined in a Video by Founder Tom Prendergast, "Entrepreneur Advantage…".

Not only that, if you go to their website and register as a FREE Member, you will be given 500 HiveCoins for "FREE" along with access to several Earning Opportunities and online tools to increase your HiveCoin balance.

Be sure to check it out today – Markethive.com

Markethive

Tim Moseley

HOME

Bitcoin Core 230 Released: What’s New

Leave a comment

Bitcoin Core 23.0 Released: What’s New

by Namcios 

 

ecosystem for entrepreneurs

The newest version of Bitcoin’s original software launched by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009 brings improvements on privacy, security and user experience.

A new version of the original Bitcoin software client launched by Satoshi Nakamoto has been released today.

Bitcoin Core 23.0 was worked on by 132 developers over about seven months to bring tangible improvements to Bitcoin Core’s wallet, peer-to-peer communication and network, fee estimation, and much more.

This article explores some of the main changes.

Wallet Updates Taproot Support

Bitcoin Core now enables the user to choose the new Taproot address type when creating a new wallet. Even though that isn’t the default, as many wallets in the ecosystem can’t send to a Taproot address yet, the user is given the option to create Taproot receiving addresses in newly-created wallets.

The Taproot address created by the Bitcoin Core wallet for receiving bitcoin is a simple, single signature one. Therefore, users won’t automatically save BTC in fees compared to regular Bech32 single-signature addresses, as bigger savings come from porting more complex spending conditions and address setups into the Taproot scheme.

By adding native support for Taproot addresses, Bitcoin Core takes a step in the direction of encouraging a wider adoption of Taproot. As more users opt into the new upgrade’s features, its benefits are able to best permeate through the userbase.

ecosystem for entrepreneurs

Descriptor Wallets Are Now The Default

Bitcoin Core wallets now default to using descriptors when created, a significant change that promises a better backup and recovery process for bitcoin funds.

Since the advent of hierarchical deterministic (HD) wallets, a Bitcoin wallet will typically use the recovery seeds (usually 12 or 24 words) to generate a master private key. The wallet then uses that master private key to generate a master public key, which can be leveraged to generate a nearly infinite number of receiving addresses through derivation paths, that as the name says, guide the wallet to what path it should follow to correctly derive an address.

Recovering funds in a Bitcoin wallet therefore commonly depends on that derivation path, as most applications today default to HD wallets. (The usage of different derivation paths by wallets is the reason why it is common to see a user attempting to recover funds in a second wallet finding a balance of zero.)

However, descriptor wallets make it much easier for the user to recover any funds by explicitly stating the derivation path in the descriptor. The user is thereby relieved from having to care about the derivation path their wallet used – a big improvement in user experience (UX).

Typos On Bech32 Addresses Can Now Be Spotted

Bech32 addresses, the format in which the address begins with “bc1,” have an interesting property that enables the spotting of possible typos. However, it wasn’t until Bitcoin Core 23.0 that the user could benefit from that.

Bitcoin Core will now alert the user about up to two errors in a Bech32 address. The tool is currently only available on the command line, through the “validateaddress” RPC, though there are plans to integrate it into the graphical user interface (GUI) in the future. If more than two errors are made by the user when typing out the address, then the typo-finding tool cannot guarantee success.

The limit of errors the tool commits to finding is important because attempting to find a large number of typos could lead to undesired behavior. If the user typed an address with several mistaken letters, even if the tool could spot all of them it could end up suggesting a totally different address than what the user intended to send to in the first place – a much worse outcome.

Freezing Coins

A Bitcoin Core user has had the option to choose what coins, or unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs), to use in a transaction for years now. But this coin control feature required manual selection of what UTXOs to use every time – a cumbersome and tiring process that is highly prone to error.

Now, Bitcoin Core allows the user to indefinitely “freeze” a UTXO. The freezing process is still a manual one, but the user only needs to do that once and can then rest assured that the coin they froze won’t be automatically spent by Bitcoin Core until the user unfreezes that coin.

Carefully selecting which UTXOs to use in funding a transaction is important to prevent undesirably linking addresses that have conflicting purposes. For example, a user might not want to join UTXOs they obtained through know-your-customer (KYC) methods with non-KYC coins. If they did, any observer of the blockchain would be able to infer that that user, whom they could know because of the KYC information provided, also owns the non-KYC address and its coins – hurting user privacy.

Changes To P2P Communications Port 8333 Preference Removed

Broadly speaking, computers need two vital pieces of information to communicate with each other on the internet: an IP address and a port number. While the IP address serves as an identifier for a computer in a network, helping determine its location, the port number helps inform what type of communication is being done on the internet as each communication protocol usually defaults to a specific port number. As a result, ports enable a computer to run multiple types of traffic at the same time while easily differentiating between them. For example, the web’s HTTP protocol defaults to port 80, while its more secure counterpart HTTPS usually runs on port 443, and email’s SMTP protocol leverages port 25.

With Bitcoin, it is no different. Historically, upon starting Bitcoin Core, computers default to running on port 8333 and looking for peers using that same port.

While ports facilitate the communication between computers on the internet, it also makes it easier for internet service providers (ISPs) to monitor traffic as it is easy to assume what type of communication is being done. In an adversarial setup, an ISP could filter and block certain traffic based on the destination port. Despite not being the most effective censorship mechanism available to ISPs, it is the easiest, and an attacked protocol would need to change its default port of communication to bypass the censoring or throttling.

By removing the port 8333 preference, Bitcoin Core now mitigates the easiest path ISPs have for filtering or blocking Bitcoin traffic. Additionally, nodes not running on port 8333 now will have less friction getting inbound connections from other nodes as the network no longer prioritizes that port.

Support For The CJDNS Network

Bitcoin Core 23.0 also protects users from adversarial ISPs by adding support for CJDNS, a security-enhanced alternative to the standard internet protocol (IP).

CJDNS leverages public-key cryptography to implement an encrypted version of IPv6 – the most recent version of IP. By providing end-to-end encryption natively, CJDNS improves upon IPv6 and IPv4 (the previous IP version that is still widely used) with increased security and privacy as it protects nodes that use it from traffic analysis and filtering.

The addition brings new optionality for users interested in protecting their traffic from prying eyes or increasing the security of their Bitcoin setup. While Tor and I2P exist as alternatives to clearnet IP, CJDNS serves as a complementary option that can enhance robustness for the Bitcoin network and its nodes.

MARKETHIVE

Better Fee Estimations

Bitcoin Core’s built-in fee estimation tool has just gotten a bit more complete.

According to a blog post by John Newbery on the subject, Bitcoin Core’s fee estimation “simply records and reports meaningful statistics about past events, and uses that data to give the user a reasonable estimate of how much fee they need to attach in order to have their transaction included within N blocks,” with N being the number of blocks the user is willing to wait to have their transaction confirmed.

The algorithm calculating such estimates used to take into account all transactions on the mempool, Bitcoin’s “waiting area” for transactions that haven’t yet been included in a block. However, since the introduction of replace-by-fee (RBF) transactions, which enable the user to effectively bump the fee their transaction is pledging to miners in an attempt to get a faster confirmation, Bitcoin Core did not account for the new transaction type when estimating fees out of doubts whether the feature would be widely adopted by users and miners.

Now, with Bitcoin Core 23.0, RBF transactions are taken into account on Bitcoin Core’s fee estimations, providing a more accurate estimate for users leveraging the software for sending transactions.

Support For Tracepoints And Userspace, Statically-Defined Tracing

Bitcoin Core now includes experimental tracepoints in its release binaries for Linux with userspace, statically-defined tracing (USDT).

USDT allows users to get detailed information from their node that can be used for review, debugging and monitoring. The feature makes it possible to keep track of custom fine-grained statistics and monitor otherwise hidden internal node events while having little to no performance impact when unused.

One example where this is useful is to spot and likely prevent attacks. A security researcher could set up multiple nodes and trace the messages received from peers to possibly identify attacks ahead of time.

Thanks to Aaron van Wirdum for information and feedback.

For more details and other changes, see the Bitcoin Core 23.0 release notes. To download Bitcoin Core 23.0, navigate here. Details about Bitcoin Core 23.0 are also explained in audio in the Bitcoin Explained podcast episode 56.

Tim Moseley

HOME

US investors realized 6x more crypto gains in 2021 than UK investors

Leave a comment

US investors realized 6x more crypto gains in 2021 than UK investors

BYTOM MITCHELHILL

Crypto investors from the United States realized nearly $47 billion in gains during 2021, outpacing the U.K. by a factor of six.

US investors realized 6x more crypto gains in 2021 than UK investors​​​​

Crypto investors from the United States realized crypto gains nearly six times higher in total than the United Kingdom, the second-highest country in terms of realized gains. 

According to a report by Chainalysis, crypto investors in the U.S. accrued a record $46.9 billion in realized gains throughout 2021, leading the rest of the world by a wide margin. The U.S. is followed at quite some distance by the U.K. at $8.1 billion and Germany with $5.8 billion.

Total realized cryptocurrency gains 2021: Chainalysis.

The report comes as global cryptocurrency adoption continues to gain widespread traction. The U.S. witnessed a massive increase in adoption and realized gains, with the total estimated gains for 2021 up 476% from $8.1 billion the year before.

Special mentions were given to countries that outperformed their “traditional” economic rankings. Despite Turkey being globally ranked as number 11 by GDP, the country was ranked number six when it came to realized crypto gains.

China was one of the only large nations that did not see the same massive gains as other countries. In 2021, China’s total estimated realized cryptocurrency gains stood at $5.1 billion, up from $1.7 billion in 2020, which equates to a year-over-year growth rate of 194%. However, this is still impressive growth considering the extensive crypto bans that were progressively enacted in China in 2021.

China’s result pales, however, besides other countries such as the U.K. and Germany, which saw a respective 431% and a 423% increase last year.

Related: What is driving institutions to invest in crypto? BlockFi's David Olsson explains

Another notable trend was the increase in total gains from Ether (ETH), which saw ETH investors around the world cash out a total of $76.3 billion, beating out Bitcoin (BTC) as the highest realized earnings crypto asset in 2021. However, Bitcoin inventors still performed well, with the global crypto investing community securing $74.7 billion in gains throughout 2021.

Tim Moseley

The Artist that came out of the Winter