Can China Destroy Bitcoin? / Yobit Pumps (and Dumps) - Oct 14th 2018

Hey everyone, it's Michael and today is Sunday the 14th and we're going to do a mini episode reviewing the latest news on this week. I just got back from Kiev, the trip was amazing and I really want to show you guys what's happening at the Hackett conference which will be in another video. But before we get into that, I want to check out the news of this week with you guys. The reason for that is that there's a lot happening in terms of FUD updates and even kind of crackdowns so to speak. So I just want to review a few of these headlines off this week and of course everything covered here is my personal opinion, not financial advice. Let's start off with the markets and I'm going to move myself a little bit over here so you can see what's happening. So this came to a surprise to a lot of people because after October the 11th there was a dump right there. But beyond that, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, the whole market has remained relatively stable. So what's happening right now, there's still this pending wedge that a lot of people have been talking about. So let me try to move again. There we go. I just moved that a little bit so you can see it better. There's this wedge happening where we have this resistance at 5,800 and we have these peaks that are going less and less. So right now we're still stuck in that wedge formation and a lot of people are predicting us to break either way up or down. At the same time, Bitcoin is saying, eh, don't really care about the wedge that much. We're going to stay as consistent as possible. I'm going to start off with this bit of FUD about Bitcoin and how China has the power to destroy Bitcoin. So this bit of news kind of originated from Princeton and Florida International University, where they had a paper that claimed that China has this China's a looming threat. And what they're trying to claim here is that Chinese mining pools, shown in this graph, they have a significant portion of the total hash power for Bitcoin. So here they're saying it's around 74%. And for an attack on the Bitcoin network, you only need more than 51%. So the 51% attack. The problem here is that what they're claiming is that these pools like F2 pool and pool are located in China. But the issue is that right now pools don't represent one user. They don't represent the Chinese government owning that mining power. Instead, if you look at F2 pool, you can register and start mining and you contribute, individuals contribute their power. So one of the hardest bits of research to do, and once that's really not possible to do, is to research how many Chinese miners are there. Because miners are very secretive. They don't want to be attacked by the government. They want to remain hidden. And because of that hiddenness of miners, it's nearly impossible to do proper research. But what we do know is that in China, they're sold in retail. So individual people who are interested in mining can buy one of these and start secretly mining in their apartments anywhere. So I think it's important to remember that even though we have information like this, and that China controls a lot of this hash power, it's completely false to believe that the Chinese government has a bad hash power. That is not true. It's actually the citizens. And because of the way that they're protecting themselves, because miners, they don't want to be discovered, they're not going to be influenced by the government at all. So in that sense, we have a lot more decentralization than what these charts represent. Following up on Bitfin next. So why is this so important? It's because Bitfinx and Tether USDT, that's closely related. And if Bitfinx is not solvent, or if something goes wrong with that exchange, it might bring down the USDT as well. So what's happening right now in terms of the latest news is that they suspended deposits. So it seems to be the case where before people were depositing into an HSBC bank in New York City, that's no longer possible. It might be because of negotiations. They haven't really clarified that yet. But what the end, what us, us end users, we see is that it's no longer possible to make deposits into Bitfinx. At the end of the day, only Bitfinx knows if they're solvent or not. As much as we try to probe them and guess, this is mostly just speculation. So keep your own crypto guys. All right. Does SEC crack down on ICOs? So right now, what seems to be happening is that the SEC is trying to expand its crackdown on ICOs. So the report is done by Yahoo financing Decrypt Media. And what they're trying to say is that there are many different companies that are being subpoenaed by the SEC. This is not new because earlier on this year, the SEC promised to the Senate that they're going to start these crackdowns. What seems to be happening right now is that these crackdowns are mostly out of the public eye. They're done under the table or done by private communications. So we don't know exactly the figure and the depths of this. And most companies, and if they're ICOs, they probably will admit that they're being subpoenaed by the SEC. My view on this is that whilst I feel like the SEC is in the best intentions trying to protect people and their money, education is the only way to stop scammers. Quickly on the next news, Coinbase, they launched the first ERC20 token. We've been seeing this for a while. They've been hinting at it. They obviously want to make more money because all these tokens are being traded while they generate a lot of revenue for exchanges. So they want to expand their reach. So they started something called Coinbase Pro and with the promise of listing more tokens. And because Coinbase is so big in the US and the UK, and they have a lot of regulatory compliance, it brings a lot, allows a lot of people to come in. And that's what's happening with 0x right now. 0x experience enormous growth because again, access to greater markets. Next is the darkest side of crypto that I see, the Yobit pump. So Yobit is a Russian exchange and what they are organizing right now are these pumps that happen every 30 hours. And I really want to say that this is not what crypto is about. The idea of these pump and dumps, these are illegal, pumping into a coin, not bringing value. That's, well, whatever goes up in that case will fall down. And the number of people who are going to be burned by this, it's just going to be incredible. And this is why it's illegal in most states. So honestly, with crypto, it's might be tempting to come and, you know, try your luck with one of these things. At the end of the day, Yobit will always win because, well, you have more people and people will trade there, but you as a customer, you'll always lose because you have no idea what's being pumped, but they know completely. At the end of the day, this brings absolutely no value to the coin or to any project whatsoever. The only way a crypto would increase value for real is if it does something. If I choose something, it brings some sort of value. And this is why I'm totally against this. Well, that's it for today, guys. I hope you guys enjoyed this weekly update of what's been happening. And I really appreciate some questions as well. If you guys agree or disagree with me that China will destroy Bitcoin, of course, follow me on Facebook and Twitter. I have a lot of updates as well. Put the link down below. Thank you guys so much for watching this episode. Remember to click the like and subscribe button and the notification bell as well, as I'll be making a lot of very up to date videos so you can be notified when they're released. Thank you guys so much for watching. See you next time.