| Assaf Elmaleh, Senior Crypto Analyst at Proxibit Investment House |
- eBay hints at enabling payments in digital currencies soon
- From Hamas to Russia and Ukraine – everyone is trying to take advantage of digital currencies
- On-chain analysis: Traders leveraged in anticipation of the decline and were caught unprepared for the recent rise
- Analysis of social networks: When the atmosphere in the networks is negative (contributed by the Russia-Ukraine war), is it time to buy?
| EBay hints at enabling payments in digital currencies soon
Jamie Ianon, CEO of e-commerce giant eBay (NASDAQ :), revealed in an interview with him that the company is considering the integration of digital currencies as a means of payment on the platform. EBay has set itself the goal of focusing on younger generations, with the understanding that Generation Z will The future of commerce and its needs will be different from the older consumer today.
According to some surveys, it can be seen that naturally, the current generations, growing into the rapid acceleration of technological developments in the field of computers and the Internet, are the generations that tend to be the most friendly to digital currencies – which explains eBay’s desire to offer digital currency services as well.
EBay has already announced in the past year that it will allow “trusted sellers” to sell NFTs (non-exchangeable tokens) on its platform in specific categories like music and collectible cards.
While eBay sells as a place to buy only tangible products, Ianon says that
“The company changed its policy last year to make the e-commerce platform a place where anything can be bought and sold,” physically and digitally.
This is not the first time eBay has winked at the digital currency realm. In fact, as early as 2014, the company considered a combination of payments on its platform, when Bitcoin was still in its infancy.
Ivy is one of the global trading giants – its gross trading volumes reached about $ 100 billion in 2020.
Enabling crypto payments on such a large platform will add new players to the digital currency market – people who are simply interested in paying in cryptocurrencies, and even if the amount of capital flowing into the market thanks to eBay is relatively low, it will open up various e-commerce platforms for digital currency payments.
| The Israeli Ministry of Defense has got its hands on digital wallets linked to Hamas
The Ministry of Defense has announced a Gazan company called al-Mutahadun, which deals with the exchange of digital currencies as a terrorist group, according to the Ministry of Defense, due to financial assistance from Hamas’ military wing.
According to security sources, al-Mothaddon, owned by the Shmalah family,
“Assists the terrorist organization Hamas, and especially its military arm, by transferring tens of millions of dollars a year.”
Defense Minister Bnei Gantz has approved the confiscation of about 30 digital coin wallets from 12 accounts owned by a stock exchange company based in the Gaza Strip, which has since been declared a terrorist organization by the Ministry of Defense.
It should be noted that funds related to the Shmalah family have been targeted several times in the past by the Israeli authorities.
In 2019 Hamas issued a call for donations supported by Bitcoin to help deal with its financial troubles, and it appears that terrorist organizations are trying to channel the power of digital currencies to their targets.
It is important to remember that any attempt to confiscate Bitcoin for that matter, however successful, will always go through a stock exchange or centralized body. As for the currencies themselves, Bitcoin is the only asset that the authorities are unable to freeze, for the simple reason that it is not controlled by any factor.
In connection with the events of the Ukraine-Russia war, this is why the trading volumes of Bitcoin against the Russian ruble broke nine-month highs. Demand for assets beyond the reach of governments is rising, especially from the Russian side, where economic sanctions are making life difficult for the citizens – the rich and oligarchs in particular.
| Social Sentiment Analysis: Negative Atmosphere in Networks = Opportunity?
As I wrote in previous reviews, when it comes to digital currencies, it is worth taking the social sentiment on social networks seriously – it can reveal very interesting data on the direction of the market.
Graph source: sanbase – user brianq
The decline that took place in the digital currency market with the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine, marked a very negative atmosphere towards Bitcoin on social networks.
In the graph shown here, the purple area is the social sentiment score, with the zero line being the yellow line. When the purple area is above the yellow line, the social sentiment is positive, and when the purple area is below the yellow line, the social sentiment will be negative.
It can be seen in the graph that the purple area, which is the score of social sentiment, has been extremely negative in recent days.
What is interesting here is that according to historical analyzes, when the social atmosphere around Bitcoin is so negative (score of minus 0.8 and below), the price of bitcoin has a tendency to jump upwards – therefore, we did not see the jump in the price of bitcoin when it hit such a low social sentiment .
| On-chain analysis: The leverage on the downside has resulted in losses among traders
Looking at the behavior of crypto traders in the last two weeks, it can be seen that the social sentiment is consistent with the behavior of the derivatives traders on Bitcoin.
The leverage on futures contracts in Bitcoin tells an interesting story, for those who are unfamiliar with the capital markets: The leverage tells us how much risk traders are willing to take and in what direction, whether they are betting on a drop in bitcoin price or an increase.
Graph source: sanbase
So what do you see in the graph? The red area is basically the financing rate – how much leverage are traders willing to take and in what direction, up or down? When the red area is above the zero line, leverages are in the positive direction – traders expect an increase; And when the red area is below the zero line, traders leverage on shorts – that is, expect a drop. The green line is the price of bitcoin.
Leverage shows that traders assumed that markets would continue to decline in the effects of the war between Russia and Ukraine – for most of the last 10 days bitcoin financing rates were negative, the jump in bitcoin price caught traders unprepared – they expected declines and lost quite a bit of money.
In conclusion: The markets will still move in the effects of the war, we expect broad volatility in the coming days, multiple trading orders will not bring the desired results in most cases. In addition, it is important to be careful, especially when it comes to using such and other leverage tools.
The author is Assaf Elmaleh, a senior financial crypto analyst at Proxibit. The website does not contain investment advice and / or marketing and / or tax advice and does not contain any substitute for such services that take into account the data and the special needs of each person. The website does not contain any recommendation regarding the viability of investing in virtual currencies and / or any financial products or instruments, nor does it contain any order and / or offer to perform operations in the products mentioned. This does not constitute an obligation to bear any return. Investing in virtual currencies is risky and can result in a loss of full investment. The field of virtual currencies involves regulatory, taxation and application uncertainty by various entities with which interactions are required for the purpose of performing operations.