Wall Street is Going Bullish on Bitcoin!

In an article just posted hours ago by the Wall Street Journal, it is reported that with this new round of Bitcoin futures trading, Wall Street is going bullish. The most recent CFTC report is showing more than double the short positions that were held last month are now long positions. This means the Wall Street sentiment on Bitcoin has shifted to a bullish view for February 2018.

The full Wall Street Journal article can be read here.

The CFTC report is available here.

The first round of CME Group BTC futures trading expired this morning at 8am PST. The first cycle from CBOE expired on January 17th. Wall Street had predominantly bet against BTC that it would go down, and they were right. Bitcoin fell from $11.4k to under $10.5k last night in the hours leading up to the futures expiration. In the 48 hours leading up to the CBOE futures expiration on Jan 17th, Bitcoin fell nearly $4k in price, from over $14k to just over $10k.

BTC has been on a downtrend almost all of January. The whole cryptocurrency market cap is currently at $540 billion. Down almost $300 billion from the ATH (all time high). There’s a ton of speculation about this market dip. Some people are claiming market manipulation by big money, others say it’s due to FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) spread by the media. Then there’s the ones who agree its just a healthy market correction that has happened every January the last 3 years.

Everyone is watching to see where the market goes next. Bitcoin is currently consolidating around $11.1k in a triangular formation (seen in the image above). If it breaks out above, we will likely see a reversal of the downtrend. If it breaks below, we will likely test support around $8.5k. This next round of CBOE BTC futures will expire on February 14th. The new CME Group BTC futures will expire February 23rd.

Robinhood Announces Cryptocurrency Trading

The stock trading platform Robinhood announced yesterday that they will start trading Bitcoin and Ethereum. At first only the U.S. states of California, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana and New Hampshire will have access to trading cryptocurrency, but they are expected to add more states and more cryptocurrencies in the future. Robinhood boasts zero trading fees and instant purchases of crypto up to $1000. Now people will have access to trading stocks and cryptocurrency in one platform. This is the first major competition to the industry leader Coinbase. Coinbase currently charges a 1.49% fee, and does not give buyers access to their cryptocurrency for up to 5 business days when purchased from a bank account. Perhaps the addition of cryptocurrency trading to Robinhood will cause Coinbase to revise their fees?

South Korean Government Will Allow Cryptocurrency Trading

Earlier this month a lot of FUD was spread due to comments from the South Korean government about desiring a bill to ban cryptocurrency trading. South Korea is the third largest cryptocurrency market in the world, behind Japan and the U.S. These reports of a ban appeared to spark the massive market correction we have seen this month. The Korean government later confirmed that there would be no such ban, but that they would be cracking down on cryptocurrency trading regulations. The latest news is that South Korea will legally allow cryptocurrency trading, but only on exchanges which verify the identity of traders. This is to avoid money laundering, tax evasion and other illegal activities.

View coinspacenews.com Altcoin Updates here.

View my top cryptocurrency growth potential picks for 2018 here.

Disclaimer: I am not a financial adviser. There is a lot of risk involved when investing in cryptocurrencies. Please do your own research.