The Cryptomarkets Week in Review: October 16th, 2014

It’s been an exciting week – as nearly every week is – for the world of cryptocurrency, and cryptomarkets have been no exception to that. As always, when the news cycle is active, the prices become more volatile. The top stories from this past week have been mostly positive. A few headlines, for your perusal:

– Dell opens a Bitcoin mining data-center. (https://coinreport.net/dell-provides-data-center-space-bitcoin-asic-hosting/)

– Ben Lawsky loosens up a little bit (https://coinreport.net/lawsky-announces-ny-bitlicense-revisions/)

– Moolah announces bankruptcy, founder uncovered as likely scammer (http://www.coindesk.com/moolah-mintpal-closure-bankruptcy/)

– IMF and the World Bank meet, Bitcoin’s blockchain is discussed as a useful piece of technological infrastructure (http://www.coindesk.com/imf-world-bank-bitcoin-block-chain-financial-inclusion/)

– The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin tops the iTunes documentary charts

A relatively small company closes its doors under accusations of fraud, three pretty major institutions interact positively with Bitcoin, and Bitcoin gets some much needed mainstream exposure via The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin’s quick success. I haven’t seen it yet, but I plan to watch it soon, and I expect great things.

So, how have the markets fared during all of this action?

To follow-up to last week’s expectations, things pretty much turned out as predicted. We made a climb up to just under $400 – $396 on Bitstamp – and then dipped back down to around $350, before resuming some upward movement that carried us past the $400 psychological point. From there, we retreated.

This is the eternal parabolic motion of markets: the price must return to where it has been to make sure the old prices will not be broken, before it would move up. So, where does it look like we’re headed? Into an uptrend, a cautious one at first. An optimistic view would expect us to surge back up past $400 some time in the next few days, then very briefly dip back to $390-410 before rallying slightly to establish $400 as a new baseline price. Whether that happens is partially a question of how the Moolah bankruptcy will play out in the news. That story is only a day old at this point – if the media plays it up as “Mt.Pal,” it could seem pretty disastrous. If they leave it alone, it will fade into relative obscurity quite quickly.

But that’s what there is to say about Bitcoin. There’s been one big altcoin story that has caught my attention recently.

The old-timers reading may recall the BTC-e trollbox chatter of “LTC ON GOX” that persisted pretty much endlessly. It has been – or will be – replaced quite soon.

“LTC ON COINBASE” will become the new chant, at least from how it looks. What gives the community that impression?

A few hints dropped by a few people – notably from Coblee, Litecoin creator and Coinbase employee. He set his Coinbase profile to Coinbase.com/litecoin and somehow set up the page to display “Coming soon!” when viewed, and then posted the link a place or two. Elaborate trolling? Yes. Meaningful, elaborate trolling? Possibly. I’m sure Coblee would be elated to have Litecoin make it bigger than it already has.

Beyond Coblee’s trolling, the other big hint dropped recently was in the /r/Bitcoin post announcing a live video AMA by Fred Ehrsam and Brian Armstrong, co-founders of Coinbase. You can find the announcement post here. They’ll go live for questions at 7 PM PST on October 16th, 2014. The hint? Brian Armstrong posted the thread announcing the video AMA, and in it he included some sample questions, of the sort they might get to answer. The first one?

“When is litecoin support coming?”

Not “if” – not “have you considered” – nothing wishy-washy. Just when. Brian putting that question front and center there ensures that Litecoin is going to be being discussed in their video AMA, and the way he phrased it – along with the hints being dropped by Coblee – has convinced me that it’s pretty likely that Coinbase has some real plans in the works to add Litecoin to their existing service offerings. I’m quite excited to see it come to fruition.

As of now, the Litecoin markets have reacted interestingly to this speculation. LTC/BTC hit a year-long low of 0.0079 on August 17th, but has recovered somewhat since then, with a peak of just under 0.012 on October 4th, before declining to around where it currently sits – around 0.0105. The market has seen a tendency after hitting the yearly low to jump upwards in spurts, indicating a sort of caged optimism. No one wants to be the first person to try to catch a falling knife, but no one wants to jump onto a train when it’s halfway up the track, either. Optimism may drown out fear soon – and if the Coinbase co-founders have more than hints to drop in the video AMA, then the train may even leave the station.

Until next week!

DISCLAIMER: The content of this article is not intended to constitute professional investment advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell, or otherwise interact with any security or investment product. The author may have a material relationship with assets mentioned in this article, and while he attempts to remain objective, appropriate caution should be taken by readers when considering making any investment in assets mentioned or discussed above. Cryptocurrencies are an extremely volatile marketplace in which even experienced investors should take great caution.