Since I mentioned a resistance/support of $50/$25 for LTC in my post from 2 days ago, LTC prices have found it's support at $23.51, and has risen over the last 4 hours to it's current BTC-e price of about $32. Hold on tight to your Litecoins because I think prices are going to continue going up and break the $50 resistance by Friday, probably earlier. I wasn't thinking of writing a post today, and I still owe you a post about Panic selling/buying & Bull/Bear traps, but I found some interesting topics to write about that will interest you altcoin and crypto junkies.

What really triggered this blog post was a tweet I saw by Keiser, featuring Quarkcoin (QRK) alongside Bitcoin and Litecoin as the cryptocurrenies of choice. I first saw the word Quarkcoin when it broke into the top 10 market cap with over 300% increase in market capaitalization value overnight.


I overlooked it even after seeing it rise from 6th to 5th, until I saw what Keiser tweeted:

If Jesus were born today, the 3 wise men would bring him BTC, LTC and Quark.
— Max Keiser (@maxkeiser) November 30, 2013

If Keiser said it, it has to be worth something. With his reach and influence within the Bitcoin community, we could see a huge jump in Quark prices soon, even if it doesn't have much value. From my research so far, I found out that Quark uses nine rounds of secure hashing from six different algorithms to make Quark transactions super secure. Many programmers have been worried about whether or not the Bitcoin protocol is hackable, but Quark has just made it even closer to impossible by using a mix of algorithms. On the other hand, what intrigues me is that 98.9% of the Quarks have already been mined (see the Reddit discussion here), which makes me wonder how this is a good thing. If you know how this is beneficial to the community, please drop a comment down below! Greatly appreciated!

Apparently the prices surged after a video of Bill Still, a legendary Economics cult figure went viral among the Bitcoin community. What's notable is that Bill will be appearing on a Keiser Report interview, which airs on the 19th of December, so keep your eyes peeled.

http://t.co/3hKy9t93DS WILL INTRODUCE QRK IN THE COMING DAYS!! CHINA IS COMING!!
— Mega Coin Pumper (@MegaCoinPumper) December 1, 2013

During my research into Quark, I found out about Zetacoin (ZET). The prices of Zetacoin have increased 550% against the bitcoin, with ZET/BTC prices skyrocketing from 0.0065 at the beginning of 30th November to a peak of 0.055 and is currently hovering around 0.036 at the time of posting (Source: Cryptocoincharts.com). Looking into Zetacoin, I found that it actually has an inflationary characteristic. There are a total of 160 million Zetacoins, and upon the depletion of this initial supply, 1 million additional Zetacoins will be added to the supply every year. This is quite a different take from the limited supply of all other cryptocurrencies, and could be an interesting tweak that can potentially solve some of Bitcoin's existing limitations.

I'm still not entirely sure about the benefit and utility of Zetacoin, but I'm going to jump on the bandwagon and bet on the hype of the Zetacoin, while I do more research over the next few days.

Buy #zetacoins. A million of something doesn't take much increase to make a small fortune. #zetacoin up 80% today
— BitcoinSachs (@BitcoinSachs) November 29, 2013

Everything is a buy right now. $0.05 zetacoin is a great price. $0.25 on Monday
— BitcoinSachs (@BitcoinSachs) December 1, 2013

If you don't own at least 100k zetacoins you're going to spend a life time regretting that
— BitcoinSachs (@BitcoinSachs) December 1, 2013

To buy either of these 2 cryptocurrencies, along with almost any other alt coin out there, set up an account at Cryptsy.com to get started! I only started my account today, and I've had a pretty decent experience so far. Still some problems with the site such as:

1. Deposits take way longer than they should. Bitcoin deposits take about 45mins to 2 hours.
2. Cancellation of open orders will result in your funds being "stuck" in limbo for up to an hour.
3. It took 45 mins for my account verification email to arrive. 
4. Interface is less responsive (laggier) than I would prefer.

I think its just a problem with them being unable to handle the surge in traffic over the last 5 days, and I hope that fix it soon. But apart from these problems, looks really good, and I'm definitely using this over BTC-e from now on.

I hope this post was useful for you. These are my own views and thoughts, which like the Bitcoin market, is largely driven by speculation. Follow my recommendations at your own risk. With that said, to all of you guys holding Quarks and Zetacoins, I'll see you on the moon and give lets China's Chang'e-3 a surprise! ;)


http://bitbash.blogspot.sg/2013/11/quarkcoin.html
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1rmuf8/quark_coin_is_up_450_since_yesterday_got_any/
http://www.reddit.com/r/QuarkCoin/comments/1rrrqe/welcome_to_quarkcoin_as_btce_would_put_it_to_the/

Source: Bill Still on Quark

And lastly, we could see Quark on a Chinese exchange over the next few days. If this is true, you better get your Quarks as soon as you can!

Altcoins have been the rave over the last 5 days since Litecoin's prices surged past $10. Now that Litecoin has found a resistance at $50, and support at $25, what's next?

As predicted, Litecoin was a bubble in the making, and made a mini crash which began on the 28th November from $50/LTC to about $25.56 4 hours ago. Prices look like that have begun to climb back up again, and I won't be surprised to see LTC at $50 again within a week. Unfortunately, even though I predicted the impending "mini bubble" of LTC, I didn't manage to trade them out into BTC at the peak. In fact, I actually bought some more Litecoins at 0.05 (LTC/BTC). Not the best move, but I'm still happy with my Litecoins.

So if you haven't bought into Litecoins, or have sold your LTC at the peak, it's a REALLY good time to buy in right now; especially if you're thinking of doubling your money's worth in a week or two. If you're interested to get started, but need some help, email me at alvinlee133@gmail.com or leave a comment below and we'll see how we can work something out! =)

More interestingly, Litecoin's price surge was tailed by all other major alternative crypocurrencies during this rise, especially those available for trading on Btc-e. In my post back in October when I first found out about Altcoins, I featured a snipshot of the top 6 Cryptocurrencies on coinmarketcap.com, and it looked something like this:

And just TWO DAYS later, at the time of posting, it looked like this:

For your viewing pleasure, I have set them up in a nice, borderless table for a comparison of market cap gains over the last 2 days. I'm sorry to you NovaCoin fans for leaving NVC out of the equation, but I read about some pre-mining & other issues with the development team somewhere, so I'm staying away.

[Market Cap]	BTC	LTC	PPC	NMC	XPM	FTC
% Gain	14%	0%	131%	30%	47%	148%

With a quick look at http://altcoins.com/, we can see the two greatest gainers were PPC and FTC, which have nothing in common in terms of the algorithm. Alternative Coin prices are purely based on speculation right now, as can be seen by the huge rally quickly following behind Litecoin's rise to fame.

If you're planning to dabble in some alt coins besides Litecoin, and have a high risk propensity, this may be the best time to risk your money for the possibility of massive gains. By massive, I'm talking about a minimum of a 5 fold increase in USD value (or even Bitcoin value if you're lucky enough).

I'm not really a person for predictions, but this situation calls for one. As mentioned, I (personally) believe that alt coin prices are following behind LTC prices, ever so slightly. You can get to see the latest price movements with my favourite Bitcoin chart to date: Bitcoinwisdom.com. On Bitcoinwisdom, use the 1m chart to see the prices as they trade live, and you can even choose between different markets from the bar at the top making it much easier to compare prices across different exchanges. If you're new to chart reading, please check out their help page @ http://bitcoinwisdom.com/help/charts. If you need a better explaination, comment below and I'll be more than happy to help.

Use Bitcoinwisdom's chart to see when Litecoin prices are going up (which I think is happening now, with a resistance of $50 and a support at $25), and invest in your trusted alt coins when you think it is happening! If I had to name one, I'd go with NMC! If you prefer something with a higher risk, try FTC & XPM.

Trade with your heart, not with your mind. Trade safe, and HUAT AH!

I have my next post in mind about panic selling/buying and how you can avoid it, and a little bit about bull/bear traps. But before I go into that, let me just end off with a piece of advice for beginners. DON'T trade (unless your taking a profit) during a price spike! More likely that not, a huge up/downswing (as seen on one candle in BTC-e's charts) will end up close to it's original position, before moving off in the same direction. To get a better understanding, look at the example below:


On the left, we have 2 candles pointed out by the blue arrows which illustrates my point. First arrow shows a candle with a huge dip downwards, and price retracts to close to the top within a minute or so. After which, prices will start to bleed downwards. This is the same for the 2nd blue arrow, but in the opposite direction (upward trending).

On another note, I just wanted to also point out the candle pointed out by the red arrow. Such a significant (in size) and opposite trending candle, following a "peak" as shown by the previous 3 arrows, usually means that a downtrend is coming. Or at least that's what I've learnt from my 2 month experience analyzing Cryptocurrency charts.

I also found a very interesting theory that is applicable to the crytpo markets. If you are interested in trading your Bitcoins, be sure to read up on Elliott Wave Theory.

BTC surpassed its all time high, reaching a milestone US$1000 per Bitcoin on Mtgox earlier today. As BTC's prices slowly inch up after the mini-crash after the Senate Hearing, we have seen a large spillover of funds pouring into alternate cryptocurrencies. Over the last 2 days alone, the prices of alt coins such as PeerCoin (PPC), NameCoin (NMC), PrimeCoin (XPM), and FeatherCoin (FTC), have at least doubled in value, some  up to 500%.

Most notable is Litecoin, dubbed as silver to Bitcoin's gold, which price recently surged and increased almost 10 fold in the last 10 days since it passed the $4 mark. Since the last 60 hours, Litecoin has more than tripled from $10 per LTC to its current price of US$35/LTC! Not exactly sure what's behind this surge in prices, especially in LTC, but maybe Max Keiser's Interim target of $50 for LTC played a part.

We are initiated coverage of litecoin with an interim target of $50. Newest @KeiserReport features one of the biggest players in LC
— Max Keiser (@maxkeiser) November 18, 2013

Source: http://www.coindesk.com/litecoin-silver-bitcoins-gold/
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/litecoin-price-2013-11
Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/reuvencohen/2013/11/27/the-top-30-crypto-currency-market-capitalizations-in-one-place/
Source: http://www.tradethenewsroom.com/bitcoin-breaks-1000-litecoin-sees-400-gain-4092
Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/litecoin/comments/1qvxcu/max_keiser_has_started_covering_ltc_on_his/

But this insane surge has got me thinking, is a huge crash in the making?

If we look back at the April crash, and compare it with the current litecoin chart, we can see some similarities. See below for a comparison.


From my understanding of the markets thus far, I am assuming that every big spike in price has to be followed by a big correction. The higher you jump, the harder you fall. And let's say that Litecoin prices are kind of mimicking Bitcoin prices (as it was back in April 2013), albiet at a much faster pace, we can assume that this crash is coming. And it's coming very soon.

But when will that happen? Where will the peak be? Will LTC prices peak at $50, $80, $100, or $200 before it takes an 80% nosedive? I can't tell for certain what price LTC will peak at before crashing, but what is your guess?

If you're holding Litecoins or thinking of buying them, read these 2 reddit discussions before doing so!
Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/litecoin/comments/1rivqr/im_going_to_go_out_on_a_limb_here_and_say/
Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1rjv6l/my_response_to_a_litecoin_advocate/

Source: http://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/btce/ltcusd
Source: https://btc-e.com/exchange/ltc_btc
Source: http://coinmarketcap.com/


Well my plan for the next few days is to convert some of my LTC back into BTC. I think BTC prices will hold rather stable even when LTC flash crashes, and thus would rather sell my LTC into BTC than hold onto useless FIAT dollars. I currently have about 80% of my funds in LTC, and have placed sell positions for half of my Litecoins, ranging from 0.055 LTC/BTC all the way up to 0.15. And will be looking to re-enter into litecoin at the bottom of the crash, if the crash comes.

Crash or no crash; all the best for your trading everyone!

So, what's your move going to be in the case of a Litecoin crash?

As I have mentioned in my previous post, I believe that Cryptocurrencies are here to stay, and that Litecoins are a good buy right now. Before I explain why so, lets go through a little introduction on cryptocurrencies. Since Bitcoin's rise to fame, a myriad of alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) have come into existence.

There are over 30 altcoins available on Coinmarketcap.com, but most have meagre market capitalization as compared to Bitcoin. Litecoin is currently leading the altcoin market and is the coin to watch, as I will explain.

One of Litecoin’s most significant claimed improvements over Bitcoin is that it allows transactions to be confirmed as legitimate much more quickly, says Charles Lee, who designed the currency, which is now maintained by him and a small group of other enthusiasts. It is also notable that Charles is currently working in Coinbase, which could mean that Coinbase may announce Litecoin integration anytime soon. In fact, Coblee (aka Charles Lee), posted on trollbox that Litecoin support will be available on several exchanges next week (see the post here).

Litecoin prices have been steadily declining since it boomed alongside Bitcoin earlier this year, and many people do think it will continue on this downtrend to its oblivion. However, it is interesting to note the similarity of Litecoin chart compared to Bitcoin chart right before it started climbing up to it's current level. See the comparison in this video below.

So what determines whether or not Litecoin prices will increase?

I believe that this is largely dependent on the availablility of services built ontop of Litecoin. As long as there remains no significant usage of Litecoins, it's price will continue to decline, possibly to the level of other altcoins. Hence, an example of good news for Litecoin would be trading platforms such as BTC China, or online wallets such as Coinbase integrating Litecoin into their systems.

In this recent Youtube video, the team at 'Let's Talk Bitcoin' discussed Litecoin and its potential which I highly recommend watching.

They mention two main problems faced by Litecoin, namely an infrastucture problem, and an adoption issue. In terms of infrastructure, the number of resources available to trade Litecoin as compared to Bitcoin is currently very minimal. Hence, Litecoin prices have been sliding (or stagnating) since its boom in April 2013. On top of that, adoption of Litecoin by major trading platforms has been non-existential. Even though trading platforms like MtGox have announced Litecoin integration back in May, it still has yet to do so. Until Litecoin sees an enhanced utilization and utility, we will unlikely see Litecoin prices grow. However, my guess is that once large trading platforms or wallets start to accept Litecoin, we may see a great boost in Litecoin prices.

Lastly, they also discuss how the future of cryptocurrency lies in the ability of the payment infrastructure to be cryptocurrency agnostic, that is, that one infrastructure will be allowed to accept different kinds of coins. Much like a packaged solution where vendors can integrate and accept every altcoin. This will allow markets to exist on its merits instead of its perceived value.

This is also in line with much of the discussion I have found on Bitcointalk, such as this one titled "Why the loss of confidence in Litecoin". Some of the comments by users are highlighted here:

Furthermore, this Quora discussion titled "Do other crypto-currencies have a chance or is Bitcoin too far ahead?" generated more than a few interesting comments, as shown below:

Ben Mordecai, Bitcoin Hopeful (See the full comment here: http://qr.ae/NmnvS)

Ben Solmar (See the full comment here: http://qr.ae/Nmnsv)

Lastly, I'd like to end off this post with a more controversial video, linking FIAT currency and a decreasing trust in Governments and Banking corporations, to the rise of Cryptocurrencies.

Cheers & have a great week trading. All the best, and stay tuned!

So you've heard about Bitcoins. Since its boom in April 2013, Bitcoins have garnered immense media attention and continued to show impressive strength, rising steadily and finally breaking the $200 psychological barrier today. Even the recent Silk Road closure couldn't dampen the demand for Bitcoins, as prices continued to rally after Baidu (the Google of China) announced its acceptance of Bitcoins as a payment mode.

The popularity of Bitcoins can be attributed to two characteristics of the currency; it is decentralized, and there is a finite amount of bitcoins that can be mined. As such, Bitcoins are very often said to be similar to be Gold. These two characteristics can be said to give Bitcoins their perceived value.

However, the question on everyone's mind is, what gives Bitcoins their intrinsic value (See a Reddit discussion on Bitcoin's intrinsic value here)? As a relatively new commodity that is still in its infancy stage, there have been attempts by a large number of parties to predict it's price, and to reason its market fluctuations with existing Economic theories. However, in attempting to analyse the Cryptocurrency market, we must keep in mind its infancy, and hence the significance of non-economic factors. The real problem is not what the price will be, but whether or not Bitcoin will even be here in five, ten years from now. The question we should be asking then, should be, what factors determine the viability of Bitcoins as an alternative currency?

In my opinion, the most important factor driving the demand of Bitcoins is its adoption by corporations. Basically, the more companies accept Bitcoins as payment for products and services, the better it will be for Bitcoin's future. However, this can turn into a chicken-and-egg issue, because corporations will never consider transacting in Bitcoins because of its instability. Until Bitcoins find a stable price, it is highly unlikely that this will happen. As MeldrumLaw pointed out in this Reddit discussion, "Bitcoin needs to stabilize (or all fiat alternatives need to simultaneously collapse) before widespread commercial adoption occurs."

It is true that Bitcoins have no intrinsic value, in the numismatic sense. Yes, Bitcoins solve some algorithmic problems through the mining process. However, these computations do not generate any kind of useful data, or solve any real life problems; there is a lack of "useful" input/output in solving alogorithms. Cryptocurrency needs to be more "useful" and solve a problem, in the same way that Duolingo translates the web while allowing users to learn a new language. With this in mind, I believe that a new cryptocurrency will emerge and overshadow Bitcoin, that actually solves a real world problem or generate useful data from all the computational data used. Imagine what could happen if Google is currently working on their own decentralized cryptocurrency?

Bitcoin prices skyrocketed during the financial crisis in Cyrpus as a result of people's distrust in FIAT currency and an increasing demand for an ungoverned and limited alternative.  Coupled with the large (and growing) number of services built around Bitcoins, I believe that Bitcoins, or at least Cryptocurrencies, will be here to stay for good.

In my next article, I'll be talking about alternative cryptocurrencies, and why Litecoins are a good buy right now. Stay tuned!

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