Wall St Analyst Urges Bulls Not To Buy Bitcoin

Nick Colas, Co-Founder at DataTrek Research and the first Wall Street brokerage analyst to cover Bitcoin (BTC), in a recent interview on CNBC’s “Trading Nation” recommends investors to reconsider any investments in buying Bitcoin.

Colas said that the short answer to Bitcoin’s investment is ‘no’ and explained that there are two fundamental reasons that investors need to consider. Colas quoted:

A lot of people are asking whether now is the right time to buy, and the short answer is no, for two fundamental reasons. The first is we’re not seeing a lot of incremental engagement with people interested in buying Bitcoin for the first time, and like any new technology you need new adopters to come in to make it more valuable. And in terms of Google searches, they are way down from the peaks back in December and January, by 85 to 90 percent.

Colas expressed his concern, that cryptocurrency wallet growth is not as high as of last year:

Growth in wallets is just 2.2 percent last month. It was 5 to 7 percent per month all of last year.

In the interview, Sara asked Nick whether “Bitcoin was a bubble that popped?” and Nick replied that “It was absolutely a bubble based around the futures launch in December, and a lot of enthusiasm for the asset,”. adding that in order for the technology to gain value new adopters should come in.

However, Spencer Bogart, a blockchain venture capitalist says  the cryptocurrency market is too large to ignore.

Goldman Sachs’ is the first bank that is moving on to create a bitcoin trading desk from a bank in Wall Street with speculations that other banks will follow. On CNBC’s ‘Fast Money,’  Bogart said:

MOST OF THESE BANKS HAVE HEARD ABOUT THE NUMBERS OR SEEN THE NUMBERS THAT COMPANIES LIKE COINBASE AND BINANCE ARE PUTTING UP. THERE’S A REAL RISK THAT SOME OF THOSE COMPANIES COULD OVERTAKE SOME OF WALL STREET’S BIGGEST BANKS IF THEY DON’T GET IN THE MARKET.

See more:

Wall Street’s first analyst to cover bitcoin urges caution

Pro-BTC Wall St Analyst Urges Not To Buy Crypto Now, Despite Recent Rally

 

 

Bitcoin logo Projected on Swiss Bank in Zurich

A giant Bitcoin was projected last week on the walls of the Swiss Bank in Zurich. It was thought that it was the work of  Trust Square which is across the street.

Switzerland is planning to be one of the leading countries in the revolutionary blockchain technology promoting blockchain startups and ICOs.

Crypto Valley is located in Zug and it is an association which is government supported and it has mission to build the world’s leading blockchain and cryptographic technologies ecosystem.

Crypto Valley association state in their site:

Why Switzerland?

Located in Zug in the heart of Switzerland, Crypto Valley is uniquely positioned to make the most of the decentralized Swiss political system and its matchless business environment. Zug offers a robust platform for global growth due to its pro-business philosophy and the openness and easy accessibility of its local government. Zug’s low-tax, business-friendly environment and fantastic quality of life have attracted many of the world’s leading companies, creating an international, cosmopolitan culture, and easy access to powerful global networks.

Switzerland’s continuous support for the blockchain technology is looking to support not only a ‘crypto valley’ but to become a ‘crypto nation’ as said by the Swiss Economics Minister Johann Schneider.

A tweet of the projected Bitcoin was posted on twitter Johannes Gees:

Ist that a #bitcoin on the @snb Schweizerische Nationalbank? Trustsquare rules! pic.twitter.com/l4hq86BIja

— Johannes Gees (@JohannesGees) April 28, 2018

Bitcoin’s projection on the Swiss Bank was thought that it was made by Trust  Square for a publicity stunt so as to pass the message that Zurich supports the blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies promoting trust to the people of Zurich.

Read More:

Publicity Stunt Sees Bitcoin Logo Projected on Swiss Bank in Zurich

Bitcoin: Could Regulations Be Effective?

Who controls Bitcoin?

No one! Bitcoin is a decentralised public distributed ledger which lies on the Internet offering peer-to-peer transactions between its users. There is no central unit that can control Bitcoin’s blockchain or shut it down. In order to shut down Bitcoin then you have to shut down the Internet all over the world which is impossible.

Can Bitcoin get regulated?

The short answer is that Bitcoin itself can not be regulated. As Bitcoin’s blockchain has no central control, its all over the internet meaning its all over the world then it cannot be regulated. If the user owns the private keys of its wallet then no one can take your Bitcoins away from you, even if it is banned in your country. Bear in mind that if your bitcoins are currently on an exchange then you have no full control of your private keys, meaning that you have no full control of your money.

Governments can regulate Bitcoin exchanges or companies that operate in their countries who make use of Bitcoin meaning that they can regulate Bitcoin on the entry level through banks. Therefore, banks will not accept any conversions from bitcoin to the fiat currency or vice versa. This will cause inconvenience among Bitcoin owners on how to convert them to traditional currencies but they will still own their coins.

Can Regulations be effective?

In some sense yes. Regulations can effect the spread in countries who ban Bitcoin, but will increase the spread and adoption to countries that do not ban the cryptocurrency.

However, we have seen it in the past and when the governments regulate and ban goods and services then several black markets arise. A Bitcoin holder, instead of going to the bank and exchange the amount of bitcoin in USD or EUR, can walk down the road and find someone who accepts Bitcoin and exchange them.

A study showed that 1.7 billion adults lack access to banking services and are not holders of a bank account. Moreover, in countries with high inflation rate such as Venezuela where their traditional currency is failing and people can’t pay for shelter or food then it will be of no importance whether a currency is regulated or banned as such currency can assist in achieving a living and a medium of exchange of goods and services.

Will all nations ban Bitcoin?

If they make their life’s mission to stop Bitcoin and Bitcoin holders of exchanging Bitcoins between them and disregard all the other problems the world is currently facing then they could stop it. Imagine the police coming down to check my phone apps to find my bitcoin wallet, or my house to find a piece of paper with my wallet’s private key. It is impossible to happen!

What the governments could do is create the EUR coin, USD coin, RUB coin etc. but what they won’t tell you is that they would be able at any time to issue new coins of that currency cutting in half the actual value of your holdings like they previously done.

Nevertheless, if you own your keys to your wallet, you own your money. As Andreas Antonopoulos said:

“They cannot regulate Bitcoin because bitcoin is us all of us and as long as I have the ability to have a phone and use that phone I can use Bitcoin”.

See more:

Bitcoin Regulation doesn’t matter. Andreas Antonopoulos

Bitcoin Q&A: Could governments take over exchanges?

Andreas Antonopoulos – Government not a threat to Bitcoin

A look at Bitcoin’s popularity so far and mass adoption

Bitcoin is the first decentralised digital currency that was founded in 2009 and introduced a peer-to-peer network to send transactions across the world without the need of an intermediary.

For many years people are trying to understand this revolutionary technology which has gain the attention of scientists, governments, investors etc. In the early years of Bitcoin, people that were encountered with the technology thought and many criticised Bitcoin as a scam.

However, in the years past intelligent individuals gathered together and researched the technology of Bitcoin which led to the understanding that this technology is revolutionary and managed to solve the double spending problem of performing transactions through the internet without relying on trust and intermediary companies.

Year by year Bitcoin became more acceptable and in 2017 hit its highest price at nearly $20,000. Bitcoin is the 2nd most google searched topic in Global News and rank 3rd in the how to.. section where people searched “how to buy bitcoin”.

In addition, Wikipedia released its top 50 report for 2017 and Bitcoin’s Wikipedia page was the ninth most read article with a count of 15, 026, 561 views.

Below you can see the curve of the diffusion of innovation that was originated by Everett Rogers on how, why and at what rate a new innovation becomes acceptable and adopted by the masses.

Diffusion of Innovations – Everett Roger

Although, Bitcoin gained huge popularity in 2017, i will argue that we are still in the early adopters phase and moving towards adoption from the early majority. People search about Bitcoin looking at its rising price but there are few who actually understand the underlying technology of blockchain.

I believe that we still need time for early majority adoption to come, as people need to understand the technology behind cryptocurrencies. Especially, people with non technical knowledge have to learn the basics of the blockchain technology and most importantly how to protect and owned in a secure way their digital currencies.