The hacking continues today with the WannaCry virus claiming more victims across the globe but another type of hack was reported yesterday, this time in Holywood. It seems that a group of hackers have gotten a hold of the new Pirates of the Caribean movie and are now holding it for ransom, to be paid in bitcoin. The CEO of Disney has stated that they will not give into such piracy. Seriously though, be careful what you click on. Any link or Email attachment could contain a threatening virus. If your friend sends you a chat message that is just a link, ask them what’s in it before you click.–Mati
The New French President is wasting no time. He’s already chosen a young vibrant Prime Minister and today, on his first day in office, he will be meeting with Angela Merkel. Merkel, of course, is a bit tied up with her own elections but she’s not too worried though. Germany doesn’t have a popular populist candidate threatening to rip apart the Union.
Turkish President Erdogan will be visiting Trump today in the White House. The two have much to discuss. Trump was nice enough to be of the first to congratulate the Turkish dictator on his undemocratic referendum victory but since then has taken a drastic step to arm the Kurdish rebels, who Erdogan considers to be enemies of the state.
Trump has a lot on his mind at the moment. Currently, the administration is taking heavy fire for their alleged Russian connection. Let’s hope that he goes into the Turkish meeting with a clear head. A lot is at stake.
Market Overview
Markets are moving today and it does appear that some semblance of tradable volatility has finally returned. The FTSE 100 in the UK is currently trading at a record high level following some sour inflation data.
Higher than expected inflation in the UK is causing the Pound to drop, which is sending stocks through the roof.
We also saw a fresh record high yesterday in the CAC and the DAX. Very likely encouraged by a vibrant new Europe under Merkel and Macron.
Oil is chugging along, moving further towards the $50 level. The IEA report that came out just now seems to be very positive. Many analysts are starting to feel that the market may be rebalancing The Crude Oil inventories from the USA out tomorrow should give us further confirmation of that, or not.
Bitcoin Dominance
It seems that new digital coins are popping up left and right, but two of them have really been on a rip. Ripple and Ethereum have been growing so fast that they are now threatening the dominance of Bitcoin.
This morning, for the first time ever, the bitcoin dominance meter has dropped below 50%. Meaning, that of the total value currently distributed across all blockchains, bitcoin holds less than half. Here’s the graph.
The scalability issues of bitcoin seem persistent. Though miners were able to clear the queue yesterday, the number of unconfirmed transactions is again above 120,000 this morning.
In eToro, traders have gone from long term investing in Bitcoin to short term trading. In this excellent post from @BigFish, we can see that the trend still seems to be up, but the range is still wide enough to try and catch some downward moves on the short side.
Ethereum on the other hand still has a 99% buy sentiment on the platform and many users believe that another massive leg up is just around the corner.
Let’s have an awesome day!
