Sprinting past the 16K mark, Bitcoin catches breath

Over a couple of bountiful days, DeFi platform Harvest Finance has staged an autumn festival so bacchanalian it would embarrass a 15th-century pagan. Harvest’s total value locked has almost doubled to $890 million – since Tuesday.

The FARM token has shot up 45% in the past fortnight. FARM over 24 hours was up 3% as of early Thursday a.m. (EST). DeFi, in general, has launched back into orbit after a short stint on the sidelines.

Meanwhile, Ethereum 2.0 staking is rising.

And boy did Bitcoin ever run wild on Wednesday. At one point, BTC hit $16,157. That’s a level not seen since Jan. 6, 2018.

Stock futures in the U.S. slid 200 points early Thursday, suggesting the vaccine rally may have run its course. Rising infection rates are fueling lockdown fears. Bitcoin couldn't hold a $16,000 handle yesterday.

Amidst, and perhaps owing to, fears of a dark winter, BTC still has room to run, analysts say.

BTC, as of Thursday at 7:30 a.m., was $15,777, up slightly over a 24-hour period that saw the crypto king shatter $16K for the first time in almost three years. Since the early days of the pandemic, BTC is up 325%. So far this quarter, it has gained roughly 50%.

"Looking for a longer time-frame confirmation candle, but it's looking extremely bullish," WealthTrader tweeted as BTC broke 16K on Wednesday.

Analysts, per Coingape, view the on-chain Relative Strength Index, a technical indicator used to gauge price change magnitude, is gathering momentum. The next upswing phase could have $16,400-$16,800 levels written all over it.

It used to be that if a sender of Bitcoin suddenly got cold feet about a third-party, there was one option: first send a test transaction. Then a blockchain startup, Kirobo, created a transaction-reversion-capable layer of logic that eliminated the need to send a test. They called it the Bitcoin Undo button. And now there is one for Ethereum.

“It's a solution the industry badly needed,” said Asaf Naim, CEO of Kirobo.

The Ethereum Undo button, like its Bitcoin counterpart, allows users to add passwords to their outgoing transactions. Unless the receiver enters that password, the transactions can be reversed at any moment. Kirobo never gains custody (Decrypt).

Venezuela, in a bid to blunt heavy U.S. economic sanctions, has been promoting a national cryptocurrency, the petro. And while the effort can hardly be called a success, the future of digital money in the strife-torn nation seems promising – especially if, in this delicate infancy period, the government doesn't crush it.

Crypto mining in Venezuela is legal – provided that miners obtain a license. A recently formed National Digital Mining Pool is seeking to harness the collective power of Venezuelan miners. Centralization has its place. And authorities intend to put miners in it, with energy and public works administrators now summoning mine farm owners to Caracas for a sit-down.

Reports that the Venezuelan state electricity company is disconnecting some bitcoin mining farms are fueling worrisome speculation about heavy handedness even as Venezuela overhauls its crypto-compatible remittances platform, Patria, with the addition of BTC and LTC wallets.

As much as anyone on the planet, Venezuelans are now accustomed to digital payments as a substitute for hyper-inflated bolivars and increasingly scarce black market dollars. Zelle, a payment system controlled by seven major U.S. banks, has become ubiquitous.

The move by authorities to open up to cross-border payments made in crypto faces headwinds from U.S. authorities who have accused Venezuelan officials of using digital tokens to launder illicit funds and defy crippling sanctions.