From a word of caution on a viral Bitcoin prediction to new support for Litecoin, here’s a look at some of the stories breaking in the world of crypto.
Bitcoin
The CEO of Three Arrows Capital, a Singapore-based hedge fund focused on emerging markets, has a warning for traders focused on Bitcoin’s stock-to-flow ratio (S2F).
In a new interview on the Coinist Podcast, Su Zhu says the ratio, which plots the relationship between an asset’s production and current supply in order to forecast future value, is not a scientific way to analyze BTC.
S2F, which is often used to analyze precious metals, has been used extensively in 2019 to predict a Bitcoin moonshot to $100,000.
But according to Zhu, traders should understand that at the end of the day, Bitcoin needs new buyers in order for the price to rise.
“The model is aspirational. It’s good in that it does draw attention to the fact that Bitcoin has a predictable monetary policy that has consensus and also that [BTC] will get more scarce over time as opposed to less scarce. I think those are important ideas and are key to Bitcoin.
[Stock-to-flow] is not a scientific model. It may set up some people for over-leveraged positions, in fact, if they start to believe this is something they can trade off of. Because the reality is that people have to demand Bitcoin for the price to go up. That’s just the simple way the market works. The number of people that believe in S2F has to go up or the number of people who buy Bitcoin for other reasons. But S2F on its own will not make the price go up. Those people, even if they put all their savings into Bitcoin, they still need other people to come to their belief system.”
Ripple and XRP
Ripple has launched a new portal for developers looking to build on the XRP Ledger.
The portal at Xpring.io is designed to give developers a one-stop shop to “manage everything they need when it comes to integrating payments into their applications and a way to unify the various platforms they already use.”
It features a custom wallet that allows engineers to test XRP payments and create addresses without having to spend real money.
Xpring, which is investing more than $500 million in companies building on blockchain and cryptocurrency, first announced its plans to directly support developers back in August, and has released an SDK designed to give developers who want to build on XRP a head start.
Litecoin
The US-based crypto lending platform BlockFi says savings accounts for Litecoin are on the way.
The company launched its platform with support for Bitcoin and Ethereum back in March, offering a whopping 6% annual interest rate.
According to BlockFi founder Zac Prince, support for LTC is coming soon. So far, the company has not announced an official launch date.
LTC coming very soon!
— Zac Prince (@BlockFiZac) December 11, 2019
