Bitcoin (BTC) edged closer to $38,000 support on June 17 as comments from the United States Federal Reserve sparked a mass sell-off for gold. Bitcoin escapes gold's fate Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it bounced at $38,400 during Thursday, failing to regain $39,000 in what could shape up to be its anticipated "leg down." Wednesday's Fed meeting and subsequent comments from Chair Jerome Powell stopped Bitcoin from drifting higher, taking its toll on progress across cryptocurrency. At the time of writing, $38,900 formed a focus as resistance set in but a tight wedge of support …

May was a testing time for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC). The flagship digital asset was already wobbling after rallying to nearly $65,000 in mid April, owing to profit-taking sentiment among traders. Elon Musk accelerated the sell-off by reversing his company's plans to accept Bitcoin as payment for Tesla's electric cars. Later in the month, the People's Bank of China reiterated to the country's financial institutions against the use of virtual currencies for payments. Chinese authorities are also starting to keep a close eye on crypto mining — the process by which computers mine cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. More blows to the …

Gold wholesalers are starting to find new ways to expand their businesses to retail, thanks to blockchain-based tokenization. International bullion trading company AgaBullion and United Kingdom-based fintech Aurus Technologies have signed a partnership to offer gold-backed tokens in the Turkish market. The partnership will see investors own grams of LBMA-accredited gold via AurusGOLD. As a gold-backed ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain, AurusGOLD (AWG) is minted and distributed by precious metals dealers using Aurus’ blockchain-based solution. “Gold is the oldest decentralized finance system in the world,” AgaBullion chairman Gökhan Yılmaz said, “It has become a globally recognized and established ecosystem.” …

Former presidential candidate and congressman Ron Paul has renewed calls for Bitcoin to be legalized as money and not taxed. Paul is a staunch libertarian and author of the Bitcoiner favorite “End the Fed,” who has advocated for the legalization of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in the past. The former congressman has also regularly taken aim against the Federal Reserve for its unchecked money printing since the pandemic began. Ahead of his appearance at the Miami Bitcoin conference on June 3, the 85 year-old spoke with streaming financial news provider Kitco News and noted that his goal is to “help …

Jeff Currie, the global head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs, has dismissed comparisons between Bitcoin (BTC) and gold as an inflation hedge, and described BTC as more akin to a “risk-on” asset like copper. Speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box Europe on Tuesday, Currie noted that copper and Bitcoin both work as “risk-on assets” for hedging due to their volatility, while describing gold as a more stable “risk-off” hedge: "Digital currencies are not substitutes for gold. If anything, they would be a substitute for copper, they are pro-risk, risk-on assets. They are a substitute for risk-on inflation hedges, not risk-off …

Following the worst May for Bitcoin’s (BTC) price in the past 10 years, the largest cryptocurrency is likely to continue falling in the short term, according to JPMorgan analysts. Weakened institutional demand is likely to drag the Bitcoin price below $30,000, JPMorgan strategist and Bitcoin expert Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote in the latest research note to clients. Based on Bitcoin’s volatility ratios to gold, the JPMorgan analyst forecasted that Bitcoin will continue to trade between $24,000 and $36,000 in the mid-term. “The fair value for bitcoin based on a volatility ratio of Bitcoin to gold of around x4 would be 1/4th …

Mid-May’s price plunge was one of crypto’s wildest pullbacks in recent years, a tumble that eliminated nearly $1 trillion from crypto’s market value. The industry had soared to new heights a month earlier, with Bitcoin (BTC) reaching almost $64,000, driven in good part by institutional investors. Now that some calm has returned to the market, bears are asking: How did institutions behave during the recent collapse? Did they jump ship or hold firm with their investments? And what impact might the pullback have in future institutional participation in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry? “Institutional investors mostly held firm,” Oanda senior …

Brett Heath, CEO of precious metals royalty and streaming company Metalla Royalty & Streaming, has warned that crypto will “lead the charge into the next financial crisis.” Metalla Royalty & Streaming is a Canadian-based firm founded in 1983 and has a current net worth of almost half a billion dollars. Metalla offers exposure to precious metals through gold and silver royalties and streams. Speaking to financial news outlet Kitco News on Friday, Heath compared crypto to the tech induced crash of the early 2000s and the 2008 mortgage crisis, noting that: “When you look back the last few decades and …

Digital asset wallet provider Lohko and London-based tech firm Mattereum have teamed up to launch nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, that are backed by gold and have carbon offsets attached. According to a May 26 announcement the tokens represent ownership over physical gold bars that are stored in a vault in Singapore managed by partner Bullionstar. Each NFT represents an underlying bar of gold, with both the token and the physical bar of gold sharing a unique serial number. The tokens are also sold with a warranty ensuring NFT’s owner “has full legal rights to redeem the physical gold bar.” The …

In the aftermath of the Mid-May crypto market sell-off, gold has seen significant price recovery. Gold prices continued to inch higher on Tuesday, hitting $1,887 per ounce at 3:00 am EDT, according to data from TradingView. Last week, gold reached its highest price level since Jan. 8 at $1,889, marking a four-month high after gold prices dipped to $1,681 in early March. At the time of writing, spot gold is trading at $1,882, up around 0.1% over the past 24 hours. The accelerated growth of the gold market came along with a major downturn in cryptocurrency markets that started on …

This is Part One of a multipart series that aims to answer the following question: What is the “fundamental value” of Bitcoin? Part One is about the value of scarcity, Part Two — the market moves in bubbles, Part Three — the rate of adoption, and Part Four — the hash rate and the estimated price of Bitcoin. The value of scarcity In recent months — and throughout 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic and its negative effects on the economy — central banks around the world have issued unprecedented quantities of money in order to try to counter an inevitable …

Bitcoin’s price volatility is once again the subject of criticism from bankers as analysts from Société Générale take aim at the premier cryptocurrency. In an investor note quoted by CNBC, analysts at the bank argued that Bitcoin’s (BTC) “erratic price movements” devalued its place in investment portfolios. According to the investor note, the looming threat of government crackdowns across the globe puts significant downside pressure on future Bitcoin price action. Indeed, the recent BTC price plunge has also coincided with several negative regulatory moves from government agencies across the world. As previously reported by Cointelegraph, the United States Treasury is …