Another important step for the mass adoption of crypto has just been taken by an important company.

It’s been revealed that JP Morgan allows wealth management clients to access institutional Bitcoin and crypto funds.

The online publication the Daily Hodl notes that Business Insider obtained an internal memo from JP Morgan that indicates the bank’s wealth management clients can now take buy and sell orders for Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, Bitcoin Cash Trust, Ethereum Trust, Ethereum Classic products, and Osprey Funds’ Bitcoin Trust.

The wealth managers may only execute crypto trades if their clients request it, and they cannot recommend crypto products, according to Business Insider.

The memo also highlights the fact that the policy change occurred on July 19th.

We suggest that you check out the complete article in order to learn more details.

Bitcoin adoption boom

The mainstream adoption of Bitcoin is going great and this is also mirrored by the king coin’s price.

An interesting live chat had the crypto space on fire a couple of days ago,

During the live chat, Elon Musk said that he wants BTC to succeed and he said that he, Tesla and SpaceX – they all hold Bitcoin.

He also said that he holds Ethereum and a bit of Doge of course. Musk hinted at the fact that Tesla could start accepting Bitcoin once again.

“It looks like bitcoin is shifting a lot more toward renewables and a bunch of the heavy-duty coal plants that were being used…have been shut down, especially in China,” said Musk on Wednesday at The B-Word conference, an event hosted by the Crypto Council for Innovation.

Twitter’s Jack Dorsey was also a guest and he confirmed to investors that Bitcoin will be a “big part” of the company’s future.

Stay tuned for more news.

Since the false breakdown below 30k and back up, BTC has shown signs of an early trend reversal. This week’s close (on Sunday – midnight) is definitely a one to watch closely, as it will likely determine the next major direction for BTC.

The first bullish signal was the low volume close below $30k on July 20th. On-chain data strongly suggested that short-term holders, retailers, and small miners were selling, while larger entities continued to accumulate and hold.

Bullish Momentum Continues Post B-Word Event

Following the B-Word event where prominent figures like Elon Musk spoke, BTC consolidated and successfully retested a near-term downtrend line at $31.7k. Afterward, the primary cryptocurrency started its next push higher.

7-Month Downtrend Finally Broken

The most recent price increase managed to finally push the daily RSI above the 7-month descending trend-line, which started forming in January 2021, confirming a breakout in the Relative Strength Index. This is a very bullish signal in momentum, judging by past performance.

Additionally, BTC made a strong daily close above the 21-day MA, 100-MA, and 200-MA on the short-time frame’s 4-hour chart.

This is a near-term bullish signal that is likely to expand into the mid-term. If bullish momentum continues, the next area of interest is the 50-day MA, which lies around $34.3k.

A strong close, followed by high volume, above the latter, is likely to spark another wave of capital entering the market as we have yet to see higher volume.

Another notable bullish technical signal is BTC making a daily close above the middle band on the Bollinger Band, as shown below. BTC struggled since mid-June to successfully push above this middle band.

The Weekly Timeframe: Hammer Candle Is Forming

The weekly chart also shows strength as BTC is currently forming a large Hammer candle, a signal technical analysts identify with potential bottoms and trend reversals. It is crucial for BTC to make a weekly close at the highs, print a hammer candle, which is textbook bullish, and then follow through to the upside the next weekly candle. Pushing higher next week will help validate the weekly hammer.

For many weeks, on-chain data showed strong bullish signals of accumulation even while BTC struggled to push higher, retesting the lows of the trading range amid $30K.

This week’s price action and improving technicals can be interpreted as a gradual validation of the bullish on-chain data.

At this stage, the mentioned above early bullish signals need further validation, such as successful retest of the near-term support, increasing volume during rallies, and on-chain data continuing to show strength in market participants and the Bitcoin network.

Overall, the bulls should be glad to see this week’s price action, but there’s still a long way to go, particularly breaking out of the trading range and reclaiming the upper area of the 2-month trading range at $40k – $43k.

Just yesterday, Live Bitcoin News put out an article discussing all the analysts out there who seem to think that bitcoin is getting ready for a big comeback and that the currency could potentially overtake USD at some point. Billionaire investor and “bond king” Jeff Gundlach is not one of those people.

Jeff Gundlach Is Not Confident in BTC

In a recent interview, Gundlach says that bitcoin is likely to fall another 27 percent, thereby making 2021 the new 2018 in official terms, while he also thinks that fiat currencies such as the U.S. dollar are in for a world of hurt. Discussing a recent bitcoin chart that he came across, Gundlach warned things are not looking good for the world’s number one digital currency by market cap. He states:

The chart on bitcoin looks pretty scary… I have a feeling you are going to be able to buy it below $23,000 again. Bitcoin has really lost its steam.

Over the past year or so, bitcoin has taken on a new form for many traders. Initially, it was only seen as a speculative asset – one that given the right circumstances, could potentially make a trader rich very quickly. However, during the time of the coronavirus pandemic, bitcoin has been viewed as a currency that could possibly make one’s wealth stable during times of economic strife.

It is seen as a hedge tool among many, though Gundlach does not agree. He says:

I think it is only a trading vehicle. I have never been long on bitcoin, personally. I have never been short on bitcoin. It is just not for me. I do not have that kind of risk tolerance in my DNA where I need to get worried to pull up the quote every day to see if it is down 20 percent, but I would not own bitcoin presently. I think you had an opportunity to buy it at a cheaper level.

The Dollar Keeps Falling

Aside from bitcoin, Gundlach is not feeling confident when it comes to the U.S. dollar. He says that inflation is getting to be a real problem, and that the government is printing money like there is no tomorrow. He claims:

I do not want to be overly dramatic, but I think the dollar… I will use the word ‘doomed’ in the long term. In the short term, the dynamics have been and will continue to be in place for the dollar to be marginally or moderately stronger. It is getting difficult for the Fed to talk about this inflation situation as being temporary or ‘transitory,’ as they like to say… Import prices came up today up 11 percent. We all know the CPI came up with 5.4. I mean, these are numbers that remind me of the 1970s. Inflation right now is not decelerating. It is accelerating.

Tags: bitcoin, Inflation, Jeff Gundlach

Ethereum and Tron have had a history of contention. Offering similar services, the two blockchain networks have been going head to head in several measures of blockchain success. Even their founders, Vitalik Buterin of Ethereum, and Justin Sun of Tron have taken jabs at each other online severally.

In the past year, the rivalry has only intensified further. The year 2020 was a great year for Tron as they celebrated several record-breaking events. One of Tron’s DeFi platforms, JustSwap, which launched in August 2020, facilitated $100M in trades in its first 24 hours.

Since then, the Tron network has still come forth with more success. Setting out in 2021 to focus on growing and scaling their new DeFi infrastructure and expanding functionalities, they have broken new records. One of such records is the fact that the volume of Tether on the network has surpassed the volume of the stable coin on Ethereum. 

As noted by the director of digital assets strategy at VanEck, Gabor Gurbacs, in a tweet, of the $62 billion worth of Tether’s stablecoin, USDT, in circulation, $31B is on the Tron network while $30 billion is on the Ethereum network. 

To add to that, Tron has also been crushing Ethereum in other metrics. As transaction costs on Ethereum were becoming higher due to high network congestion, more users moved over to other blockchains and Tron was one of the major beneficiaries of the move. Tron traditionally has a faster transaction speed than the Ethereum network, with Tron’s transactions taking about 15 seconds to complete, while Ethereum takes up to 15 minutes to complete. Tron is also thought to be more scalable than Ethereum and with more advanced technology hence it saw its usage increase thanks to congestion on Ethereum.

Ethereum, while it waits to move to a proof of stake protocol that will see its congestion and high transaction fee problems greatly reduced, is gathering a growing number of threats to its prestigious position. 

Our recent report detailed how Polygon (MATIC) was also vying to overtake Ethereum to become the new home of NFTs with its newly funded Polygon Studio. They just launched a $100 million fund for the project that will concentrate on bringing NFTs to the gaming world on their blockchain that could overthrow ethereum as it would offer cheaper, faster NFT transactions.

Additionally, Binance Smart Chain (BSC) the native decentralized smart contract blockchain of cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, is also one of the contenders against Ethereum. The network’s active addresses recorded a high of 2,105,367 addresses on June 7, 2021 – more than double Ethereum’s all-time high of 799,580 addresses on May 9, 2021, despite the network being way younger. 

With all the competitors closing in, Ethereum is in a race against time to integrate all its upgrades in order to gain steam again. The soon-to-be-live London update and the ETH 2.0 upgrade will bring them back into fighting shape. Should they be successful, there is great optimism for the network retaining its spot, and even going on to flip Bitcoin.

“China’s rejection of open-source software crypto-assets may mark a plateau in the country’s economic ascent, we believe,” says Mike McGlone, a Senior Commodity Strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence.

Hedge fund manager Anthony Scaramucci has gone even further, saying that the recent regulatory crackdowns from the Chinese government equate to a “Tiananmen Square moment of capitalism” meant to regain control over the country’s business leaders.

Didi’s shares fell another 10% today with educational Chinese stocks also dropping following potential new regulations, while investors are asked to divest from US listed Chinese stocks.

Stocks in TAL Education (ticker: TAL) are down 54% in premarket trading. New Oriental Education & Technology (EDU) stock is off 48%. Shares of Gaotu Techedu (GOTU) have dropped 59% and shares of 17 Education & Technology (YQ) are down almost 40%.

The Shanghai index dropped another 0.7% today with the Hang Seng Index down by 1.45%.

The MSCI China Index has dropped 20% since February as investors start accounting for the political risks of investing in China.

In contrast Dow Jones is up 0.38%. FTSE 100 has gained 0.67%. Bitcoin has risen to about $32,500 while eth just about touched $2,100, currently trading at $2,064.

As the outlook for investment in China is seemingly becoming a political minefield, the big question is where all this money will go.

We may see the reverse of what happened in 2008 when economic troubles in USA turned big money’s focus on the then fast growing emerging markets and China in particular.

Now, if China’s economy starts becoming a bit shaky, the focus may return to America and Europe for long term investment, as well as perhaps to bitcoin for somewhat more risky long term investments, with a lot of money potentially on the move currently following these huge sell-offs of Chinese stocks.