Wirecard COO sent vast amounts of bitcoin before escaping Germany
Hi everyone,
It appears that the Wirecard COO stored vast amounts of bitcoin following his quick escape from Germany after the €2 billion insolvency scandal.
Meanwhile, as traditional finance flounders, PayPal has chosen Paxos as its bitcoin provider in its upcoming crypto services launch — though the exact coins which will be on offer remain undisclosed at this time. Finally, last week’s Twitter’s hack revealed that the company shadow-bans individual Twitter handles — unleashing a legal can of worms for the company in the years to come.
Last but not least, if history is a guide, bitcoin’s continued balance decline on exchanges is signalling that a massive trend shift is in the works.
Let’s dive right in.
Wirecard’s most-wanted exec owns “significant sums of bitcoin”
The ex-COO at insolvent and disgraced payments company Wirecard has apparently transferred “significant sums” of bitcoin following his get-away from Germany, according to German business newspaper Handelsblatt.
Jan Marsalek was a prime suspect behind the €2 billion black hole found in Germany-based Wirecard, which has made headlines for filing for insolvency as allegations of bad accounting and downright fraud piled on following the billions of dollars that went missing from its balance sheet.
According to the latest reports, the bitcoin transfer suggests that Marsalek might be in Russia — though perhaps he might have already shifted his whereabouts at the time of writing.
As per the publication, Marsalek has been ‘missing’ for weeks and it appears that he has “brought significant sums to Russia in the form of bitcoins from Dubai, where Wirecard had dubious operations” as per a translation of the Sunday evening report.
In a Wall Street Journal Report, it was noted that Marsalek was fascinated with cryptocurrencies.
A July report read: “Mr. Marsalek liked engaging in late-night discussions about cryptocurrencies and their ability to move money without a trace.”
Paypal chooses Paxos for Crypto supply service
Fitnech giant PayPal has chosen to unleash cryptocurrencies on its 300 million users via New-York-based Paxos, which just last week launched its Paxos Crypto Brokerage as it signed Revolut on as its first client.
The offering would make PayPal one of the most prominent mainstream companies to offer cryptocurrency purchases, joining its peer payments provider Square and unicorn stock brokerage Robinhood.
It is not clear exactly which cryptocurrencies PayPal intends to offer, but a trail of breadcrumbs showed that PayPal’s intentions are clear and unambiguous.
Last week’s Twitter hack took the internet by storm and sent the company’s share price tumbling on the day. However, many media outlets misinterpreted this event as a net-negative for the industry, when in fact the exact opposite is true.
Indeed, as dozens of traditional media outlets incorrectly reported the attack as a “bitcoin scam”, anyone who bothered to check the bitcoin network would have noticed that everything was up and running the whole time — bitcoin didn’t scam anyone.
The simple reality is that hackers exploited Twitter’s security in order to obtain bitcoin — which they consider highly valuable. It’s also interesting to notice how hackers didn’t target altcoins or ethereum for that matter — except for XRP on Ripple’s Twitter handle.
Ultimately, the implications of this hack are profound and far reaching for Twitter’s legal team, which appears to have perjured itself in court as it has now emerged that Twitter does in fact shadow ban individual handles.
Needless to say, bitcoin remains unchanged.
However, it’s interesting to note the comparison in tone among mainstream publications on anything involving traditional financial conglomerates versus anything bitcoin related.
The bitcoin balance on exchanges continues its trend downwards as investors pull their coins from exchanges and hodl on for the next bull cycle. In prior cycles such as the 2017 bull market and to a lesser extent — the 2019 mini bull rally — a similar behavioural pattern could be observed. Of course, the set of circumstances are entirely different even if the market structure is similar.
Technically speaking
Today, overall exchange balances continue to decline amidst a backdrop that is priming the industry for another parabolic run. In reality, as global monetary events coincide — whether it’s the introduction of central bank digital currencies, companies entering the crypto space or the unprecedented amount of cash injections — it would be strange if bitcoin and altcoins did not experience a major rally in the coming months.
Bitcoin HTF bides its time for a big move
Technically, bitcoin is still trading within the same area for months now as it coils up further and further within an ever-tightening range. At this point, even a 5% move would get market participants excited again.
The upwards trending support has held thus far as bitcoin now finds itself within a more recent structure that is in turn trading in the broader flag pattern (or ascending triangle). Having been rejected time and again from the downwards sloping resistance, bitcoin must now make a move that will decide whether bulls or bears are in control — at least for the short term.
Notably, bitcoin’s RSI has trended downwards as the price trends upwards — a bullish signal for all intents and purposes. The same can be said for the Money Flow Index (volume-weighted RSI).
While this is not much of a reliable indicator of any kind, current market sentiment is presently awash with boredom or downright bearishness — at least on bitcoin.
Ultimately though, it’s up to the bulls to follow through on the Td-9 reversal pattern. A solid break and 4-hourly close above approximately $9,450 would open the door to retest $10,000. On the flip side, a breakdown below the support would open the flood gates to $8,800 $8,600. Any failure to maintain these levels would probably result in a cascading effect that would bring the $7,500 target within reach.
Ethereum HTF poised to breakout
Meanwhile, ethereum’s market structure is much cleaner and more obviously bullish than bitcoin’s. Typically, bitcoin leads cryptocurrency markets and others follow. However, both ethereum and bitcoin have often moved in lockstep and/or preceded each other’s movement historically.
Having said that, if history is a guide, then this ascending structure with another TD-9 reversal signal suggests that it’s time for the bulls to have their cake and eat it.
Ethereum’s next target outside of the range would be the $300 area, which coincides with previous highs in June 2019. On the flip side, a pull-back to the $200 and/or $160 areas would represent a 38.2 and 61.8 fib retracement, respectively.
Time will tell which crypto takes things to the next level, and I won’t spend any time detailing which one is ultimately more important.
In 2017, Ethereum led the charge with the ICO boom and bust cycle. I suspect something similar is on the horizon with DeFi, which is both incredibly interesting and scary at the same time. Nobody wants a repeat of the blatant scams seen in 2017, and given that DeFi protocols are unregulated securities whose liquidity pools are controlled by several entities, a degree of skepticism is warranted.
Needless to say, the ability to have a functional, borderless and completely digital system running in parallel with the traditionally red-taped and ultra-regulated financial system is interesting.
My only question is: why not just move these ethereum test-net capabilities to bitcoin?
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Read More: Grayscale: bitcoin ETF only a matter of time
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Originally published at https://mailchi.mp.
