CBX Weekly Newsletter // 4 Nov 2020
- Bitcoin’s mining difficulty is decreasing as BTC holds $13K
- PayPal will raise crypto buying limit do to high demand
- Volatility is increasing in the Cryptocurrency Market
Bitcoin’s mining difficulty is decreasing as BTC holds $13K
Bitcoin’s mining difficulty just recorded its largest percentage decrease since the advent of ASIC mining machines in late 2012, dropping by just over 16% and giving miners a reason to celebrate as their profitability is set to increase significantly.
Difficulty dropped to 16.787 trillion at around 09:00 UTC on Tuesday, its lowest level since June, according to data aggregated by BTC.com. The adjustment marks the second largest percentage decrease of all time.
Mining difficulty is a relative measure of the amount of resources required to compete for mining new bitcoins. It climbs or falls at the end of roughly two-week epochs (or 2016 block periods) depending on whether the total estimated hash power consumed by the network has also increased or decreased.
PayPal will raise crypto buying limit do to high demand
PayPal’s cryptocurrency service is going to expand rapidly in 2021, executives said on the payments giant’s third-quarter earnings call Monday evening.
That includes crypto services coming to Venmo and international customers in the first half of 2021, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman said.
Currently, only 10% of customers in the U.S. have access to the new crypto service with the rest of the U.S. gaining access to the tools in the next two to three weeks, Schulman said. PayPal saw enough interest following its Oct. 21 announcement that the firm has increased weekly crypto purchase limits from $10,000 to $15,000.
PayPal’s most recent earnings report had only the slightest mention of cryptocurrency, briefly recapping its crypto announcement in the “business updates” section.
Volatility is increasing in the Cryptocurrency Market
Both bitcoin and traditional market investors look to be predicting a pick-up in volatility following the U.S. elections.
The cryptocurrency’s one-month implied volatility — investors’ expectation of how turbulent prices will be over the next four weeks — has risen to a two-week high of 59% in the past three days, according to data source Skew.
While the one-month implied volatility has picked up, the six-month metric remains flat above 60%. That suggests the market does not expect a prolonged period of political uncertainty in the world’s largest economy.
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