Musiccosmos

So you’ve pivoted to the upper echelons of your newfound expertise and are looking to increase your skill set to enable a greater understanding of the markets. When combined with other technical tools, pivot points are valued among day traders for their ability to analyze price movement of an asset as well as defining the support and resistance levels during a short-term trading session. What are pivot points? Pivot points were first developed by floor traders to predict support and resistance levels in the equity and commodities markets. They can also help to determine overall market trends, whereby if prices break upward past a certain area they can be considered bullish or, conversely, bearish if they pass below the same region. The most common way to calculate a pivot point is the “five-point system.” This comprises an average of the numerical high, low and close of the previous trading period to plot a course for five levels: two sets of supports, two sets of resistance l...

New to crypto trading? Read CoinDesk’s full set of guides . Fibonacci retracement. Sounds sophisticated? But what does it do? And does it work? Luckily for traders, Fibonacci retracements are far more than just a nifty word. In fact, it’s the name of a tool used to predict potential support and resistance levels for price action. First, let’s define what this so-called “Fibonacci” is so you have a better idea as to why it is a concept relevant to trading cryptocurrencies. Leonardo of Pisa (A.K.A. Fibonacci) was an 11th-century mathematician responsible for introducing a unique sequence of numbers to the West, now known as the “Fibonacci Sequence.” The Sequence 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584… (pattern repeats to infinity) Each number in the sequence is derived from the sum of the preceding two numbers. Clever, right? Not only that, but each number is roughly 1.618 times greater than the number before it. This creates a value ...

When Adrian Patten, co-founder of FX blockchain project Cobalt, pitches to banks these days, he chooses his words carefully. In a move that may do much to validate Gartner’s finding this week that blockchain hype cycle is entering the so-called “ trough of disillusionment ,” Patten admitted he rarely brings up the technology, choosing instead to focus on the cost savings Cobalt can bring without the benefit of some of the most popular buzzwords of the last few years. “We try not to mention blockchain or DLT too much in case it complicates matters,” he said. In Patten’s view, many financial firms have taken a “me too” approach with blockchain, exemplified by things like the herd of banks joining the R3 consortium. In addition, most are probably invested in too many proofs-of-concept, he said. “They tend to think, if everybody else is in it, they ought to be in it, just in case a board member asks them what they are doing in blockchain,” he continued. The result is that people hav...

An effort to keep the $200 billion siacoin blockchain free from corporate interests is devolving into chaos amid accusations against the companies at the center of the effort. At issue is the conduct of the protocol’s coders, and the motivations behind their push to alter the rules of the blockchain they maintain. With a proposal, introduced last week, developers including siacoin creator David Vorick have floated changes that would keep some mining equipment operators from earning value by securing the distributed storage protocol. Simply put, the code would fork siacoin so that products offered by Bitmain, the China-based firm on the verge of an initial public offering , and its competitor Innosilicon, would be disabled. But while such efforts have been met with enthusiasm on other blockchains, satisfying concerns about how such changes could impact the balance of power on their networks, there’s just one problem – in the case of siacoin, the equipment that would still work is ...

From longer approval processes to the threat they might lose access to the European market, it’s safe to say U.K. blockchain startups are looking for contingency plans. A quick recap: in 2016, the U.K. held a referendum on whether to stay in the European Union (E.U.), with a majority of voters opting to leave the economic bloc. Since then, the government has been negotiating with E.U. officials on the terms of its exit – but recent hurdles have raised the specter of a “no-deal Brexit” that could lead to economic turbulence and uncertainty. It’s that uncertainty that has some blockchain startups sweating about their future prospects – at least in the months ahead as politicians attempt to hammer out an agreement. “Brexit is a hindrance to everything in the short term,” said Jamie McNaught, CEO and founder of Solidi Ltd, which is developing a blockchain-based payments platform that uses cryptocurrencies to facilitate money remittances. He told CoinDesk: “[It’s] because all finte...

New to crypto trading? Read CoinDesk’s full set of guides . Are you a crypto trader struggling to find a footing in a volatile crypto market? If yes, then the first thing you need to master is the art of identifying support and resistance levels. Imagine bouncing a ball inside your house. There are two barriers that will limit the flight and fall of the ball – your floor and ceiling. In trading, there are similar barriers that limit the movement of price action known as support and resistance. Such barriers in trading can have long-lasting effects on an asset, since price action rarely forgets its past. If traders regard a certain price level as a great entry or exit point, it will likely continue to act as a barrier for prices until all of their respective needs are satisfied. Support For example, buyers will generally continue to buy at a specific price, given the asset is perceived as undervalued, until all of their demand is fully absorbed by the market. So, if buyers enga...

Yet another dire security flaw was unveiled Tuesday with potential ripple effects across the tech world, including for cryptocurrency projects seeking to leverage certain hardware devices. Following a pair of bugs unveiled earlier this year , the Foreshadow vulnerability impacts all Intel’s Software Guard Extensions (SGX) enclaves, a special, supposedly extra-secure region of chip often used for storing sensitive data. In short, while the enclave is supposed to be tamper-proof, a group of researchers found a way for an attacker to steal the information it stores. For many, Meltdown and Spectre were spooky enough. The bugs impacted every single Intel chip, the hardware powering most of the world’s computers. But, since it wasn’t so easy to execute, there weren’t many real-world attacks. Foreshadow might not sound as bad because it impacts a more specific type of Intel hardware: SGX. However, since many cryptocurrency projects plan to use this technology, Foreshadow could have eve...

A metal frame with four small and two large propellers – carrying a container the size of a refrigerator – rises into the air with a roar, hovering above an empty road amidst snowy fields. The video was shot on the airfield near the Russian city of Kazan, which is located to the south-east of Moscow, and the machine is a SKYF drone, designed by a team of Russian aviation engineers. According to its makers, the drone can carry up to 880 pounds, travel as far as 220 miles and work up to 8 hours. And everything that happens to these drones is going to be recorded on the project’s own blockchain, SKYFchain. The SKYF team is trying to crack into a rapidly growing ecosystem, with PwC valuing the emerging global market for drones at over $127 billion in 2016. As of today, drones can only carry small objects, but the SKYF team aims to open a totally new market for heavy-duty cargo drones. The idea is that they’ll serve multiple purposes, such as delivering large amounts of cargo, f...