Bitcoin nerves, DeFi defiant, PayPal debut, Coinbase warning: Hodler’s Digest, Nov. 9–15

4 min readNov 15, 2020

Top Stories This Week

Bitcoin price at $16,000 and beyond? Here are the bear and bull cases

We’re undoubtedly in a bull market right now. This week, Bitcoin hit $16,000 for the first time in years.

Even this weekend’s volatility hasn’t been enough to derail BTC’s momentum. Although prices abruptly dropped to $15,670 overnight on Sunday, traders quickly stepped in to defend $16,000.

It is exceptionally rare for Bitcoin to perform this well. The world’s biggest cryptocurrency has only closed above $16,320 on 12 days in its history — just 0.28% of the time.

Naturally, the question now is whether BTC’s strength will remain, given how it’s in touching distance of surpassing the current all-time high of $20,089.

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Analysts at IntoTheBlock say there is little resistance between $16,300 and $18,750, indicating that further upside is possible.

However, with “extreme greed” flashing on the Fear & Greed Index, Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe has warned a correction is almost inevitable in the short term.

Fund execs offer $1M bets that Bitcoin’s S2F model won’t come true

PlanB, the creator of the stock-to-flow model, has doubled down on his assertion that BTC’s best days lie ahead, saying he has “no doubt whatsoever” that Bitcoin prices will have reached $100,000–$288,000 by December 2021.

His model has caused controversy over the years, and now, one hedge fund executive is inviting S2F enthusiasts to put their money where their mouth is.

Eric Wall, the chief investment officer at Arcane Assets, is offering a $1-million bet that Bitcoin won’t have come within 50% of PlanB’s target range by 2025, let alone by next December.

“This is not a joke. I’m willing to lock up the money for it with a 3rd party we both trust, and you must too,” he wrote.

DeFi the odds: Total user numbers up 55% in just six weeks

October was a grim month for many decentralized finance tokens. Faced with heavy losses, some were hastily proclaiming that the DeFi bubble had well and truly burst.

But wait a minute. Data from Dune Analytics shows there has been sustained, sector-wide growth in activity — with user numbers growing 55% since the start of October.

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Lending protocol Compound and decentralized exchange dYdX were among DeFi’s strongest gainers, increasing their user bases over the past 30 days by 250% and 50%, respectively.

Also this week, research from IntoTheBlock suggested that institutional money is flowing into DeFi — with Yearn.finance’s YFI among the top beneficiaries. On-chain transactions of $100,000 or higher have increased by 282% over the past week, including almost $134 million worth of activity on Tuesday alone.

PayPal’s crypto trading service goes live in the U.S.

The wait is over. PayPal now allows all eligible customers in the United States to buy, sell and hold Bitcoin, Ether, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin.

Crypto purchases are limited at $20,000 a week — double the originally announced $10,000 — and customers are set to be informed of the new services within the coming days. No fees are being charged on crypto transactions until the end of the year.

These features are also set to be unveiled globally at the beginning of 2021, and the e-commerce platform’s 26 million merchants will soon be able to accept crypto as a payment method, too.

It’ll be interesting to see whether the rollout will encourage greater levels of crypto adoption among the masses, especially in light of BTC’s recent surge. Google Trends data suggests there has been little retail interest in Bitcoin’s boom of late, indicating that institutional investors have been driving the cryptocurrency up.

EU will decide on digital euro in January 2021, ECB president says

European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde has said that the bank should reach a decision on whether to release a digital euro early next year.

However, she stressed that the ECB is not “racing to be first” in the quest to launch a central bank digital currency.

Hinting that the institution is leaning toward pushing ahead with a central bank digital currency, she added: “My hunch — but this is a decision that will be taken collectively — is that we might well go in that direction.”

And Lagarde also revealed that it will probably take “two, three, four years” for a digital euro to see the light of day.

This week, a Deutsche Bank report warned that this non-urgent approach to CBDCs might not be good enough.

Germany’s largest banking institution said it is confident that CBDCs will replace cash in the future and said the U.S. and Europe could suffer consequences unless it starts catching up now.

“They may find that their companies are forced to adopt the digital currencies and policies of other countries as payment mediums,” Deutsche Bank wrote.