Cryptocurrencies = $30 Billion
Mati Greenspan | Apr 25, 2017 04:46AM ET
The total value of all digital coins in circulation has reached yet another milestone today.
As of this writing, the cryptocurrency market cap is $30.67 Billion. About $20.4 Billion of that is in Bitcoin and about $4.5 Billion in Ethereum. That leaves more than $5 Billion in alt coins.
It seems they have a coin for everything these days. The popular Tor network, known for their anonymous proxy browser, has come out with Torcoin, which rewards users for sharing their bandwidth and is completely integrated into the browser.
The LGBT community has Gaycoin. Probably not something that I will invest in even though it's up 2000% in the past week, but as long as there is a network and that network has some level of commerce between each other, there is space for a new blockchain.
Now, $30 Billion might seem like a lot of money but it's really not. It's the size of a small island really. The European Central Bank is currently creating about €60 Billion on a monthly basis.
If we are about to see the tipping point and mass adoption of online money, that number is going to need to rise incredibly quickly.
Today's Highlights
The View from up there
Election-mania Risk Factor
Gotta have confidence
Please note: All data, figures & graphs are valid as of April 25th. All trading carries risk. Only risk capital you're prepared to lose.
The Market's View
The markets are still moving full cock on the half victory of Emanuel Macron. The numbers are pretty outstanding. 3% rises in European indices, 1% moves on Wall Street, and Asia is continuing the party this morning.
However, if we take a good look, we can see that it is the markets getting carried away and not investors.
Here, take a look at the CAC index (Fra40) on a daily chart, most of the upward move happened when the markets were closed.
Here's the same thing in the Dow Jones...
This shows us that the move was mostly a reflection of what market makers were pricing in, rather than what people are willing to pay for the underlying stocks.
Get The News You Want
After all, the VIX index has been shot dead...
Even though the sugar rush is still at its peak, we should bear in mind the political risks that were so apparent on Friday have not gone away...
Geopolitical Risks
Let's start with France... the market is looking at the polls showing Macron 10 points ahead of Le Pen. Le Pen calls them 10 little points. Meanwhile, Macron is falling into a common trap. By racking up political and corporate endorsements, he's only alienating the people he wishes to win over. Le Pen is well aware of the people's frustration with the system and she is happy to exploit it. So when Brussels says, "Macron is our man," the voters of France say, "good to know."
The Risks in the UK do seem relatively subdued. For the moment, May is largely unopposed. However, their has been talk about making this election about something else.
"The people here in the UK are about to use this election as a second referendum. Everybody that voted no to Brexit is about to vote against Theresa May."
-Iqbal Gandham
UK Managing Director @eToro
Indeed, this is the danger. However, at the moment there doesn't seem to be any main opposition. May was smart enough to not give them much time to formulate one either. However, we will be much smarter after the second round in France on May 7th. By that point, if nobody has emerged, we may be able to start focusing on long term positions again.
Over in the United States, there is a separate mess. Donald Trump's 100th day in office is coming up this Sunday. Over the weekend we're likely to hear from a slew of political analysts who will be evaluating just how good a job he's doing. What do you think? Is he getting things done? Has he managed to drain the swamp? Is he handling Putin or Kim Jong Un?
Confidence
Aside from listening to the news for updates on the above ongoing stories, we should get some nice volatility on the Pound at 9:30 GMT, with the lending numbers coming out.
Then in the afternoon. at 3:00 PM GMT there's some consumer confidence numbers that could cause some excitement or disappointment depending on the results.
I want to wish a Happy Anzac day to all of our clients down under!!
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