Bitcoin (BTC) prices could match their all-time high of $20,000 within the next two weeks — and could hit $50,000 or $100,000 by the end of the year, eToro analyst Simon Peters claimed on June 26. According to Peters, it took 7 to 14 days for BTC to reach the record figure of $20,000 when it was last at $11,800. He cautioned that his short-term prediction is based on the assumption that bitcoin maintains its current parabolic trajectory. Peters believes this rally is different from past surges because it hasn’t been accompanied by a spike in Google searches for “buy …

Data from Google Trends’ search analytics resource indicates that internet googling of ‘bitcoin’ (BTC) is approaching a monthly high as of today, June 24. According to the data, searches for bitcoin are continuing their ascent in the week after the unveiling of Facebook’s new cryptocurrency and blockchain-powered financial infrastructure project, Libra, even as searches for Libra itself have tapered off since June 18 — the date the white paper for the forthcoming token was published. Google trends data for search terms ‘bitcoin’ vs. ‘libra.’ As of June 24 2019 As Cointelegraph noted yesterday, from a wider perspective, the number of …

Much of digital assets’ appeal stems from the fact that many of them are not affiliated with or controlled by governments, central banks or transnational corporations (at least, not yet). The price paid for the independence from institutions of global capitalism, though, might sometimes be extremely high, as, in the event of cryptocurrency theft, there is no one to appeal to for recourse. Further still, the irreversible nature of blockchain transactions renders it extremely difficult to get the money back once its gone. The villains of the internet love cryptocurrencies for the same reasons. In the last few years, marked …

A Nasdaq-listed company says it is creating a blockchain-enabled platform designed to decentralize data and empower consumers — all while giving brands an alternative to Facebook and Google in the quest to reach the public. Phunware says it is leveraging 10 years of mobile technology experience to enable brands to deliver relevant content to a highly targeted audience, increasing engagement and resulting in a more memorable experience. Customers who share their data with a brand or build loyalty by engaging in profitable behavior, receive incentives, the team adds. Businesses can also begin to benefit from the technology by “supercharging” their …

On June 10, one of the top cryptocurrency media sites, CCN, initially announced that it would shut down, citing a June 3 Google Core Update for stifling its traffic. Writing on the website, the director and founder of CCN Markets and Hawkfish AS, Jonas Borchgrevink, blamed the update for an overnight fall of 71% of the site’s mobile traffic. While Borchgrevink noted that ups and downs are part of the business, such a vertiginous fall is unprecedented in its history. At the time of the post, the founder said that it could not support new additions to its team or …

Top Stories This Week CCN casts doubt on shutdown plans as Google appears to correct visibility Cryptocurrency news outlet CCN (formerly CryptoCoinsNews) is apparently not going through with its total shutdown, as reported earlier this week. The outlet had previously posted a note that a recent Google Core Update had led to a more than 70% visibility drop on mobile overnight, leading the organization to decide to shut down rather than downsize. However, an update this week from CCN Markets Director Jonas Borchgrevink notes that, for an unexplained reason, the crypto outlet’s old domain name, CryptoCoinNews, has been showing up …

Here at Cointelegraph, we were as shocked as everyone else in and around the crypto-sphere when we learned about the abrupt closure of stalwart crypto media outlet CCN. Established at around the same time as Cointelegraph and CoinDesk, CCN spent years competing for the crypto audience. However, just a couple days later, as many others, we were relieved to hear that CCN was back — although we couldn’t help but feel sceptical regarding several aspects of the story and puzzled by so many questions swirling around it. How come a key player in our own industry could go down overnight …

Disclaimer: This article has been updated following revisions. Jack Dorsey, the founder of social media website Twitter and mobile payments provider Square, went into depth on his plans for his new team dedicated to improving the crypto sector at Square in an interview with The Next Web on June 14. According to Dorsey, this initiative, Square Crypto, will add to the fiat payment company’s operations by providing an infrastructure for frictionless internet payments. Right now, he says that regulations and partnerships slow Square down — obstacles that he hopes to avoid in the future with an improved crypto infrastructure: “Just …

The Google Cloud team has integrated Chainlink’s oracle middleware with its BigQuery enterprise cloud data warehouse, allowing for an on-chain and cloud-based interaction with Ethereum decentralized applications and smart contracts. The news was revealed in a development report published on June 13. As previously reported, a blockchain oracle is a system that provides the necessary external data — i.e. the variables to be evaluated — to trigger the execution of a smart contract when the original terms of the contract are met. The development post writes that Google has made public blockchain data for eight different cryptocurrencies freely and publicly …

United States-based bitcoin (BTC)-supporting payments service Square Crypto announced that it recruited former Google product director Steve Lee in a tweet published on June 12. Square Crypto was announced in March of this year when the organization joined Twitter, and planned to hire crypto engineers and designers to work on the bitcoin and crypto ecosystem, paying them in cryptocurrency. Just hours before announcing Lee’s recruitment, the official Twitter Square Crypto account asked — in what appeared to be a joke — the community to welcome the company’s “summer intern and inaugural hire, Gary Fuches.” Then, the author of the next …

Cryptocurrency news outlet CCN.com (formerly CryptoCoinsNews) has U-turned on its abrupt decision to shut down, staff confirmed in an article on June 12. CCN, which on Monday published a warning that it would cease operations immediately over an ongoing Google indexing debacle, says it is still working to understand changes in its online visibility. As Cointelegraph reported, an update to Google’s algorithm allegedly produced an instantaneous 70% drop in traffic for CCN, with executives subsequently saying they had no choice but to abandon the project. Now, support from Google has apparently changed the plans for a total shutdown, thanks to …

This article has been updated to correct that BitMEX is not Hong Kong-based. Peer-to-peer (P2P) cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX has reported an influx of attacks on user account credentials, according to an official blog post on June 11. In addition to covering a litany of best practices for user security, the cryptocurrency exchange stressed the importance of using two-factor authentication (2FA) in particular. The report summarizes 2FA as follows: “2FA, sometimes referred to as ‘two-step verification’ or ‘multi-factor authentication’, adds an additional layer of security to your account by requiring not only your username and password at login, but also the …