Investors are getting too optimistic about AMD's prospects

AMD's stock is significantly outperforming the market this year. Its shares are up 213 percent year to date through Wednesday versus the S&P 500's 9 percent gain. The company's stock is the top-performing name in the S&P 500 this year.

Celebs that love cryptocurrency

Ashton Kutcher

That ‘70s Show actor, Ashton Kutcher, is a keen technology investor. He owns his own venture capital firm, A-Grade Investments, which has financed companies like Uber, Spotify and Airbnb in recent years. His company has invested in BitPay, the payment processor that allows merchants to accept payments in Bitcoin. Kutcher is also big on blockchain tech and the benefits of decentralised currencies, about which he spoke in detail at the 2012 TechCrunch Disrupt NY.

Mel B

The former Spice Girl, Mel B, has partnered with London-based CloudHashing, to become one of the first artists to accept payments for music in Bitcoins. She believes that the use of digital currency lets her fans from across the world unite, using one currency.

Jamie Foxx

Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx has been involved in promoting the cryptocurrency exchange, COBINHOOD, which allows investors to trade cryptos with zero trading fees. While COBINHOOD’s ICO launch practices were regarded as somewhat controversial, celebrity involvement helps to crease a buzz around crypto trading and investing.

Nas

Rapper Nas has a flourishing career in the venture funding sector. His firm, QueensBridge Venture Partners, has invested in many companies, including the digital-wallet company, Coinbase.

Lionel Messi

Football star Lionel Messi is the global brand ambassador of Sirin Labs, the creator of a blockchain-based secure smartphone and PC. As a star with more than 90 million followers on his social media channels, Messi helped in spreading awareness about the benefits of blockchain.

Mike Tyson

Speaking of sport stars, boxing-legend Mike Tyson got into a partnership with Bitcoin Direct to introduce Bitcoin ATM, including a digital wallet for Android and iOS. He is a firm believer in the “Bitcoin Revolution” and the huge potential of the underlying technology.

Gwyneth Paltrow

Renowned actress Gwyneth Paltrow is also an entrepreneur. Bitcoin-based wallet start-up, Abra, pitched an idea to her during the shoot of one of her movies, which she liked immensely. Paltrow joined the project as an advisor.

Rapper Ghostface Killah

Famous rapper Ghostface Killah has invested in Cream Capital, which is involved in building the largest network of crypto ATMs in the world. The company offers tokens, called Cream Cash.

The Game

Hip-hop musician The Game joined the team at ParagonCoin in its 2017 ICO, which aimed to create a cannabis revolution on the blockchain.

Richard Sherman

Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman had announced on Facebook that his online store would start accepting Bitcoin payments, since it is the “currency of the future.” Sherman wanted to support an increasing number of fans who wanted to pay through this medium.

Argentina & Peru

Peer-to-peer market crypto trading hits record high in Peru and Argentina: P2P cryptocurrency trading activity has witnessed record highs in recent times in Latin American countries of Peru and Argentina following a lowly performance back at the start of this month.

In the previous week, Argentinian Peso (ARS) and Peruvian Sol (PEN) both experienced record activities in trading pairs with Bitcoin (BTC). The fragile economic condition and global interest in cryptocurrencies are seen as the vital reasons behind this sudden increase.

Could this be the running of the Bull for crypto?

Fingers crossed and my eyes are glued to the charts.

Cryptocurrency Will Revolutionize E-Commerce And Enrich Small Business

2018 has proven to be a remarkably difficult year for cryptocurrencies and at the moment it seems like the bear market will never end. Fortunately, cryptocurrencies exist for more than mere speculation and while the 2018 bear market may have crushed cryptocurrency prices, partnerships and adoptions have been on the rise. It’s during trying times such as these that we should remind ourselves that cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology exist to provide transparent, secure transactions that free up commerce from invisible hands and return power to the so called ‘little man’.

Venezuela Raises Minimum Wage 3,000% and Lots of Workers Get Fired

Since the new minimum wage was announced, business and industry groups in Caracas held a flurry of meetings. Lawyers have been holding advisory sessions with clients, and there have been difficult sit-downs among owners, employees and unions, all players in the nation’s heavily regulated employment economy.

Vizcaíno says he can’t let go of workers easily. If they believe they have been fired wrongly, they can complain to a Labor Ministry court, setting off a lengthy bureaucratic process akin to a trial.

Not far from Vizcaíno’s auto shop, dozens of workers fired after Maduro’s wage announcement gathered at the Labor Ministry’s doorstep. Many arrived as early as 7 a.m. seeking legal guidance on their dismissals but were prevented from entering after appointment times ran out. Many inspectors had been dispatched to see whether pharmacies, shops and factories closed without permission. Workers anxiously posed questions to officials who told them to come again the next day. Disappointed and confused, many left.

I think i found my new company vehicle

84 MPGe sign me up like asap. Man i need one of these for my freeway car this would really cut down on costs.

Crypto news

Google is reversing part of its sweeping ban on cryptocurrency-related advertising and plans to allow regulated crypto exchanges to buy ads in the United States and Japan. The new policy starts in October.

Bitcoin as A Cure for Africa’s Cash Addiction

Bitcoin is pushing the boundaries of economic change in Africa. In East Africa, a new deal between digital currency exchange Bitpesa and a Japanese firm shows Kenyans are using bitcoin to pay for used Japanese cars, cosmetics and electrical gadgets. In Nigeria, Sure Remit is helping make cash transfers cheaper and in Zimbabwe, TV subscriptions, university fees, and second-hand car imports.

Markets Update: Cryptocurrencies Dip Again Forming Consolidated Support

Just when cryptocurrency prices were starting to look better, digital asset markets shaved around $19 billion USD off the entire crypto-economy. Today the cryptocurrency ecosystem’s 1,900+ coins have an overall market capitalization of about $210 billion and about $14 billion in global trade volume.

This Tuesday bitcoin core (BTC) is valued around $6,435 as the cryptocurrency is down 2.4 percent over the last 24-hours. Still holding the top trade volume position BTC has about $4.4 billion in daily volume with a market valuation of around $111 billion. Ethereum (ETH) prices have dropped by 9.9 percent this Tuesday and one ETH is trading for $210 per coin at the time of publication. The third highest valued market capitalization held by ripple (XRP) saw seven-day gains of over 103 percent last week. This week is different for XRP as the currency is down 12 percent today ($0.45 per coin), but is still up 54 percent for the entire week. Bitcoin cash (BCH)values have dipped 6.4 percent today as one BCH is trading for $434 per coin today. 

The Dollar $ in trouble in Africa

The dominance of the United States dollar as a settlement currency in Africa is being challenged by emerging payment methods in financial technology and by native African fiat currencies. In the four years to 2017, fewer people in the continent of 1.2 billion transacted via the US dollar than they did with their local currencies or mobile money, and perhaps cryptocurrency.

North Korea Allegedly Uses a Mixer to Launder Money Using Crypto

North Korea is reportedly ramping up the use of cryptocurrencies to evade US economic sanctions. It’s also alleged that the country is developing its own native crypto asset to further assist moving money across borders, according to a duo of financial intelligence analysts from Washington D.C.

According to a detailed interview with Hong Kong-based business news publication, Asia Times, independent financial analysts Lourdes Miranda and Ross Delston believe that North Korea has been using cryptocurrencies to circumvent U.S. led economic sanctions.

The pair of analysts explain that North Korea would use a “mixer” also known as a “Laundry, Tumbler and a Washer” to move cryptocurrencies in such a way as to hide their tracks, which often includes sending the same type of cryptocurrency back to the original source.

Price Analysis

Monday, September 24: Both Ripple (XRP) and Ethereum (ETH) have taken hefty price hits today as the wider crypto markets see deep red, as data from Coin360 shows.

Are we doing better today?

When it comes to basic needs, the world is doing better. The amount of children who are dying before they reach five years old has been halved since 1990, The Economist reports. And income, life expectancy and education rates are up across the globe. But conditions like stress, anger and sadness have hit record highs, according to Gallup. And in wealthy nations like the U.S., some measures of well-being — like access to health care — are on the decline.

Become Obsessed with Your Goals

You either live the life you want or live with excuses as to why you never got it. When you make the things you want your life to be defined by an absolute must, rather than something you simply pursue out of interest, your excuses will quickly fade.

Lawmakers in the United States have reached out to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the nation’s tax collection agency, calling for clearer taxation rules concerning cryptocurrency.

The letter has been signed by Representatives David Schweikert, Darin LaHood, Lynn Jenkins, Brad Wenstrup, and Kevin Brady, who is the chairman of the committee on Ways and Means.

The open letter, dated 19 September, recalls a letter sent to the IRS over a year ago with regards to enforcement actions taken by the IRS against cryptocurrency holders. With some tone of complaint, the letter says that after this time, the IRS has expanded enforcement “without issuing any further guidance for taxpayers”.

Long Bitcoin, Short Banks.

JP Morgan, Citibank & Bank of America were part of a group of banks forced to pay a $6.2 Billion fine.

Why?

An antitrust case for forcing merchants to pay fees and prohibiting merchants from encouraging customers to use other payment methods.

Ripple To Release Much Anticipated xRapid As Soon As Next Month

In the last months, Ripple has been trying to avoid XRP being considered a security by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). However, during this time, the company has also been working in order to develop its products.

One of these products is the aforementioned xRapid. It was created with the intention to enable the settlement of value using the XRP currency. There are several financial institutions that have tested the product and confirmed the positive results.

Customers that used xRapid have seen a huge improvement in their cross-border payments. Financial companies were able to reduce between 40% to 70% of trading fees. At the same time, transactions settled in just a few seconds compared to hours or days with other systems.

Corey Johnson, Market Strategist at Ripple explained that the volatility for this product is minimum due to the fact that transactions take less than a minute to be processed.

All eyes would now be on ICE’s Bakkt launch in November which is believed to comfort the SEC.

According to the details given in the update Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc (termed as exchange) has presented some strong arguments and given its view as to why it is difficult to manipulate Bitcoin prices and markets. According to the exchange’s arguments, the geographically diverse and continuous nature of bitcoin trading makes it difficult and prohibitively costly to manipulate the price of bitcoin.

It also further states that the fragmentation across bitcoin platforms, the relatively slow speed of transactions, and the capital necessary to maintain a significant presence on each trading platform make manipulation of bitcoin prices through continuous trading activity makes the price manipulation further difficult. Considering these facts, the exchange concludes the Bitcoin market is generally less susceptible to manipulation than the equity, fixed income, and commodity futures markets. 

Despite already receiving more than 1,400 comment letters on a proposal to list an ETF from Van Eck Securities Corp. and SolidX Management, the Securities and Exchange Commission is inviting more feedback, the agency said in its new order which was issued with respect to the Bitcoin ETF.

Those who wish to comment have 21 days after the SEC’s order is published in the Federal Register, while rebuttals have 35 days from that date. The agency is seeking views on market manipulation — including whether Bitcoin is less susceptible to manipulation than other commodities that back exchange-traded products — as well as surveillance.

The time is nearing

Hope you all hanging on in this turbulence

XRP Posts Double Digit Gains In Price Reversal

XRP (XRP)–Despite being embattled in a year long bear cycle, with the trend extending into deep negative territory over the past several weeks, XRP has posted a double-digit gain in price on the day reversing the otherwise downward trend in valuation.

While most of the cryptomarkets struggle to maintain valuations experienced even earlier in the summer, altcoins in particular have taken a beating throughout the month of September. Bitcoin has managed to find some stability trading around $6500, but the remainder of the market with Ethereum and XRP being two prominent coins in terms of market capitalization, have not faired nearly as well. On Tuesday XRP, the third largest cryptocurrency with a capitalization of $12.5 billion, posted double digit gains, reaching as high as a 18 percent increase in one point to bring the price of the token back above $0.30. While the coin has been on the losing end of a bearish downturn, with the price of XRP continuing to sink relative to the dollar, today marked a strong reversal in downward price turn.

Very long night

I'm barely laying down for the night and it's almost time to get up smh. I guess this the life I chose and have to suck it up. I'll try for 2 hours of sleep and try to catch opening bell because I never got a chance to set some limit buys. Well good night traders talk to you when the sun comes up.

Business Joke

I asked a guy, "How many people work at you guys company"

He replied: "About half of them"   hahahahahahahaha

Now that was a classic line if i ever heard one.

Trump's sanctions on Iran could push oil prices above $100 per barrel

U.S. sanctions on Iran's energy industry, when they come into effect in November, could potentially drive oil prices above $100 per barrel, according to an industry expert.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures traded at about $68 per barrel on Tuesday, while Brent crude futures sat at nearly $78.

"If there was not that set of sanctions, I think prices would go to $70 or even a little bit lower. But now the sanctions threat is real and less than two months in front of us, that will transform the market into much higher prices," Fereidun Fesharaki, founder and chairman of consultancy FACTS Global Energy, told CNBC's Akiko Fujita at the CLSA Investors' Forum in Hong Kong.

"The higher price will only be blamed on the Trump administration. There's not much anybody can do if the sanctions come in and are enforced properly," he said on Tuesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from an international agreement to curb Iran's nuclear program has resulted in a round of sanctions being re-imposed on the country's financial, automotive, aviation and metals sectors. The U.S. State Departmenthas set Nov. 4 as a deadline for Iranian oil buyers to completely cut their purchases to avoid American sanctions.

Iran is currently one of the largest oil exporters in the world. Cutting off Iranian supplies entirely would push oil prices above $100 per barrel because other major producers could not easily fill the void, said Fesharaki.

Goldman admits it was wrong on Apple, boosts stock outlook by 20 percent

Goldman Sachs raised its price target on Apple stock all the way to $240 per share from $200 per share on Thursday, admitting they got the stock completely wrong this summer as it rallied to a $1 trillion valuation.

Goldman laid out its expectations for the next generation of iPhones and reversed its previous bearish position on the technology giant.

"We also take this opportunity to eat our hat somewhat on our cautious stance this Summer," Goldman analyst Rod Hall said in a note. "We had expected worse iPhone X demand and some pullback in the stock — clearly neither of these two things happened."

Building a business, things to keep track of

When trying to gauge your progress it can be useful to measure progress in three month and two year blocks.

You should be able to see how you will add value and grow your business over the next three months. When you look back you can measure how this played out.

Noticeable progress in terms of AUM and revenue growth should be measured over a two year period. This is where you should see significant improvement.

It is important to have realistic expectations in terms of how long it will take to build a sustainable business.

It is also important to know when things are not progressing. This could be a sign that you need to adjust your strategy.

If you look back over the last two years and nothing has improved this is a bad sign and requires action.

If you run out of ideas for growing your business over the next three months then this also calls for a re-think.

The early stages of your business are the most vulnerable and creating a robust business model from the start will insulate you.

This means generating as many different income streams as possible and having a strategy to cover all of your costs.

Latium workspace now hiring, Get paid in Cryptocurrency

Have you heard about the latium coin and all it's doing? This is a pretty smooth platform you must try out people. Here is the link to get started and earn money working on the blockchain. There is already employers on the platform looking for workers and offering pay. You will be paid in cryptocurrency but hey who don't mind that? Click this link and grab you a JOB!!!!

                        https://latium.org/welcome?welcome_id=K4e1yr4o

Amazon news

Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) on Tuesday became the second U.S. company to reach $1 trillion in stock market value, just weeks after Apple Inc (AAPL.O) hit the same milestone on Aug. 2.

Bitcoin poised for $10K

August was a thrilling month for all crypto investors. Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency in terms of market value, plunged by more than $1,400 in less than 10 days, which is a steep drop by any standard that it caused many traders to fear that it might breach the $6,000 mark. Thankfully, those fears never materialized, and the token was able to recover quickly. But that’s not all, some experts believe that Bitcoin will continue its rally until it eventually reaches $10,000.

Branding your company could be difficult

If you introduce product/service details too soon, prospects won’t yet have enough context for why those details are important, and they’ll tune out.

Instead, first present a “teaser” vision of the happily-ever-after that your product/service will help the prospect achieve—what I call the Promised Land.

Your Promised Land should be both desirable (obviously) and difficult for the prospect to achieve without outside help. Otherwise, why does your company exist?

HOT Makes Into Top 50 Coins on CoinMarketCap

What is so amazing about this is the lack of marketing or hype surrounding this project.

Tom Lee, speaks highly of BTC

 Lee is a Bitcoin permabull known for his optimistic price targets for the dominant cryptocurrency, has said that Bitcoin will likely end the year explosively higher possibly at $20,000.

Still, despite the weak performance of emerging market ETFs, Lee expects the price of Bitcoin to surpass $20,000 by the end of 2018, expecting a large rally like the December price movement of Bitcoin in 2017.

If emerging markets recover by the year’s end and developments in the global finance industry gear towards the devaluation of the US dollar, Lee believes the price of Bitcoin will experience an explosive movement before December.

DFINITY Raises $102 Million Dollars to Build Decentralized Internet Computer

This is not the first time that these companies invest in the blockchain firm. Earlier this year, both firms invested in a $61 million round that aimed to enhance early blockchain development. Since 2015, DFINITY has raised $195 million dollars.

The Internet Computer is a public infrastructure that aims to host the next generation of software and services. Compared to other networks, it is significantly cheaper to use and is more secure.

Soccer & Cryptocurrency

In what could herald mass adoption of cryptocurrencies, English premier league clubs, in partnership with eToro, are testing how cryptocurrencies and the blockchain can be used in football.

 

The teams include; Tottenham Hotspur, Crystal Palace, Cardiff City F.C., Brighton & Hove Albion F.C., Newcastle United F.C., Leicester City F.C., and Southampton F.C. The crypto exchange has helped all seven premier league clubs set up Bitcoin wallets and also receive their first BTC payments.

Actor involved in BTC scam

A 22-year-old Finnish man, Aarni Otava Saarimaa, was the victim of a Bitcoin scam in Thailand. He was persuaded to invest over 5,500 BTC in a venture that would use the funds to invest in Dragon Coin, another cryptocurrency. One of the reasons the venture caught his eye was that it involved a popular Thai actor, Jiratpisit “Boom” Jaravijit. The actor finally made his first court appearance where he maintained his innocence of the fraud charges being levied against him.

The controversial McAfee endorsed Bitcoin wallet, Bitfi, has withdrawn their claim of being “unhackable” from their website

Following a series of notable hacks, one such attack on the device was conducted by a team of security researchers who found that the local keys can be extracted from the device’s memory by running a basic code that can take memories from the device. The researchers told TechCrunch that their attack is “is both reliable and practical, requiring no specialist hardware.”