Please Confirm Two-Factor Authentication Need some help?Bitfinex is the world's largest and most advanced bitcoin trading platform OPEN ACCOUNT VIEW DEMO Read More Read More Read More Read More Read More Read More Visualize your orders, positions, and price alerts Drag to change price Tap to modify order properties See your position profits TradingView Stay Connected We've created the mobile tools youneed for trading on the go.View Bitfinex API Documentation 24 hour 7 day 30 day BTC/USD 8,067.10 114,925.44 713,913.55 ETH/USD 25,865.82 593,870.78 4,096,503.99 ETH/BTC 45,963.01 491,017.19 2,042,571.91 ETC/USD 84,165.28 2,084,082.19 13,946,823.38 ETC/BTC 35,311.93 1,074,581.84 6,852,574.93 ZEC/USD 1,186.37 27,665.87 214,605.29 More market data Total active funding Amount used in margin pos.

USD 67,721,685.52 67,400,432.34 BTC 14,228.50 14,196.61 ETH 352,296.94 351,498.59 ETC 40,309.51 39,607.69 ZEC 12,126.26 11,714.24 XMR 39,325.13 39,257.48 LTC 107,811.40 106,497.61 DASH 54,722.69 54,385.40 More market data Start trading within minutesDiscover the world's largest and most advanced bitcoin trading platform now.Open Account VIEW DEMOCryptocurrency markets have been going through a wild ride for a few weeks now.The threat of a bitcoin hard fork together with PoS expectations on Ethereum and the rise of zero-knowledge have rocked the markets.Investors flocked into Dash, Ether, Monero and other lesser known cryptocurrencies, abandoning bitcoin and overlooking Litecoin.That changed over the weekend, when Litecoin prices surged suddenly to above $8 USD.No one can say with certainty why this happened, but there are a few plausible explanations.The first and most obvious explanation about why Litecoin prices surged lately, has to do with reports about SegWit signaling on its network.

Litecoin works in a very similar way to bitcoin, which means it also faces some of the transaction issues that bitcoin faces.Although Litecoin transactions are supposed to be at least 4 times faster than those on the bitcoin network, because a new block takes ¼ of the time to mine on this network, SegWit can accelerate transactions over the Litecoin blockchain even more.This means that if Litecoin adopts SegWit soon (signaling is near the 75% threshold), it could outflank bitcoin in terms of day to day micro transaction functions.This, combined with the fact that Litecoin is the closest bitcoin substitute in the market, could add a lot of value to this cryptocurrency.Under this logic, it is easy to claim that Litecoin is in fact undervalued even after the most recent surge.This should give its price more room to grow at least in the following days.The other possible explanation for the recent rise in Litecoin prices could be related to SegWit signaling.Reports have pointed to Chinese investors pouring more funds into Litecoin lately.

Chinese investors could be positioning themselves to gain from the value that SegWit adoption can bring to Litecoin.It is also possible that they would like to put their money in a cryptocurrency that up until now has not attracted the same degree of attention that bitcoin has, due to crackdown threats from local authorities.sell litecoin for usdApart from the SegWit and China angles, there are some other reasons why Litecoin might be pulling up now.bitcoin ohne anmeldung kaufenInvestors might be looking for stability.ethereal oil patchThis sounds like a simple explanation to a puzzling phenomenon.bitcoin motorcycle clubLitecoin prices have been some of the most stable – if not the most stable – cryptocurrency prices for a long time.ethereal for linux

But then, the question would be why did investors wait until now to seek refuge in a more stable asset?High risk/high reward moves based on unique information might be the answer to that question.While the markets were in turmoil and bitcoin dipped to just over $900 USD, investors made aggressive moves into other cryptocurrencies that have some innovative or exciting characteristics.withdraw bitcoin from btc-eInvestors moved into zero-knowledge assets and assets that power smart contracts.bitcoin mining meaningMoving away from a bitcoin-like asset was the right move back then.bitcoin what is mh/sOnce the market was saturated, it was time to capitalize and move back to a bitcoin-like asset that doesn’t have the kind of political problems that bitcoin does.ethereum trading volume

An asset that fits that description provides some degree of stability, and its name is Litecoin.Now Litecoin must solidify these gains.It must go beyond a “the closest to bitcoin” tag and carve its own niche in the market to sustain its gains.The potential is there.Of all the major cryptocurrencies, Litecoin is the only one this year that has not surpassed its previous all-time high – around $50 USD.SegWit adoption will probably take Litecoin prices a step closer to this goal, but greater consumer adoption will be the key factor going forward.Without it, every possible explanation for Litecoin’s recent rise will become an explanation about why its price enjoyed a brief moment in the sun after walking in the shadow of bitcoin for years.Four Chinese bitcoin exchanges, including the three top exchanges in the world by volume, have each announced that they will start charging 0.2 percent fees on all trades, starting Tuesday the 24th.“We are implementing fee-based trading to curb market manipulation and extreme volatility,” said BTC China CEO Bobby Lee on a Sunday morning tweet.

Competitors OKCoin  and Huobi also told their customers of the changes that they have made at roughly the same time.1/ BTCChina, our CNY exchange, will start charging fees for bitcoin and litecoin trading from 12:00 PM (noon) UTC+8, Tuesday, January 24th.— BTCC (@YourBTCC) January 22, 2017 The first three identical announcements were released on Sunday morning, showing that they worked together and arranged to begin charging their customers fees at the same time.The following morning in China saw the Yunbi’s notice too, with the same fee and scheduled time for their change.Other exchanges in the country that charge no fees exist, such as BTC Trade, CHBTC, and Jubi.It has yet to be seen which the traders will choose on Tuesday; the biggest exchanges with the most liquidity but a 0.2% fee, or the many smaller exchanges with no fees.BTC/CNY 7 day performance with CHBTC, Jubi, BtcTrade - 23rd Jan 2017 Although the move was designed to reduce bitcoin’s volatility, the market reacted negatively to the news on Sunday.

Bitcoin’s price sank 6 percent over the hours following the first twitter announcement, dropping just below US$900 before rebounding.The cause for the fee rate change was well documented and expected by many.Ten days earlier bitcoin’s price plunged on news of China’s Central Bank, the PBoC sending inspectors to all three exchanges in both Shanghai and Beijing offices, in order to investigate for themselves if the exchanges were manipulating trading volumes.1/ A group of regulators consisting of the SH branch of PBOC, the SH Financial Affairs office & other related govt agencies visited BTCC.— BTCC (@YourBTCC) January 11, 2017 Starting soon after the inspection on January 11th, which tanked bitcoin’s price 16 percent before rebounding, the Chinese exchange volumes have sunk from highs around 94 percent of the global bitcoin trading volume, down to the present 70 percent at press time.If traders at those exchanges look to other currencies to trade in order to avoid fees, the price could sink much lower on Tuesday.

The drop in bitcoin trade volumes from China on the 11th was just the start of the fallout from the PBoC’s visit, but some exchanges showed their response sooner than others.The only exchange to show an extreme drop-off in trading volume after the PBoC’s inspection was the number four exchange by Chinese volume, BTCTrade, for whom there is no evidence suggesting that regulators have visited.BTC/CNY 24hr performance chart, 14th Jan 2017 On January 14th the volume of bitcoins traded as reported by BTCTrade’s own price API feed dropped drastically from 772,770 to 53,582 Yuan traded within 5 minutes, a level it had not seen for years.Only a month before it was reporting that it had been trading 2.3 million in 5 minutes, but since the 13th BTCTrade’s daily volumes have stayed below 56,000, dipping to around 10,000 a few times.The company has not made any changes to their existing fee-free policy so far, and has been keeping quiet about the volume change on their website and twitter account.

The fee rate adjustments are only the first of a few changes Lee has suggested will be coming to appease the Chinese regulators.As soon as the price stabilized, Lee took to twitter asking his followers if they’d like to consider using mBTC as the primary unit of bitcoin while trading.“Certain ppl think it's bad when #Bitcoin prices rises too fast,” Lee tweeted.“To help w/ perception, #Chinese exchanges may move to trading in #mBTC.” Like with the fee adjustment, Lee is planning to change the bitcoin unit of measurement on his site along with his competitors at other bitcoin exchanges in China.“The plan (#mBTC units) has been discussed amongst local #Chinese exchanges, & we believe it will appease the regulators, w/ "lower" prices,” he explained on twitter.Many bitcoin wallets today allow users to toggle their units of bitcoin already, typically a three-way setting between bitcoins, ‘millibits,’ (mBTC) and ‘bits,’ which refer to one millionth of a bitcoin.“Ech #Bitcoin will get a 1,000-for-1 split, and become 1,000 mBTC,” Lee explained to his customers.

In response to his tweets, both on twitter and Reddit, many called instead for a switch to ‘bits’ instead of mBTC.Unit Value in BTC @ $1000 per BTC BTC 1 $1000 mBTC 0.001 $1.00 uBTC 0.000001 $0.00 Satoshi 0.00000001 $0.00 If all three of the most popular bitcoin exchanges in the world switch to millibits or bits, thousands of traders would be using the new unit daily, which could be the start of a greater push to popularize the usage of that unit worldwide.Both the loss of fake trading volume and the plan to switch bitcoin’s units in China are being hailed as great news for bitcoin in the forums and chatrooms.Several highly optimistic opinions can be seen across all bitcoin social media outlets about the move, despite the obvious loss in price since the first announcement.While being forced to pay fees on trades is certainly unhappy news for the bitcoin market traders, the general feeling is that Bitcoin itself could gain a lot of stability and credibility in China from the move.

“The People's Bank of China has essentially just given general Bitcoin trading an explicit blessing,” noted user therflar on Reddit, “selectively limiting only certain types of activities on the exchanges and providing clarity with regards to regulatory compliance.” Even some traders felt the news was more positive than negative.Reddit bitcoinmarkets forum trader moononrainbow noted that “This is one of the best news we could have expected from the Chinese exchanges.As Bobby Lee said, this move is intended to "appease" the Chinese authorities and I believe it will.” He also mentioned that China will be “less of a leader on price,” meaning that the rest of the world won’t have to suffer so much from the effects of China’s local problems in bitcoin’s price like we did on the 11th.Meanwhile, the second largest currency to trade against bitcoin, the Japanese Yen, has doubled their marketshare recently to 16.7 percent of global bitcoin trade.Due to leading Japanese exchange Bitflyer’s policy of having zero fees on trading bitcoin,  the company and competitor Zaif are in the same position as the three Chinese companies, and may one day have to halt their fee-free trading as well.