{"id":14362,"date":"2017-07-11T09:00:12","date_gmt":"2017-07-11T16:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=14362"},"modified":"2017-08-08T09:40:31","modified_gmt":"2017-08-08T16:40:31","slug":"calculated-thought-cryptocurrencies-are-the-new-wild-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2017\/07\/11\/calculated-thought-cryptocurrencies-are-the-new-wild-west\/","title":{"rendered":"Calculated Thought<\/em>: Cryptocurrencies are the new Wild West"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a turbulent road to the mainstream, cryptocurrencies are making headlines. Most of this new hype isn\u2019t discussing the revolutionary blockchain technology that runs these systems, but the gargantuan price rally that major coins have experienced since the beginning of 2017.<\/p>\n

Early adopters have made out swimmingly. Initially valued at $0.0008 USD per coin\u2014the estimated cost of computing power that it took to create\u2014in 2009, bitcoin now trades at over $3,000 CDN per coin. Ether, the second largest crypto-coin by market cap, was trading at around $10 at the beginning of 2017. It is now teetering around $350 to $400.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Calculated Thought<\/em> is a column dealing with student finances that is featured in every issue of Nexus<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Most of these currencies fluctuate drastically. Those swings in price are catching the attention of the day traders who stick to stocks and foreign currency exchanges, known as forex.<\/p>\n

Forex trading is particularly attractive to traders for its volatility. After the gold standard was abandoned and fiat currencies were subject to supply and demand in a global market, currencies were left open to rapid changes in price, and traders took advantage of that.<\/p>\n

The forex market is now the world\u2019s largest, at its peak trading nearly $6 trillion per day. <\/i>
\nForex used to be the Wild West. Fiat currencies are inextricably linked to the interest rate of that country, or to the rates of the country in which the currency is pegged. But new regulations in response to scandals, and low and stable interest rates brought on by the 2009 financial crisis, have calmed down those variations, making it harder for traders to bank on volatility.<\/p>\n

As digital currencies have become more palatable to the masses, the crypto market has seen a huge influx of interest. There are now over 600 actively traded cryptocurrencies, and together they have doubled their market cap since May of this year, reaching $100 billion USD.<\/p>\n

Crypto exchanges are increasingly adhering to the same regulatory standards as stock exchanges; now, AVAtrade, one of the largest forex exchanges, offers cryptocurrency trading on its platform.<\/p>\n

Now that cryptocurrencies are liquid, there is no telling what will happen. I\u2019ve watched the market (and put in a bit of \u201cplay money\u201d) and I can say it is a rollercoaster.<\/p>\n

Recently, due to a massive sell-off on the popular exchange GDAX, stop-loss orders and margin calls were triggered, causing a massive drop in the price of ether down to $0.10 per coin. Anyone who had buy orders at this ridiculously low price would have seen them filled. A bet of $100 would have bought 1,000 units of ether, which would have quickly shot back up and been worth $350,000 only seconds later.<\/p>\n

This behaviour brings up worry of market manipulation, which is probably going on. This market is still growing and maturing, and it\u2019s anyone\u2019s guess where it is heading.<\/p>\n

I, for one, wish for the success of the technology and its revolutionary possibilities.<\/p>\n

I just hope the money doesn\u2019t get in the way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a turbulent road to the mainstream, cryptocurrencies are making headlines. Most of this new hype isn\u2019t discussing the revolutionary blockchain technology that runs these systems, but the gargantuan price rally that major coins have experienced since the beginning of 2017. Early adopters have made out swimmingly. Initially valued at $0.0008 USD per coin\u2014the estimated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,195],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-july-12-2017"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14362"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14363,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14362\/revisions\/14363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}