altcoindaily Veteran trader Raoul Pal says the price of Bitcoin can easily rise to as high as $476,000 in the long-term. Raoul Pal, the CEO and founder at Real Vision, believes the price of Bitcoin (BTC) can reach $476,000 in the long-term. Pal is not alone in this belief as hedge fund managers like Morgan Creek Digital’s Mark Yusko have also made similar predictions in the past. Currently, the price of Bitcoin hovers at around $9,700 and high-profile investors like Max Keiser and Mark Yusko believe Bitcoin can rise to $500,000 in the long-term under two simple scenarios. One requires Bitcoin to overtake the gold market and the other stipulates that Bitcoin operates in a strong ecosystem. Pal said: If it becomes an ecosystem, and we believe it will be and it will take the whole ecosystem with it as well, then yes, I think a $10 trillion number is easily achievable within that process. Bitcoin’s current market cap is $177 billion. The figure is reached by multiplying the circulating supply of 18,377,331 BTC to the market price. The total market capitalization of gold is estimated to be $8 trillion, meaning Bitcoin’s market capitalization is merely 2.2% of gold. This shows that Bitcoin is still in an early phase of growth. A growing number of investors, institutions, and hedge fund managers are actively exploring alternatives to traditional assets to store wealth. Investors fear that over the long run the Fed’s current policy of printing record high amounts of cash will lead to the devaluation of the U.S. dollar. Veteran investors like Peter Schiff frequently argue that gold is one of the best hedges against market volatility and while this is true, there are limitations such as fungibility and the ease of transporting the asset. By nature, Bitcoin is a blockchain network that is run by node operators, miners, and developers. Every transaction that is settled on the network is like a piece of data that is confirmed and verified by miners. As such, it is transp

altcoindaily Stablecoin Tether has just surpassed XRP as the third-largest cryptocurrency and was the second-largest altcoin behind Ethereum’s Ether (ETH) for a brief moment. Tether’s USDT has just surpassed XRP in market capitalization, becoming the third-biggest cryptocurrency in the moments leading into the Bitcoin halving. Sitting with a market cap of $8.79 Billion, it is now bigger than XRP, whose market cap is roughly $8.6 billion. USDT is currently second only to Ether (ETH) as the largest altcoin in the cryptocurrency market. The market cap rise comes as a result of the constant increase in the supply of USDT, the majority of which circulates on the Ethereum blockchain. There have also been huge inflows of USDT into exchanges in recent weeks in the run-up to the Bitcoin halving. While it is normal for exchanges to hold large amounts of USDT, especially ahead of a big event like the halving, it can also be considered as a bullish sign for Bitcoin as investors may be preparing to buy cryptocurrencies with USDT. Brian Quinlivan, marketing and social media director at cryptocurrency data provider Santiment had this to say, Most USDT isn't just being taken off exchanges to be stored in wallets or cashed out through a FIAT-based platform like Coinbase. When people aren't using USDT, they most often put it in Bitcoin. And what's cool is the fact that this USDT percentage often fluctuates a few hours or days in advance of BTC's price reacting to it. So monitoring this metric in advance can end up producing a tremendous advantage by catching a sudden fluctuation early enough. Tether USDT dwarfs other stablecoins by market capitalization, trading volume, users and every other metric. Tether has also expanded beyond the dollar and has launched stablecoins pegged to the Chinese yuan, the CNHT, the euro as well as gold. Other stablecoins like USDC, PAX and TUSD lag behind, with USDC having a market capitalization of $707.64 million. USDT is also the most popular BTC