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The CEO of popular Chinese cryptocurrency exchange IDAX, Lei Guorong, has disappeared, according to a statement made by the exchange today. The statement strongly suggests that Guorong escaped with the majority of the exchange's money on the same day it announced its withdrawal from China, following a recent crackdown on crypto exchanges in the country.

According to the statement, the rest of the exchange's team cannot access its cold storage walletan offline, more secure way of storing cryptocurrencieswhich stores almost all of its funds because of the CEO's disappearance. This suggests that Guorong is the only person with access to all the funds.

As a result, the exchange has shut down deposits and withdrawals.

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The statement said the exchange has been out of contact with its CEO since November 24. This was the same day that China announced it had shut down 173 crypto exchanges in the country. The exchange was unable to provide a reason for the CEO's unexpected departure.

Today's statement confirms suspicions surrounding IDAX, which had been floating around on social media since November 26, after a story posted on Weibo accused the CEO with running off with user funds.

Although the platform technically has several CEOs (one for each of its international branches) and the statement did not name the CEO, it is widely suspected that the announcement refers to Guorong, who founded the exchange.

IDAX Global is doing its best to try to grasp variety of news and current situation exactly including rumor on internet community," said the exchange.

The exchange recommended that users refrain from using its services, at least until an alternative or backup withdrawal service is established. Despite this, the exchange still appears to have significant trade activity, with more than $700 million traded in the last 24 hours.

Meanwhile, the IDAX overseas Telegram group remains inaccessible to new users, after being blocked by Telegram's automatic porn filter, whereas the Chinese Telegram community has been deleted. Nonetheless, frustrated users have turned their attention to the IDAX Twitter account, with dozens of comments hoping that this isn't an exit scam.

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Nobody knows what happened to this bitcoin exchange CEO - Decrypt

Despite the strong recovery of bitcoin from its dip to $6,516 on November 25, low prices could leave the cryptocurrency market vulnerable to declining sentiment by the years end.

Unlike other markets, bitcoins trading activity does not significantly decline during holiday seasons, creating an environment for traders and investors that is different to existing markets.

As said by Arca chief investment officer Jeff Dorman, bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market, in general, tend to be swayed by sentiment and emotion more than traditional markets.

As such, when a rally begins, the price of bitcoin often increases by two to three-fold and when a correction occurs, bitcoin tends to contract by 50 to 80 percent.

Since achieving $10,600 on October 26, the bitcoin price has fallen to below $6,600, by almost 40 percent against the U.S. dollar.

For bitcoins short to medium term price trend, momentum is key. If the bitcoin price starts to show signs that it will end 2019 below important resistance levels, the sentiment is likely to carry over to December.

Price and emotions tend to work together so when prices are at all-time highs, everyone is euphoric and probably way over their skis with regard to how fast this industry is going to grow. And when things are in contraction, prices are down, everyone is depressed and acting like the world is ending, Dorman said.

A similar scenario played out in December 2018, when the bitcoin price crashed sub-$4,000 during a month that historically has seen large gains like in 2017.

In November, as the bitcoin price stabilized above $6,000, investors anticipated the price of bitcoin to begin recovering gradually, targeting its record high at $20,000 in 2019.

However, bitcoin crashed by 50 percent instead, and that sentiment was carried across 2019 and the first quarter of this year.

Although bitcoin has recovered from $6,600 with strength and is likely to see more upside movement in the short term due to oversold conditions shown by technical indicators, low volumes show that there may not be enough buying demand at the current price range.

Technical analysts have been targeting a rebound to the $8,000 region following the dip to $6,600 by the dominant cryptocurrency, but analysts remain cautious on whether the recovery can extend to the $9,000s and $10,000s.

I'm always hesitant to predict prices in the short term [as opposed to the medium term] as I think the shorter the TM the more random/ less probable the prediction becomes. Nevertheless, wouldn't surprise me to see price move sideways and volatile in the short term, a prominent trader known as Dave the Wave said.

More here:
Will Bitcoin Hit Peak Exhaustion in 2019 End? What Indicators Show - U.Today

In 2013, we found out that Bitcoin mining might be bad for the environment, since the process requires a lot of computing power and therefore a lot of energy, and we were like:

Then in 2017, we heard about findings that said the electricity needed for cryptocurrency would soon outpace whats available, requiring new power plants to come online to feed the demand, and we were like:

Six months later, we read a study that found that Bitcoins energy usage had doubled since that last study came out and was expected to double again in the same amount of time, and we were like:

By the end of 2018, when a new study found that Bitcoin could single-handedly push the planet to 2 degrees C of warming and lock in catastrophic climate change, we were like:

But now, theres new evidence that Bitcoins energy footprint might not be as high as previously reported.

A recent study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology did a life-cycle assessment of the Bitcoin mining network and arrived at a lower carbon footprint than previous studies. The studys authors calculated a total of 17.29 metric tons of CO2 equivalent emitted in 2018, as compared to other studies that reported anywhere from 22 to 63 metric tons.

The difference primarily came down to the way they looked at carbon emissions in China. The authors estimate that more than half of all Bitcoin mining takes place there. They claim that earlier assessments assumed carbon emissions from electricity generation were the same everywhere in the country, but thats not the case. Some regions, like inner Mongolia, burn a lot of coal, while others, like Sichuan, use more hydropower. When the researchers broke down emissions by region, the total global Bitcoin footprint came down significantly.

The findings certainly dont let those libertarian nerdbucks off the hook. On the one hand we have these alarmist voices saying we wont hit the Paris agreement because of Bitcoin only, Susanne Khler, one of the authors of the study, told New Scientist. But on the other hand there are a lot of voices from the Bitcoin community saying that most of the mining is done with green energy and that its not high impact. The truth is somewhere between these extremes.

The problem with all of these estimates is that there just isnt enough reliable data on the cryptocurrency to calculate its footprint with a high level of certainty. The academic literature on Bitcoin is thin. In this case, the authors attempted to use an established method a life-cycle assessment that had not been used in previous studies. But they still had to make several assumptions about where cryptocurrency mining is taking place and what equipment is being used, both of which they think deserve more research. It is important to highlight that this analysis and its results are characterized by an intrinsic uncertainty, they write.

In other words, scientists still dont fully understand what Bitcoin is doing to the planet. Which makes us feel better about the fact that we dont understand how the hell Bitcoin works in the first place.

As a nonprofit news outlet, we rely on reader support to help fund our award-winning environmental journalism. Were one of the few news outlets dedicated exclusively to people-focused environmental coverage, and we believe our content should remain free and accessible to all our readers. If you dig our work and agree news should never sit behind a paywall only available to a select few, donate today to help sustain our climate coverage. Donate now, and all gifts will be matched dollar-for-dollar through December 31! Double your impact today.

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Bitcoin is hard to understand. So is its carbon footprint. - Grist

If you were offered 100 bitcoin for free, would you hesitate to jump on the opportunity? Chances are, you wont think twice to supercharge your stockpile of satoshis. With bitcoin trading around $7,000, 100 BTCs is worth $700,000

Well, a certain professor and TV host in China was offered 100 BTCs for free on air. His name is Lang Xianping, also known as Larry. Back in 2014, the lucky professor shocked the crypto community when he refused the offer. At the time, the top cryptocurrency was trading at $650.

Heres a clip of the show from 2014 (with the meme ending).

At that time, 100 $BTC was about USD $65,000.Today, thats over $700,000! pic.twitter.com/ty54upovlX

Bobby Lee Ballet: Simple & Elegant Wallet (@bobbyclee) November 26, 2019

According to Larry, the number one cryptocurrency has no value. Would he change his mind now that bitcoin is worth $700,000?

Apparently, the professor is sticking to his guns. Recently, Larry was asked again on TV if he would accept free bitcoin. Surprisingly, he insisted on refusing because its worthless.

Remember in 2014, TV host professor Lang Xianping Larry would NOT accept Bitcoin even if given to him for free, b/c he thinks its worthless.Now 5 yrs later, he was just asked again about this on a TV interview: still insisting he would refuse $BTC b/c its worthless. https://t.co/6LGDgMkpq3 pic.twitter.com/EjrGoPYKhh

Bobby Lee Ballet: Simple & Elegant Wallet (@bobbyclee) November 26, 2019

Im not sure what Larry is smoking but Im having none of that. Thinking that bitcoin is worthless is hypocritical and shows total ignorance of how money works.

I hope Larry gets to read this article so he learns that bitcoin fares so much better than fiat currency in the four properties of money. For instance, sound money should be a safe store of value. The U.S. dollar is an awful store of value, having lost 96% of its value in 100 years. With the Federal Reserve printing more money, the greenback is bound to lose more purchasing power.

On the other hand, bitcoin maybe volatile but the volatility has been on the upside. If Larry accepted the 100 BTC in 2014, he would have made over 992% in gains by today.

Another property of sound money is scarcity. Bitcoin is the most scarce currency in existence. There will only be 21 million BTCs ever mined. Meanwhile, governments can print as much fiat currency as they want.

Also, bitcoin is divisible just like the dollar or the Renminbi. The number one cryptocurrency is divisible to eight decimal points. Each decimal point or unit is referred to as a satoshi.

Lastly, bitcoin performs a lot better in the transferability aspect of sound money than paper currency. If you want to transfer fiat currency to a person in another country, it might take days before the cash reaches the recipient. With bitcoin, the transfer may take less than an hour. Thats the power of blockchain technology maintained by a healthy network of miners.

These are some of the reasons why bitcoin is worth more than any fiat currency. In fact, one BTC is worth 700,000% more than one U.S. dollar. If Larry the professor uses paper currency, claiming that bitcoin is worthless is just hypocrisy.

Disclaimer: The above should not be considered trading advice from CCN. The writer owns bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. He holds investment positions in the coins but does not engage in short-term or day-trading.

This article was edited by Sam Bourgi.

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TV Host Refusing Free 100 Bitcoin Because Its Worthless Is Hypocritical - CCN.com