On Friday we reported that the price was around $665 and that there were no signs that the price is likely to increase. It turns out that we were right as the price decreased further and we start this week with a price that is much closer to $650 than to $670. Still, this is not a worrying trend, as the market cap remains strong above $10 billion and the traded volume in the last 24 hours still exceeds $100 million.
Despite the fact that the Bitcoin is now a well-established and renowned currency, there are still people who try to scam others online. The latest case was a thirty three year old man from Texas who pulled a con on several investors, encouraging them to deposit to his investment program named Bitcoin Savings & Trust. It turned out, the man couldn’t be trusted. Fortunately, he got what he deserved and he will be forced to return more than $1.2 million to investors.
Price Remains Stable, Traded Volume over $100 Million
The indicators on Friday almost unanimously sent a signal to sell and it the price dropped more than $10 during the weekend. At one point it was as low as $645. Soon it rose back to $650 and that the price was around that figure throughout the weekend. It remained in the range $650 – $655 throughout Sunday and it remains pretty much the same today.
The traded volume of over $100 million in the past 24 hours indicates that the price might rise again, but even if it does it won’t be more than $665 with the $670 being the bottom line. And if the price falls, again it won’t be a step fall. We can expect the price to remain in the range $650 – $665 in the next few days.
Some experts have already claimed that the decrease of the amount of Bitcoins that are added to the system on the regular basis is having a stabilising effect on the price. Others saw correlation between the drop of the price of the Bitcoin and the increase of the price of the Ethereum, which suffered a major blow last month.
Man Who Ran Bitcoin Ponzi Scheme Sentenced to Prison
The case of Trendon Shavers is the first federal case that has to do with a Bitcoin scam scheme. Shavers advertised his website on a popular Bitcoin website in order to attract investors was arrested in 2014. He was facing up to 40 years in penitentiary, but he was sentenced to one and a half years.
The scheme was pretty simple, he promised a 7% weekly return on all Bitcoin investments. He then simply disappeared with the money. It was later discovered that he sent the money he received from his customers to his own personal accounts. He used his bank account, Dwolla, PayPal, as well as pre-paid credit cards.
Evidence was presented that he used more than $200K, both in Bitcoin and US dollars to pay his personal expenses. The prosecutor accused Shavers that he was running a classic Ponzi scheme. There have been a lot of Ponzi schemes in the past, but this is the first that involves Bitcoins.
Shavers admitted that he did wrong and pledged to try and make things better. Meanwhile, the Bitcoin community hopes that this will be the first and last case of a Bitcoin Ponzi scheme, as the Bitcoin doesn’t need any bad publicity.