At the end of the day, it seems I wasn't the only one flustered by the Status ICO event yesterday. These ICOs are getting very popular and are an amazing way to get in on the ground floor of some really great projects, provided that people understand the risks of course.
However, they are starting to expose some serious flaws in the Ethereum network. The Status coin generation was supposed to last until July 4th but due to the overwhelming amount of investors, it reached its cap of 300,000 tokens in just 3 hours.
The worst part is, that it completely clogged the Ethereum network. Many websites, including Coinbase, Shapeshift, and Bitfinex, had to completely halt all transactions on Ethereum and Ethereum based tokens for several hours.
The network was never built to handle this type of concentrated pressure and seemingly does not intend to in the future. According to a tweet from MEW this morning, this is not their problem and they don't intend to fix it.
For anybody planning an ICO in the near future, we highly recommend to learn from this experience and figure out a way to generate your coins without causing this type of strain on the system.
Today's Highlights
EU Summit EU Citizens
Oil Fallout
Litecoin Stabilizing
Please Note: All data, figures, & graphs are valid as of June 22nd. All trading carries risk. Only risk capital you can afford to lose.
Market Overview
Today Theresa May will attend her first EU Summit since the disastrous elections earlier this month.
May will outline her proposal for what she would like to do with the European citizens that currently live inside the UK, a particularly sensitive subject. To make matters worse, May still hasn't struck any deal with the DUP making her an extremely fragile difficult woman.
Experts say that the Northern Irish are just playing tough to get and expect a deal by early next week, most likely with a £2,000,000,000 infrastructure spending bill for Northern Ireland.
The bigger question is, what those £2 Billion will be worth next week. The Pound Sterling has been on the back foot since the elections. Yesterday it broke a 2 month low but managed to recover before the end of the day on hawkish comments from the Bank of England.
Oil Fallout
The inventories report was good yesterday, even better than expected. The EIA showed that crude stockpiles in the USA declined by 2.5 Million Barrels, where analysts were expecting a decline of 1.2 Million.
The immediate reaction was a spike up (blue circle) on less supply, but the party was really short lived. At the end of the day, a decline of 2.5 Million barrels isn't nearly enough to shore up the massive global oversupply.
By the end of the day, the price was much lower than when it had started and managed to briefly break below the critical $42.50 level that we'd highlighted in yesterday's update.
Litecoin For Safety
It seems we find ourselves in the midst of another sizable crypto-correction. The industry seems to be having a bit of trouble getting over the $116.5 Billion mark.
Of the top ten cryptocurrencies by market cap, nine are currently in the red. The only standout at this point is Litecoin, which is up almost 5% over the past 24 hours.
Litecoin is seen as a faster, cheaper version of Bitcoin and is currently acting as a safe haven in this fast paced market.
Here we can see LTC, against Bitcoin, and Ethereum over the past week.
Disclosure: This content is for information and educational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice or an investment recommendation. Past performance is not an indication of future results. All trading carries risk. Only risk capital you're prepared to lose.