#bitcoinservices

Google, arguably the most important company in all of technology, has largely held the crypto movement at arms length. That changes today.

Theta Labs, a venture-backed blockchain company, has struck up a new partnership with Google Cloud, the rapidly-growing Alphabet subsidiary. Google Cloud will offer a new service allowing users to deploy and run nodes of Theta’s blockchain network. Perhaps more importantly, Google Cloud itself will operate a validator for Theta’s network — servicing all of Europe.

It’s a baby step for Google, but make no mistake about it: the company is now engaging in blockchain. “This is one of our first validators, but we have many crypto customers,” says Allen Day, Developer Advocate for Google. “We had already made Bitcoin, Ethereum and six other cryptocurrencies’ data available through our public dataset program. This is the next step.”

A validator is a foundation of a blockchain network, deciding if a transaction is legit and vouching for that transaction. Without it a decentralized network doesn’t work.

This is a game-changer for Theta Labs. The San Jose, California-based company hopes to relieve overburdened networks everywhere, applying blockchain technology to online video distribution.

Despite a post-halving rise in bitcoin’s price Wednesday, the current value may not be enough to keep less-efficient miners operating, and that could shift market dynamics.

At press time, bitcoin (BTC) was trading up 2.3% over 24 hours at $9,106. The world’s first cryptocurrency is trading above its 10-day and 50-day moving averages, which is a bullish technical indicator, and has been on a steady uptrend since early trading May 13, 00:00 UTC.

The long-anticipated halving was, “a little uneventful,” said Jack Tan, founding partner at Taiwan-based crypto trading firm Kronos Research. But there has been one bright spot for traders: Bitcoin prices have been going up slowly but surely.

But market uncertainty lingers when it comes to cryptocurrency miners. The reward for miners to generate new bitcoin was cut because of the halving to 6.25 BTC, so the business of running machines to secure the network is much less profitable: “I think some of the miners might be in trouble. They just took a 50% pay cut overnight, with prices remaining where they are,” added Tan.

One mining metric that immediately changed after the halving was miner revenue from fees, which jumped from 4.6% right before the halving to 7% Wednesday, according to data provider Glassnode.

Bitcoin (BTC) is gaining amid a sell-off in fiat currencies and could rise further if the U.S. stock markets track European equities higher.

Technical charts indicate scope for a rise to key resistance at $5,926.

A move higher would confirm a breakout on the hourly chart and may propel prices toward $6,400.

Bitcoin is on the rise Thursday morning (UTC), showing resilience in the face of a global dash for dollars seen in the foreign exchange markets.

At time of writing, the cryptocurrency is trading near $5,670, representing a 9.4 percent gain on a 24-hour basis. Bitcoin found bids near $5,260 during the Asian trading hours and has been climbing since, according to CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index.

While bitcoin is flashing green against the U.S. dollar, most fiat currencies are currently trading in the red. For example, the British pound-to-dollar exchange rate is hovering near 1.1555, the lowest level since 1980. The currency pair has dropped by nearly 8 percent this week.

The Australian dollar fell to a 20-year low of 55 U.S. cents early on Thursday and is currently reporting a 0.6 percent drop on the day.

The greenback has gained in the past six trading days against all major currencies, as noted by macro analyst Holger Zschaepitz.

https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-sees-9-gain-as-turmoil-hits-the-forex-markets

When we talk about gold as a store of value that just means a lot of people agree to pay the same price for one ounce of gold. In 2017, enough people agree on the value of bitcoin that it can serve the same purpose. There will only ever be 21 million bitcoins, but this limit comes from computer code, not by how many bitcoins are left to remove from the earth. If we learn tomorrow that half of Montana contained a secret cache of gold, the value of gold would decrease instantly. Bitcoin doesn’t have this problem.”

Finally, the billionaire sees Bitcoin as a powerful catalyst that can start to change the landscape of business and finance.

Terms such as currency, money, wealth, value and even cost need to be updated and revisited. He believes it is Bitcoin that can make people rethink these ideas.