#decided to post today because its the 23rd in japan!!!!!!

[mukkiethekip]

CONGRATULATIONS BECAUSE TODAY IS THE DAY YOU WERE BORN

commissions | da tip jar

[dandelliongirl]

New year

And a new decade!

Wow, what an original title.

My Christmas vacation was amazingly cozy. I spent the 23rd-27th of December at home with mum and dad. On the 23rd me and mum went to the flea market to buy yarn and thin knitting needles for my bunny plushie project. We also found an adorable winter themed PowerPuff Girls duvet cover that I got to have in my bed for the holidays.♥

On Christmas Eve I got to watch morning cartoons on mum’s new sofa in my soft Oodie. We spent Christmas Eve traditionally having rice porrige for breakfast, going to take candles to the graves, going to the sauna and having a delicious dinner of smoked fish, salads, roast, mashed sweet potato, fried carrot and parsnip, and a dessert of home made gingerbread ice cream. Then we watched From all of us to all of you and handed out presents. My photo book was a big hit and made both mum and dad tear up. They both loved their moomin themed presents as well. I got Jamie Oliver’s VEG cook book, a radio for my summer house, a face wash from the Body Shop, and some gloves that got mixed up with dad’s at some point. Now mine are pink and mum has a purple pair. My dad also got me a 100 square meters of protected forest that will by law be kept in its natural state forever, which is an incredibly magical and special gift. ♥

On Christmas morning we woke up to the most beautiful snowy landscape and a calm little snowfall. Me and mum shovelled the driveway and went for a really long magical walk to the beach and around our area. The beach was full of little lanterns and candles burning in the snow. In the evening I started knitting my bunny plushie with the instructions found on the book I got at grandmum’s place. Mum helped me get started but I made her entirely by myself. By January 19th she already has a face too, with only a few details missing.

On Boxing Day me and dad drove to see the cousins and mum went to see granny and grandpa. It was really good seeing my cousins again for the first time since I think last Christmas (?), and dad’s cousin visited my aunt that day as well, so dad and his sister got to see their cousin as well. Me and my twin cousins finally made a Whatsapp group, which will make keeping in touch a lot easier.

On the 27th I came back to the apartment to spend some time working on my projects (and play some Sims..). My guy came back home on the 28th and we opened the rest of our presents. We got some cute kitty mugs and some (less cute) moomin pillowcases. I got new socks from my guy’s grandpa and my guy got me the brick oven bakery and the pizza delivery set of Sylvanian Families! ♥ My guy loved his Otamatone and we’ve had a lot of fun with it. ♫

We spent the day before New Years with my twin cousins who came over. We went to a trampoline park and Burger King, and played some Smash Bros Ultimate and Mario Kart. Then we spent about 4 hours until 2 am playing Overcooked. One of the twins works at a fast food restaurant so he was really damn good at coordinating our team. We decided that we would only accept 3 stars and had to spend a lot of time on some of the stages, but it was a blast. My guy is really bad at communication and team work though (heh, sorry) so it sucked for whoever was on his side. My cousins left on the morning of New Years Eve, and our friends came over around 6 pm. We made pizza, talked, went to see the mayor’s speech and watched the fireworks. For once the weather was completely clear and comfortably warm so the fireworks were a lot of fun. After midnight we spent the rest of the night until 6 am playing a quiz game, cards against humanity and Overcooked. I’m so glad I went back to work on the 7th and not on the 2nd.

My New Year’s resolutions this time are to continue working on my crafts and finish at least 2 of them, to only buy recycled items (apart from a couple things that I’ve planned on and needed to buy for a while), trying to spend a plastic free July (no single use plastics or plastic packaging), continuing my photo project with at least 3 photoshoots, working on my grimoire and finishing at least 12 pages, continuing to play the piano and get better at reading sheet music, spending the coziest and witchiest summer at my cottage/summer house, reading/listening to books and stretching/body care. A lot of these are things that are already habits and a part of my life so they aren’t that big of a deal even though the list is long. Mainly my resolutions are there just to push me to continue creating. I have set a date around midsummer/Litha to check my progress. So far piano has definitely already fallen behind so I need to try and pick that back up real soon. I have my new pile of sheet music books to start with.

So my winter has been filled with cottage visits nearly every weekend. At Christmas we went for a bonfire and carols. We have been feeding lots of little birds, walking in the nature and even went ice skating last weekend. This winter has been almost entirely snowless and very warm, and the birds are already singing and starting to nest even though it’s only January. There is no snow on the lake ice so last weekend my mum, dad and I had a perfect private skating rink with some magical sunshine and beautifully frosted trees. These are the moments that make winter worth it even though the lack of snow makes everything so dark, which makes me so incredibly sleepy. Luckily the days get about 7 minutes longer every day. It’s already almost light out when I leave work. Only 3-4 more months until we get to spend more time at the summer house, and soon I’ll be out there on that lake on my SUP board. That place truly heals me and helps me remember what's important in life. Nature is always beautiful no matter the weather, and everything over there has a purpose, unlike in the city.

Almost all of my apple seeds sprouted, and every one of my first saplings has already died from what I suspect is the lack of light. Some of the second batch are still alive, and I’ve got a third batch to plant. Hopefully those will make it to be planted outside. I even picked up a board from our cottage shed to make a windowsill in the kitchen for the saplings.

My guy and I have been enjoying our second playthrough of the Witcher 3, this time on the Switch. I love laying on the sofa all warm and cozy in my Oodie and working on my crafts, or putting photos in an album while he plays. Our PC playthrough was tedious because I had to sit down and do nothing through hours of gwent or side quests. Now I get to lie down and work on my own projects during the side quests. The PS2 era graphics do bother me a bit, but the story is immersive enough and the cutscene quality is not reduced too bad.

The first 2 weeks of work have been pretty decent. I’ve even had a couple of good days. ☼ I’m about to start a rough spring of trainings for both staff and teachers, which will be mentally exhausting, but I will try to keep myself busy with hobbies, and enjoy the coming spring to the fullest. January has already flown by, which is both exciting and scary. As for working out, this spring I’ve got a lineup of body combat, the occasional 45 minute guided meditation class (which I love because last week we had a body scan meditation and that’s my favourite type), HIIT ‘45 whenever I can leave work early to go to class, and ballet.

Yesterday we celebrated grandad's 90th birthday. Lately I’ve been really sad thinking about my aging grandparents. I recently went through my old post cards because I’m planning on making some crafts with them, and while doing that I found all of granny and grandpa’s letters and post cards and got some very emotional flashbacks to my childhood and the stories grandmum used to tell me. After a few glasses of cognac grandpa gave me a really emotional and sweet speech about how proud he is of me and how he remembers the time the swing in their yard broke down from under me and the times he taught me how to ski. He has truly taught me to never give up and be resilient in everything I do. I love my grandparents so much and I want to try and spend as much time with them as possible. It is so unfair that we never get enough time to spend with all the loved ones... Regardless, happy 90th birthday to the best grandpa. ♥ ♥ I love you so much.

Speaking of family and celebrations, I was asked to be a bridesmaid to my friend whom I've known since kindergarten. It is an incredible honor and I really can’t put into words how special it is to have someone who’s known me since I was 4 years old - and now she’s getting married! I will do my best to make her day special, but it is a lot of stress and pressure on me - especially as I’ve never planned a wedding and I’ve only been to 2 in very recent years. Her other bridesmaid got engaged the same week as she did so they are both planning on getting married the same month. We’ll see how that goes, and if one of them has to postpone their wedding or not, but regardless the other bridesmaid won’t have as much time and focus for my friend as I will since she’ll be planning her own wedding at the same time.

I think we only have 61 or 62 days until Animal Crossing New Horizons, and still no AC direct. Instead we’ve had a Pokémon direct and a Smash Bros direct.. If preordering seems worth it and/or there is a Switch console bundle I’ll take the 20th of March off work to go get it in the morning. We were planning on taking a trip to Japan this spring but we’ve postponed it until the autumn since the Super Nintendo World will be opening in the summer, and my guy can earn some money at his summer job.

Me and my friend were going to have a photoshoot today but the weather isn’t great (it’s very windy) and she had a weird stomach bug last night so we postponed. Instead I’m trying to finish up some odd to-do list jobs so that I can start preparing for Imbolc. It’s coming up so fast, but that’s also very exciting. ☼

[siddhilaad]

Module 10: Kertesz and Cartier-Bresson versus Smith and Salgado

Compare the work of Andre Kertesz and Henri Cartier-Bresson versus the work of Eugene Smith and Sebastião Salgado. They are four photojournalists with different approaches.

– What are the main differences and similarities?  

– What’s the better journalistic approach?

Similarities Differences Andre Kertesz

&

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Black and White photografies.

Humanistic photographer, photo essay

They did not accept changes in their photos.

They want to tell a story with their photos.

They both believed that the photographer needs to be invisible to the subject for capturing the decisive moment.

Kertesz influenced art along with journalism

Bresson pioneered street photography, specialises in candid photography

Eugene Smith

&

Sebastiao Salgado

Black and White photografies.

Their photos are focused on sad subjects and facts, evoking emotions.

They want to tell a story with their photos.

They do not like to make changes in their pictures using the dark room.

Smith developed photo essay into a sophisticated visual form

Salgado does not believe that he is a photojournalist, but a social photographer 

Andre Kertesz

Born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1894, Andre Kertesz worked as a clerk at the Budapest stock exchange in 1912 when he bought his first camera. Two years later, he was sent off to World War I, when he was 20 years old and picture that miserable and hard life and shared with the world.

It was in 1925 when he moved to Paris because of a lack of opportunities and started to work as a freelance photographer. (Albers, P. 2015)

In 1928 he participated in the First Independent Salon of Photography, where his pictures were notably for his blend of a romantic sensibility with modernist attitude. He was cited by critics and mentioned as a proof that photography could be considered a fine art.  

Kertesz published three books with his photographs. Immigrated to the USA in 1936 and settled in New York, where he started to work for House and Garden magazine as a professional photographer. At the age of 60, he retired and started to focus on more personal topics that he used to enjoy when an amateur photographer.

Kertesz is known for his the visual lyricism and humanism that characterized his practice. His camera angles are different, with height and depth. His photos are mostly in an urban scenario.

“I always had a small camera with me on the front line, where I made candid, informal photographs, unlike the official photographers for the War Department. They always came with a huge camera on a tripod after the battle was over to make a scenic photograph that would show the destruction” (Andre Kertesz) (Course Notes Module 9).

Henri Cartier- Bresson

Henri Cartier- Bresson was born on August 22nd in Chanteloup, Seine-et-Marne. He studied at the Lycée Condorcet, Paris. He studied painting under André Lhote. In 1926 he took his first photographs. In 1931 he saw a photograph by Martin Munkácsi in the arts magazine Arts et Métiers Graphiques and decides to focus on photography.

In 1932 he bought his first Leica and travelled across Europe with his friends Leonor Fini and Pieyre de Mandiargues. First publications in Voilà and Photographies.

He had his first exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery, New York in 1933. His photographs are subsequently shown at the Ateneo Club in Madrid.

From 1935-39 he worked for cinemas before moving to war photography in 1940. He joined the “Film and Photography” unit of the Third Army in 1940. Taken prisoner by the Germans on June 23rd. After two failed attempts successfully escaped on his third attempt in February 1943. He worked for MNPGD, a secret organization created to help prisoners and escapees.

He took a series of photographic portraits of writers and artists in 1944 for Editions Braun (Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Pierre Bonnard, Paul Claudel, Georges Rouault).

In 1947 he held a photo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Creates the cooperative agency Magnum Photos with Robert Capa, David Seymour (Chim), William Vandivert, and George Rodger. From 1948 to 1950, he spent three years in the Far East: in India for the death of Gandhi, in China for the last six months of the Kuomintang and the first six months of the People’s Republic, and in Indonesia for its independence. His photographs are published all over the world.

1952: His first book, Images à la Sauvette, with its cover by Matisse, is published by Tériade. The first exhibition in England, Photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson at the Institute of Contemporary Arts.

In 1954 he is the first photographer allowed in the USSR since the beginning of the Cold War.

Later he travelled to China, Mexico, India, France, the USA and USSR from 1955 to 1973.

In 1974 he decided to focus again on drawing and resigned from Magnum Photos. (HCB foundation )

He believed that the photographer needs to be invisible to the subject for capturing the decisive moment. He said, “life is once forever” by which he meant that once the decisive moment has passed, it can never again be repeated. Every minute occurs once and after it is over you can do nothing about it.

He had said that staging your subjects to get a perfect picture is unethical. He thought that was the basic rule of candid photography. But many of his own photographs were posed. Henri Cartier- Bresson admitted that capturing one image to depict the event is very difficult. Therefore, he practised photo essay to capture the entire event from various perspectives.

Similarities with Andre Kertesz:

They both believed that clicking the decisive moment is important. They did not care about the technical aspects of photography. They both did not think of photography as a way of reporting things.

(Lessons W Eugene Smith taught me about photography, 2013)

The Decisive Moment: “To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression” (Salgado, 1990, p.147).

In 2000 he set up the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation with his wife, Martine Franck, and daughter, Mélanie. The idea is to provide a permanent home for his collected works as well as an exhibition space open to other artists. And in 2002, The Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation is recognized as being of public interest by the French State.

Henri Cartier-Bresson passed away in Montjustin, Provence on August 3rd, 2004. (HCB foundation )

(Magnum Photos, 2014)

Eugene Smith

American photojournalist

Worked extensively and popularised photo essay

He was a humanitarian photographer

He always believed in having a purpose for clicking a photograph. This shows the focus that he had while photographing.

He wanted his photographs to convey an emotional resonance with his viewers.

He also wanted to change people’s view about war. He was ready to risk his life for clicking a photograph if people would realise the negative side of war and stop wars in the future.

He said that if a photographer does not know the answer to ‘why am I clicking this?’, then they should stop photographing.

Eugene Smith also tried to capture the reality behind the war. He photographed the lives of people who were a part of the war. This shows his humanitarian approach to photography.  

Eugene Smith was considered by many to be aggressive in person but he always cared deeply for his subjects. He was always respectful to them. And if he found injustice being done to anyone, then he would like to photograph it and bring that topic to light.

Unlike Henri Cartier-Bresson, Eugene Smith thought that it was alright to stage photographs. If staging added authenticity of place to an image, then it could be used.

He used to print his photographs a number of times till he thought that the photograph looked fine to him. He always wanted to control the final image in post-processing. While Henri Cartier-Bresson did not post-process his images. He would get a trusted printer to do his work. He was more interested in photography.

He was never concerned about his finances, fame and recognition. He just wanted to do his job as best as he could.

(Lessons W Eugene Smith taught me about photography, 2013)

He also worked as a photojournalist war correspondent for Flying Magazine from 1943-44 and one year after that for Life magazine. He followed the American offensive against Japan when he got severely injured. He had to undergo surgeries for the next two years.

After recovering, he focused on making a number of photo essays that went on to become very popular.

His largest photo essay is of 1975 Minamata village in Japan. The entire fishing villages faced huge troubles due to mercury dumping be a chemical company.

(Howard Greenberg Gallery, 2018)

JAPAN. Minamata. Iwazo FUNABA’s crippled hand, a victim of the disease. 1971.

JAPAN. Minamata. Iwazo FUNABA’s crippled hands. She is a victim of the Minamata disease. 1971.

JAPAN. Minamata. Takak ISAYAMA, a 12 year old fetal (congenital) victim of the Minamata Disease, with her mother. 1971.

(Magnum Photos, 2014)

Some think that Eugene Smith was very hard on himself and sacrificed his health to concentrate on his career. He said that photography is everything for him and rest of the things do not matter that much. This lead to him passing away at the early age of 59 due to a heart stroke. He left behind $18 in his bank account and tonnes of photographs which continue to inspire photographers to this day.

(W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund, 2004-2017)

4. Sebastiao Salgado

Sebastiao Salgado was born on February 8, 1944, in Aimorés, Brazil. A region with no access to a good education, which made him travel about 180 kilometres until Vitoria, for schooling. Salgado attended one of the best universities in Sao Paulo and got his MA in Economy. He also got married to Lelia Wanick and had two children with her. Today he is an award-winning photographer known by his arresting documentation of communities around the world.

Salgado has a monochromatic style, he believes that it forces his viewers to focus on the pictures’ topic, other than colours. His style combines complexity with a high sense of drama, and his work is dedicated to awareness of conditions of both wildlife and humans.  Salgado’s photography has often focused on the effects of hardship, poverty and oppression on people of various cultures, and with the effects of industrialization on the natural landscape. Inspired by the photojournalism of Lewis Hine, W. Eugene Smith and Walker Evans, Salgado has tackled subjects like famine, poverty and social inequality in black-and-white photos that are unsparing yet often beautiful.

Salgado has earned fame for his stark photos of people coping with the effects of poverty, famine, industrialization and political oppression. He has received numerous awards for his photojournalism and has twice been named Photographer of the Year by the International Center of Photography. He and his wife founded the photographic agency, Amazonas Images and co-founded the environmental education centre, Institutio Terra that works on the restoration of Brazilian rainforests.

“My pictures gave me 10 times more pleasure than the reports I was working on. To be a photographer was, for me, an incredible way to express myself, an incredible way to the see the world from another point.” (Sebastiao Salgado)

– What’s the better journalistic approach?

It is true that the path of these four artists was not easy and all of them are inspiring, creative and good examples of photojournalism photographers. They wanted to tell people a story and they did it very well. Despite all that, we came up to a conclusion that Andre Kertesz and Henri Cartier-Bresson’s way of working is better. They follow the code of ethics in journalism, and their pictures are exactly what the real moment was, no changes, the real life and the real fact.

References:

Albers, P. (2015, March 27). André Kertész. Retrieved April 1, 2018, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Andre-Kertesz

BIOGRAPHY (2014, April 02). Sebastiao Salgado. Retrieved April 03, 2018, from https://www.biography.com/people/sebastião-salgado-40046\

Course Notes Module 10. “Presenting the moment: Eugene Smith and Sebastiao Salgado” (2018).

Course Notes Module 9. “Capturing the moment: Kertesz and Cartier-Bresson” (2018).

Getty Museum. (n.d.). André Kertész. Retrieved April 1, 2018, from http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/1847/andr-kertsz-american-born-hungary-1894-1985/

HCB foundation . (n.d.). Biography. Retrieved from henricartierbresson HCB foundation : http://www.henricartierbresson.org/en/hcb/biography/

Howard Greenberg Gallery. (2018). W Eugene Smith. Retrieved from Howard Greenberg Gallery: http://www.howardgreenberg.com/artists/w-eugene-smith

Kim. E. (2015, March 02). 5 Lessons Sebastião Salgado Has Taught Me About Street Photography Retrieved April 1, 2018, from http://erickimphotography.com/blog/2015/03/02/5-lessons-sebastiao-salgado-has-taught-me-about-street-photography/

Lessons W Eugene Smith taught me about photography. (2013, May 13). Retrieved from Eric Kim Photography: http://erickimphotography.com/blog/2013/05/13/7-lessons-w-eugene-smith-has-taught-me-about-street-photography/

Magnum Photos. (2014). Henri Cartier- Bresson: Portfolio. Retrieved from Magnum Photos: https://pro.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&ALID=2K7O3R14TE52#/SearchResult&ALID=2K7O3R14TE52&VBID=2K1HZS2RBPID4&POPUPIID=2S5RYD1EZGYV&POPUPPN=50

Magnum Photos. (2014). Portfolio- Japan.1971.Minamata vs. the Chisso Corporation W. Eugene Smith. Retrieved from Magnum Photos : https://pro.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&ALID=2TYRYDDWZXTR#/SearchResult&ALID=2TYRYDDWZXTR&VBID=2K1HZS2O2M5AO&POPUPIID=2S5RYDY592XK&POPUPPN=17

Salgado, S. (1990). In Galeano E. H., Ritchin F. and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. (Eds.), An uncertain grace. New York, N.Y.: Aperture Foundation.

The Art of Photography. (2015, May 14). Sebastião Salgado Photographer (Brazilian). Retrieved April 1, 2018, from http://theartofphotography.tv/photographers/salgado/

W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund. (2004-2017). W. Eugene Smith legacy. Retrieved from W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund: http://smithfund.org/smith-legacy

Kertesz and Cartier-Bresson versus Smith and Salgado Module 10: Kertesz and Cartier-Bresson versus Smith and Salgado Compare the work of Andre Kertesz and Henri Cartier-Bresson versus the work of Eugene Smith and Sebastião Salgado.

[cryptobitmonkey]

Op-Ed: Coinbase exchange pauses trading as bitcoin bubble may have burst

Op-Ed: Coinbase exchange pauses trading as bitcoin bubble may have burst

At 11 AM Eastern Time today, December 22, Coinbase announced that all buys and sells had been temporarily disabled. This is the second time in two days that the exchange temporarily disabled buys and sells.

At just before 6 PM Thursday Coinbase temporarily disabled buying and selling but was able to resolve the issue within 15 minutes. Bitcoin's big drop The service interruption today came as the price of bitcoin fell below $11,000 briefly. It is down 44 percent from its record high last Sunday. Last Sunday bitcoin established a new record high more than $19,800. On Thursday, it traded at around $15,500 for much of the day but then in the afternoon a selloff developed that gathered steam over the night. Friday morning it set a low of $10,400 but by the afternoon recovererd some to $13,100 Friday afternoon. In just five days bitcoin lost 47 percent of its value from its high about $9,400. In just one hour Friday morning bitcoin lost a thousand dollars. Alex Sunnarborg, a founding partner of the cryptofund Tetras Capital said in an email:"I would say the drop in bitcoin is a result of the massive new inflows of retail investors who are relatively 'weak hands' and more prone to sell at the sight of falling prices than the capital that has been in the system for a while that has a longer term outlook." It could be that given the high prices some big players decided to selloff at a huge profit and then buy back in at a price thousands of dollars less than they paid. Perhaps there are some short sellers as well. Bitcoin futures also declined significantly There could have been short selling on the futures exchanges as well as investors bet on a drop in price. Tne new CME bitcoin January futures managed to reach "limit down" as they fell nearly 20 percent to $12,265 in early morning trading Friday. They recovered slightly to $12,750 later but trading was still going on. The earlier futures contracts offered by CBOE on December 10 also plunged down to $12,050 as there too the price volatility caused a brief halt in trading. Bitcoin offshoot and competitor bitcoin cash also crashes Bitcoin cash had just recently been added to the roster of the Coinbase exchange. The listing caused a huge rise in the price of bitcoin cash and a drop in the price of bitcoin as discussed in a Digital Journal article at the time. After reaching a new high over $4,000 just two days ago the price fell back a full 40 percent to $1,873 on Friday but had recovered to trade near $2,500 by the early afternoon. While these drops seem steep, no doubt some analysts will see them as a needed correction and perhaps even a sign that there will be a period of consolidation before any further rise. It may be that some newcomers are now panic selling trying to save some of their investment. Bitcoin is still well up over its price at the beginning of the year, more than 1,300 percent. Bitcoin cash is also up 380 percent from when it was listed on August 1. This probably does not provide much solace for those who jumped in recently and bought the coins near their peak prices. Jamie Lee founder of litecoin sells off his holdings Many have warned of the risk of investing in crypto currencies. Jamie Lee founder of litecoin warned that anyone buying litecoin should do so only if they were ready to lose all their money. Lee just last Wednesday sold off all his litecoin. He might have been ready to lose all his money but I imagine he collected a tidy sum after selling his coin. Litecoin is a competitor of bitcoin and had been rising in price lately. Just shortly before Lee sold out it had risen 8,000 percent this year. Sell off of bitcoin was inevitable That there was a large drop in bitcoin's price is hardly surprising. What is surprising is that it has come so late a many investors continued to hold their coin even after having made huge profits. Benjamin Roberts, CEO of Citizen Hex a start-up based on the secoond largest crypto coin etherium (ether) said: "Investors were sitting on such significant gains that a correction was inevitable. These markets are driven in the short term by word-of-mouth adoption and profit-taking, and in the long term by the increasing utility of blockchain tech." Problems at Coinbase Coinbase is the leading US exchange and platform for trading major cryptocurrencies. Unitl last Tuesday it traded only three major currrencies, bitcoin the largest, etherium second largest and litecoin. For months Coinbase had been saying that it would start allowing for withdrawing of the bitcoin offshoot bitcoin cash as of January 1, 2018. Instead it suddenly announced it would launch trading in bitcoin cash with full support. Some think that there may have been insider trading involved before the launch and as a recent Digital Journal article reports Coinbase is carrying out an investigation. With a huge influx of new customers, it is hardly surprising that social media sites Reddit and Twitter report that some customers are having trouble completing transactions smoothly. The company admitted Friday that high transaction volumes were causing delays in wire transfers resulting in wire deposits being delayed up to 5 business days. South Korean and Japanese investment in cryptocurrencies slowing. Asian investors especially from South Korea and Japan have helped inflate cryptocurrecy prices. However, China has clamped down on the market banning initial coin offerings (ICOs) and also closing cryptocurrency exchanges at least temporarily. The result has been that South Korea and Japan have dominated trading volumes and often prices are higher than on Coinbase. One lesser South Korean exchange Youbit was hacked recently for a second time and lost 17 percent of its assets. It subsequently filed for bankruptcy. There is an investigation to see if North Korea was involved. It has been blamed for other hacks. The Governor of the Bank of Japan said at a recent media conference that the recent surge in bitcoin prices was abnormal However, Joe DiPasquale founder of the cryptofund BitBull Capital said: "These don't concern me for the long-term because we've seen more and greater issues in the past. Right now people are biding their time until the bottom is felt. It is a buying opportunity, perhaps in the next day, but you have to see where support is reached to make that decision." It remains to be seen whether enough investors see this situation as a buying opportunity or whether they will simply wait for a further decline in the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. As I ready this for posting , bitcoin has recovered considerably trading at about $14,050 and appears to be trending upward at around 1:30 AM UTC. December 23rd. Perhaps many do see this as a buying opportunity.

This opinion article was written by an independent writer. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not necessarily intended to reflect those of DigitalJournal.com

Source

http://digitaljournal.com/tech-and-science/technology/op-ed-coinbase-exchange-pauses-trading-as-bitcoin-bubble-may-have-burst/article/510689