Microsoft reportedly polling Xbox users about Bitcoin payment option

 

Tech giant Microsoft seems to be considering introducing Bitcoin (BTC) payments to its Xbox gaming console online store.

According to a Sunday Reddit post on r/XboxSeriesX, Microsoft has put out a survey asking Xbox users about their preferred payment options at its online store.

“Which of these other payment methods would you like to use on Xbox?,” the purported survey asks, listing Bitcoin as one of the potential payment methods. The same photo has also been circulating across several other subreddits including r/Ethtrader and r/Bitcoin.

One Xbox user said that the survey is available “if you participate in the Xbox Insider program for beta testing OS updates.”

Microsoft did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.

Back in 2014, Microsoft started accepting Bitcoin to fund Microsoft accounts, allowing United States-based users to purchase content from Windows, including Xbox games. After briefly halting the payment option, Microsoft resumed Bitcoin payments for its MS Store in January. Cryptocurrency-based payments are not currently supported on the Xbox online store. 

While it may be open to accepting Bitcoin as payment, Microsoft has no plans to make a bigger move into crypto like Tesla. President Brad Smith said that the firm did not have any cryptocurrency diversification plans following Tesla’s $1.5 billion investment in Bitcoin.

‘Wolf of Wall Street’ Jordan Belfort Predicts Bitcoin Hitting $100K

 

Jordan Belfort, the author and former stockbroker known as “The Wolf of Wall Street,” has changed his previous critical stance on bitcoin, predicting the cryptocurrency’s price will go on to hit $100,000.

• Belfort told Fortune in an interview he believes bitcoin holds advantages over stocks such as its limited supply, which could see the cryptocurrency reach the $100,000 level.
• He also cited the increase in support bitcoin has received from institutional investors compared to its previous bull run in 2017.
• At that time, Belfort voiced his agreement with JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s assertion that bitcoin was a “fraud.”
• “I don’t think it’s a great model,” Belfort told The Street in September 2017, adding that cryptocurrencies would require some backing by central governments.
• “Sooner or later, a central bank or a consortium is going to issue their own cryptocurrency and that’s what will take hold.”
• Belfort pleaded guilty to stock fraud and money laundering in 1999, subsequently writing a memoir called “The Wolf of Wall Street,” which was turned into a film in 2013.

SkyBridge Capital Founder: Bitcoin Will Have a Billion Users by 2025

 

On Wednesday (February 17), former White House Director of Communications Anthony Scaramucci, the founder and managing partner of global alternative investment firm SkyBridge Capital, talked about Bitcoin’s growth story and why he believes that Bitcoin is superior to gold as a store of value.

SkyBridge is “a global alternative investments firm specializing in multi-strategy commingled fund of hedge funds products, custom separate account portfolios and hedge fund advisory solutions to address the needs of a wide range of market participants ranging from individual accredited investors to large institutions.”

On January 4, Skybridge announced “the launch of the SkyBridge Bitcoin Fund LP, which provides mass-affluent investors with an institutional-grade vehicle to gain exposure to Bitcoin.”

The press release went on to say:

“Additionally, on behalf of its flagship funds, SkyBridge initiated a position, valued at approximately $310 million at the time of this release, in funds investing in Bitcoin during November and December 2020.“

On February 10, Scaramucci was interviewed by Yahoo Finance correspondent Julia La Roche.

Here is what he said about Bitcoin:

“I started out as a Bitcoin skeptic. I want to confess to everybody that I’m not a Bitcoin evangelist, but I’m a Bitcoin investor. I’ve looked at the landscape, and I recognize that there is a spot now for Bitcoin and I’m trying to encourage my colleagues, I’m trying to encourage investors that have been with SkyBridge for many many years to think about it that way.

“And what I would say to money managers that are listening, you’re going to be benchmarked off of Bitcoin, meaning in your mosaic of stocks and bonds and alternatives and gold, they’ll be a few percentage points related to digital currency and since Bitcoin is the winner of that battle, it’ll likely be Bitcoin. And so if you’re not going to be an investor in Bitcoin, you’re effectively short Bitcoin for the purposes of that evaluation…

“Expect volatility. Invest in Bitcoin at the size and scale of money that you don’t need in the short term, but I do think it has a very big future…“

Then, on February 17, during an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin on CNBC’s “Squawk Box”, Scaramucci said:

“The thing is volatile… I want to be cautious with individual investors, but we like it. We have over a half a billion dollars in Bitcoin right now, and obviously our Bitcoin fund started in December — it’s done quite well –but be cautious… I do think we see a hundred thousand dollars in this coin before year end. It’s just a supply-demand situation, and you don’t have a lot of supply out there and very heavy demand.“

Well, on March 18, the SkyBridge founder was back on CNBC’s Squawk Box, and was asked by Sorkin what would happen to the price of Bitcoin once its price more or less stablizes and the people who bought it as a speculative play decide to look for some other high-flying asset that would give them outsized returns.

Scaramucci replied:

“You’re in that transitory period. This is sort of like where Amazon was in 2000. People couldn’t believe its price movement. Then we looked at it again in 2009. There was a very big move over 12 years. Bitcoin is 12 years old. Yet if you bought Amazon after the 12th year, Andrew, you got a 64X return on your money from 2009 to 2021… If you bought Amazon on the public offering May 15, 1997, the $10,000 that you put into it is worth $21,140,000 today, but Amazon now, 20 years later, is trading with more stability.

“I mean, it got a very big pop because of the pandemic, but just take a look at this long-term chart, and I think that will happen to Bitcoin. Once it fully scales… you’re gonna be looking at that situation saying okay, ‘it’s way less speculative’.

“One last point. Bitcoin got to a trillion dollars faster than all of those companies primarily because it’s decentralized and so now you’re taking all of that C-suite drama and all the politics associated with it away from it. It is a fully-scaling monetary network and Store of value, and it’s going to get there over the next 15 years.“

As for that other much more established store of value, gold, Squawk Box co-anchor Joe Kernen said that he believed that gold’ recent poor performance must be because some percentage of people are now “buying Bitcoin and not gold”.

Scaramucci then jumped in to say:

“That’s the vinyl record. The world is changing.“

He later added:

“If you really study it, Joe, it’s better than gold. It’s easier to store. You can move it around more quickly and that value and that trusted network is growing. It’s 110 million now; by 2025, it’ll be at a billion, and if we’re right and it adapts pursuant to Metcalfe’s Law, you want to own some Bitcoin, and be prudent. You don’t have to own a lot of it, but just own some of it.“

Around one hour after Scaramucci’s interview on CNBC, Anthony Pompliano (aka “Pomp”), a co-founder of crypto-focused asset management firm Morgan Creek Digital Assets, had this to say about gold and Bitcoin:

He then went on to say:

• “Additionally, many people believe the non-monetary value of gold is important. They forget to mention that gold jewelry demand peaked in 2013 and has been falling since. Non-monetary value dropping quickly among younger generations.“
• “Young people would rather have digital skins and other digital products to show off wealth and status than gold rings or necklaces. It is unlikely that either gold or bitcoin goes to zero, but the probability of it happening to gold is much higher IMO.“
• “Lastly, central banks have become net sellers of gold for the 1st time in nearly a decade. They used to be long only bids, but now they have been net sellers multiple times in recent months. The narrative is changing. Tailwind is gold goes down over the next decade. We’ll see 🙂“
• “Also, @lexpaval pointed out gold for tech sector is less than 8%. If jewelry demand is falling, central bank demand is falling, and so is investment demand, then we are likely already watching early signs of gold collapse. Will take years, but underway.“

The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.

Canadian Condo Corporation Makes Long-Term Investment In Bitcoin

 

A condominium corporation in Canada has made a long-term investment into Bitcoin as apart of its 10-year horizon for financial planning. 

According to an announcement made last Wednesday (March 17), Thornton Place Condominiums has “purchased 0.4 bitcoin for its reserve fund with $25,000.00 (CAD) in cash at an average price of approximately $62,500.00 (CAD) per bitcoin, inclusive of fees and expenses.” The purchase was made via crypto exchange Kraken.

The press release went on to say that this “represents the first of an ongoing series of planned purchases, with Thornton Place having allocated an additional $700.00 per month to the purchase of future bitcoin on an ongoing and indefinite basis.”

It then mentioned that Thornton Place has “taken direct physical custody of the bitcoin, rather than opting for a custodial service or exchange traded fund with a management fee.” The company believes that this is “the first physical purchase of bitcoin by a condominium or strata corporation within Canada.”

In a statement, the Canadian company said:

“Our Board determined that a small investment of approximately 5% of the overall Reserve Fund and 6% of the monthly Operating Fund contributions into Bitcoin will permit Thornton Place to gain a limited exposure to a high-performing asset class without jeopardizing any of the long-term goals of the corporation and its owners. Prior to making the investment, the Board adopted a policy governing its management.

“It is the Board’s intent that the $700.00 monthly investment from the Operating Fund contributions be continued on a long-term and indefinite basis. We see a 10-year time horizon for the investment and will continue to evaluate the scope and performance of the investment in relation to the overall corporate finances as is appropriate.

“In making this investment, we believe that we have taken the first steps that may one day permit the elimination of condominium fee contributions from the owners and result in Thornton Place Condominium becoming entirely self-sustaining, valuable, and sought-after real estate.“

Featured Image Credit: Photo via Unsplash.com

The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.

How much Bitcoin does Elon Musk own?

 Elon Musk was one of the first prominent individuals to embrace cryptocurrencies. Though his favourite is still Dogecoin, he also invested a lot in Bitcoin. Back in 2018, Elon Musk owned only a small amount of cryptocurrency at 0.25 BTC. But his recent investment of $1.5 billion through Tesla made him one of the largest BTC holders globally. He even got a lot of backlash for this, saying that on the one hand, he was going green with Tesla, and simultaneously he was investing in Bitcoin and wasting energy.

Rumours about Elon Musk holding more Bitcoin

We all know about the $1.5 billion investment that Tesla made in Bitcoin. And that’s only what we associate with Elon Musk. But reports suggest that Elon Musk holds a lot more at around $5 billion in Bitcoin. This was reported by Scaramucci, who believes that Elon Musk has a huge BTC holding. Though we cannot be entirely sure of the data, it is a believable thing to imagine. After all, he is a man of the future. In fact, when people say that Bitcoin isn’t energy efficient and has a huge carbon footprint, they aren’t wrong. But that isn’t what the future will be for Bitcoin.

The holdings that Elon Musk has doesn’t add to a carbon footprint but makes up for an opportunity to go green in the future. We need to understand that the future of Bitcoin mining is using Renewable energy resources. And so we should not worry about the environmental impact we have with Bitcoin as it is going to be solved. In fact, if we look at it that way, even the dollar has a huge carbon footprint. Scaramucci also agreed to this that we should know the fact if something is not good enough, Elon wouldn’t have invested in it. He said that Elon Musk sees the future, and that is why he has invested in Bitcoin. Scaramucci also added that “No living person has done more to protect the planet against climate change”.

Bitcoin’s carbon footprint and future

According to a report, every $1 billion invested in Bitcoin is equivalent to the carbon footprint of 1.2 million cars in a year. At the same time, another paper says that one Bitcoin transaction’s CO2 footprint is equal to 795,752 VISA transactions and could power an entire house for 25 days. We have to understand the fact that, yes, Bitcoin has a carbon footprint, but like everything else, we have to make it green. To stay profitable, miners should use renewable energy for mining, and problems will be solved. And that is the main point here. Bitcoin has a lot of positives, and its only downside is power consumption, and so if that is solved, we can expect it to be a global currency

What are your thoughts on the BTC holdings of Elon Musk? Let us know in the comments below. Also, if you found our content informative, do like it and share it with your friends.

Turks Look for Bitcoin (BTC) As Lira Collapses, BTC Is Now The World’s Third-Largest Currency

 

Bitcoin (BTC) has time-and-again proved that it is the ultimate saviour of the world against the inefficient fiat systems and government agencies. Over the last week, the Turkish Lira plunged another 14% against the U.S. Dollar which resulted in Turks searching for Bitcoin (BTC) in order to protect their wealth.

Over the last weekend, Google searches for Bitcoin (BTC) in Turkey shot up to the roof almost doubling as we can see a sharp spike in the chart below.

With the way that Bitcoin (BTC) has performed over the last few months, the trust in the world’s largest cryptocurrency is also building up strongly. At press time, Bitcoin is trading at a price of $57,783 with a market cap of $1.078 trillion. With this, Bitcoin (BTC) has cemented its position strongly thereby being the world’s third-largest currency in terms of the total value in circulation, notes Deutsche Bank in its latest published report.

Deutsche Bank: Bitcoin (BTC) Too Important to Ignore

Deutsche Bank acknowledged that even government institutions and central bank institutions have started acknowledging the role of cryptocurrencies and accepted the fact that they are here to stay. In the report, Deutsche Bank research analyst Marion Laboure, Ph.D. writes:

“Bitcoin’s market cap of $1 trillion makes it too important to ignore. As long as asset managers and companies continue to enter the market, bitcoin prices could continue to rise”.

However, the report goes on acknowledging the fact that “bitcoin transactions and tradability are still limited”. While discussing Bitcoin’s status as either a commodity, currency, or equity, the report states that BTC occupies the top-ten spot both as a stock as well as a currency.

Bitcoin’s jump to being the world’s third-largest currency in circulation is because of the vast increase in the BTC price currently. The report adds: “In early 2019, bitcoin represented ‘only’ 3% of the US dollars in circulation, but in February 2021 it surged beyond 40% of the US dollars in circulation.”

To keep track of DeFi updates in real time, check out our DeFi news feed Here.

Elon Musk is the Bitcoin-buying hypocrite we deserve

 

Tesla has made Bitcoin mining 20% more lucrative.   © Reuters

Yuriy Humber is president of Yuri Group and founder of the Japan NRG platform, which publishes weekly reports about the state of energy and electricity in Japan.

In the same filing in which Tesla announced its purchase of $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin, the car company reiterated that its mission is to "accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy." The two do not sit comfortably together.

There may be a dozen areas to quiz when an $800 billion manufacturer uses its capital resources to become, in a flash, the second-largest business owner of this cryptocurrency asset.

But, the energy issue is perhaps the most pressing. And for a company with plans to open a factory in Texas -- where last week's snowstorm caused the near-collapse of the state's electrical grid -- Tesla might want to put the energy issue a little higher on its list of priorities.

In a way, Bitcoin is electricity bottled in a digital jar. The edicts that created it specify that new coins can only be created by tasking computers to solve mathematical equations. This translates into a vast energy-intensive global network that sustains and mines new Bitcoins.

The total energy consumption of the network, per year, exceeds the monthly electricity needs of the whole of Japan. But Japan's electricity powers homes, businesses, and people's lives. Bitcoin mining only powers the creation of more Bitcoin.

This is not to judge Bitcoin as a financial, transactional, or social tool. From an energy perspective, however, Bitcoin is basically a parasite. To unlock more Bitcoin, the complexity of the mathematical puzzles steadily increases, necessitating ever more computational power. This in turn necessitates more energy. In the last four years alone, the Bitcoin network's electricity consumption has risen by a factor of eight, according to Digicomist, a platform that tracks the impact of digital trends.

Bitcoin machines have become more efficient. Even so, they now feast on the equivalent of almost half the electricity volumes used to power the world's data centers, according to a study completed by Digicomist founder Alex de Vries.

The carbon footprint of Bitcoin is estimated at 36.95 million tons of CO2 a year. To put that in perspective, that is the equivalent of New Zealand. Put another way, it's 10% of the annual emissions of the entire Japanese power sector -- which mainly runs on fossil fuels -- and which serves the world's No. 3 electricity market.

But, what does this all have to do with Elon Musk and his well-known support of Bitcoin? After all, Tesla did not create Bitcoin. It is just another buyer in a rapidly growing market, right?

Being so dependent on electricity, Bitcoin mining is only profitable when you have cheap power and high Bitcoin prices. Three years ago, that break-even level was around $8,038, according to comments made at the time by New York-based Fundstrat Global Advisors. Since electricity prices have changed little since then, we can assume the cost of Bitcoin mining has stayed the same.

Tesla's announcement sent the price of the cryptocurrency up 20% to a record of $48,000. Lending its brand name and hard cash to Bitcoin, Tesla has encouraged a rally in the asset, and as a result, made the act of mining it 20% more lucrative.

The impact of this jump on mining is clear when you check the Bitcoin network's so-called hashrate, or the estimated number of actions that its machines are performing on any given day. Bitcoin's computational power is up from about 95 million terahash per second at the start of 2020, to 166 million terahash per second on Feb. 9, according to Blockchain.com. The rate went up about 6% following Tesla's announcement.

In other words, Bitcoin's electricity use and CO2 emissions went up by roughly 6% thanks to Elon Musk. So, will Tesla be including those emissions in its next environmental impact report? More importantly, how does this investment fit with Tesla's stated goal of promoting sustainable energy?

Of course, Tesla can always argue that emissions are based on the energy source of the electricity used to generate Bitcoin. So, let's look at that.

Two-thirds of the Bitcoin mining takes place in China, the world's biggest emitter of CO2, and the top location in China for Bitcoin mining is the Xinjiang region, home to a large coal-fired generation sector. The next-biggest location for hash mining is the U.S., which also happens to be the No. 2 global CO2 emitter.

Bictoin mining machines in Mabian Yi Autonomous County, China, pictured in April 2017: two-thirds of the mining takes place in the country.   © Imaginechina/AP

Looking beyond emissions, electricity is also a vital living essential, and diverting those resources to computers solving puzzles can put a strain on society. Last month, after weeks of blackouts, Iran's government launched a crackdown on local Bitcoin mining centers, blaming them for abusing generously state-subsidized domestic electricity rates.

It is possible that Musk has another grand plan for Bitcoin and we're not yet privy to the genius. Or, perhaps Musk did not really think it through. After all, it is not his job to answer for the energy impact of the Bitcoin network. The beauty of a decentralized, unregulated system is that it's no one's job.

The risky bitcoin buy that’s in a bigger bull market than the cryptocurrency itself

 

• Bitcoin mining stocks have generated returns far greater than the bitcoin cryptocurrency in the digital asset’s recent bull market, according to an analysis from Fundstrat Global Advisors.
• That makes them worth investor attention, but these miners are risky and should be expected to fall more than bitcoin in a digital currency crash.
• Bitcoin is likely to be a better long-term bet even if the top mining companies have economies of scale established, and for most investors so will any bitcoin ETF approved by the SEC.

• All commodities markets have their levered investment bets. Crude oil has wildcat exploration and production companies; gold and precious metals have the mining operations out doing the dirty work in the ground. A commodity of the future, bitcoin, is no exception to the rule that when there’s a scarce resource to exploit in the world, and investors are placing increasing value on it, miners will rush in to stake their claim to the riches.

  Recent gains in what may be the most high-risk bitcoin bet of all led Leeor Shimron, vice president of digital asset strategy at Fundstrat Global Advisors, to take a look at the “digital gold rush” in trading of bitcoin miners.

  These mining companies are fairly new and young, they lack track records, and some came to market in “roundabout ways” — and some of the biggest, like Riot Blockchain, attracted regulatory scrutiny in their early days. They also have been operating at losses, but Shimon noted they have reached over $1 billion in market cap after investing heavily during the bitcoin downturn in the hardware and facilities that helped them to “strike it big” in the current bitcoin bull market cycle.

  High-beta, high-risk bitcoin trading

  Shimron described the miners in a note last week to clients who expressed interest in the surging stocks as a “high beta play” on bitcoin. During the recent bull run for the cryptocurrency, during which bitcoin is up 900%, the average return among the biggest publicly traded miners was 5,000%, according to his analysis.

  Bitcoin miners, in Shimron’s words, form the core backbone of bitcoin’s blockchain, as they “burn electricity to computer-generate guesses aiming to solve cryptographic puzzles” and generate revenue in the form of mined bitcoin. As the bitcoin is mined, the miners sell the assets to cover their expenses. Many choose to also hold a portion of their mined bitcoin on their corporate balance sheet, a trend which is starting to gain traction with the more digitally-oriented, disruptive CEO class in the broader market, such as Jack Dorsey at Square and Elon Musk at Tesla. Musk just added “Technoking” to his executive title and the Tesla CFO recently had “Master of Coin” added to his. The North American mining company, Marathon Digital Holdings, recently announced it had purchased an additional $150 million worth of bitcoin to hold on its balance sheet.

  The largest publicly listed mining companies which the Fundstrat analyst reviewed include the two Nasdaq-listed companies, Riot Blockchain and Marathon Digital Holdings, and two over-the-counter market stocks, Hive Blockchain and Hut 8.

• 
  
  Over the past year, bitcoin miners greatly outperformed bitcoin, a dynamic that Fundstrat Global Advisors says will continue as the bull market plays out, but could turn violently to the downside in any correction.

• Shimron’s analysis shows that the beta these bitcoin mining companies exhibit generates a return of 2.5% for every 1% move in the cryptocurrency. While there is not enough historical data to draw firm conclusions, the miners’ performance is clearly tied to the price of bitcoin, and their trading profile amplifies the upside and downside, he said.

  It is a “notoriously competitive industry,” in Shimron’s words, where the ability to be profitable can come down to cheap electricity and access to specialized mining hardware. As bitcoin’s price increases, “miners spin up new rigs or upgrade their hardware with more powerful and efficient machines.”

  Marathon recently made a $170 million deal for 70,000 S-19 ASIC miners from Bitmain, which when fully deployed later this year, will up its mining power to 103,000 machines.

  This high cost of doing business in bitcoin mining results in low or negative free cash flow and muted earnings, Shimron writes. But the mining companies have for the moment captured the growth of the current bitcoin bull cycle as a result of their spending. (They saw wild trading in the bitcoin boom of 2017, too.)

  Now they have also attracted attention from some of the market’s newest forces, as a recent Bloomberg piece noted of the bitcoin miners getting discussed within the WallStreetBets message board on Reddit which fueled the mania in shares of GameStop.

  “For investors looking to gain exposure to miners, that beta makes it a great opportunity during the middle of a roaring bull market. ...There are fits and starts and pullbacks, but we still have lots of room to grow here,” Shimron said in an interview with CNBC.

  Investing in bitcoin in 2021, and beyond

  It is the broader bull market in cryptocurrency that has fueled the miners and Shimon thinks that can continue in 2021, driven by macroeconomic and demographic factors. Fears of inflation will support bitcoin prices, and even amid recent yield pressure from the 10-year Treasury which can act on cryptocurrency as it does on technology stocks, he said it is clear from Fed signalling that the central bank wants to keep its dovish policies in place until 2023.

  Another driving force is continued adoption of new digital technology and digital assets from younger investors. “You see younger people gravitate to bitcoin and other digital currencies as opposed to gold and commodities and it speaks to a demographic shift. ... To them it’s not crazy to interact with money in a purely digital way,” he told CNBC.

  Last week, Morgan Stanley became the first big Wall Street bank to offer its wealthy clients access to bitcoin. It limited access to clients with at least $2 million given the risks involved.

  There already are ways into the crypto market other than the underlying currencies, such as the exchanges which trade coin and soon will be available to more investors. Coinbase was recently valued at $68 billion in the private market and is planning a direct listing on the Nasdaq.

  Waiting for a bitcoin ETF in the US

  There are three bitcoin ETFs in Canada, and at some point, there may be a bitcoin ETF available in the U.S. The latest attempt at the Securities and Exchange Commission was filed mid-March by VanEck ETFs, but with investors not holding out high hopes the SEC will approve a bitcoin fund soon, they are looking elsewhere for cryptocurrency investment ideas that go beyond buying bitcoin itself.

  Shimon, who ran an early-stage cryptocurrency and blockchain venture fund before joining Fundstrat, said he does view the miners as being a foundation for the crypto space. “The top companies will be here to stay,” he said, pointing to the economies of scale investing in equipment which newer entrants will have a tougher time competing against.

  After making the “smart move” during the bitcoin bear market to build out operations, current tech sector supply chain shortages caused by Covid may further help the positioning of these miners after the capital they have already put into specialized machines for the space.

  Still, like many traders and hedge funds do with gold miners and small-cap oil explorers, he is inclined to trade the bitcoin miners in a bull market run, rather than see them as investments to hold for the long-term.

• 
  
  The outperformance of the SPDR Gold Shares ETF relative to a VanEck ETF tracking an index of gold miners, since 2006.

• Shimron continues to prefer bitcoin as a long-term investment, as well as any ETF ultimately approved by the SEC for U.S. investors. “It is just a matter of time before the SEC approves a bitcoin ETF,” he said. “When a BTC ETF comes, the fees will be low and it will be the safest and easiest way of using traditional rails to get exposure to bitcoin,” he said.

  The miners have faced criticism over the huge amounts of electricity required in bitcoin operations, but Shimron’s view comes down to the financials and market performance. (He says there is plenty to criticize about the fiat currency system’s impact on the world, too.)

  “It is pretty clear the U.S. dollar as a global reserve currency is on its last legs, not disappearing any time soon, but we are in the later stages of the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency, and decentralized is the next stage.”

  Even if the bitcoin mining stocks are too high risk for most investors, he is confident in saying that the world of cryptocurrency should be on everyone’s radar. “This is where everything is going. Finance has been the last vestige that hasn’t been touched by the internet,” Shimron said. 

• 
  

Elon Musk Won't Stop Tweeting About Dogecoin and Cryptocurrency Prices are a Volatile Mess

 

Tesla CEO and SpaceX boss Elon Musk appear to have a side-job – hustling for cryptocurrency prices on Twitter. The billionaire who has consistently rallied support for bitcoin and the meme currency dogecoin, late on Thursday night, put out a tweet yet again on the meme-based cryptocurrency. This is not the first time Musk has done this, or even the second, or third time. Every time Musk mentions the cryptocurrency, a surge (often following an eventual downfall) occurs in the prices of the cryptocurrency. Internet sleuths have more than just co-related the phenomenon, they’ve even christened it: “The Musk Effect.” This time, too, appeared to be no exception.

Replying to a tweet that said, “This tweet is not about Bitcoin. Not everything is about Bitcoin. Or is it?” Musk added that sometimes, it is about dogecoin.

Musk posted the tweet around 2:45 AM IST (GMT +5:30). Following his tweet, Dogecoin recorded a spike in numbers around 3 AM, according to Coindesk.

The 24-hour change recorded, however, wasn’t made up for by this spike. It still stood at -2.05%.

Last weekend, the price of DOGE surpassed $0.06 over the weekend, after Musk weekend tweets seemingly led to a nearly 300% surge in the price of the Shiba Inu token.

While the ‘Musk effect’ is now becoming a common Internet slang, this isn’t the first, second or even third time Elon Musk has tweeted about Dogecoin, raising its prices.

Musk who has been consistently tweeting about the meme cryptocurrency for a while led to the all-time-high $0.065448, up about 35% from its 24-hour low of $0.048356, according to CoinDesk in early February. The cryptocurrency’s price later dropped again before climbing back to about 25% gain. The Shiba Inu-themed digital coin had then surpassed 8 cents for the first time, just a week after crashing to 2.5 cents and sparking an outcry on Reddit.

Musk had said that he supports major holders of the meme-based digital currency Dogecoin selling most of their coins, adding that he felt too much concentration in Dogecoin was the “real issue”.

“If major Dogecoin holders sell most of their coins, it will get my full support. Too much concentration is the only real issue imo,” he said in a tweet. But that wasn’t all – he offered to pay ‘actual dollar’ for it.

Musk in February had posted a Twitter poll, asking his 45.8 million followers to choose “the future currency of Earth.”

He gave two options: “Dogecoin to the Moooonn” or “All other crypto combined.”

The poll resulted in 71.3% of the 2.4 million voters saying that “Dogecoin to the Moooonn” would be the future of currency.

INTERVIEW: BITCOIN, VENEZUELA AND DAY GAME WITH APEX ₿

 For this episode of Bitcoin Magazine’s “Meet The Taco Plebs,” I was joined by Apex ₿ (@malandrox7), a no bullshit and passionate Bitcoin pleb.

I’ve been meming, shitposting and talking Bitcoin with Apex on Twitter for well over a year now, and was really happy that he decided to come on the show. We’ve talked on Clubhouse before this podcast and he’s a cool dude. What also caught my eye was his interest and tweets about day game — I don’t know of anyone else on Bitcoin Twitter who tweets about it.

We started off this interview with Apex sharing his rabbit hole story and how he found Bitcoin. Apex found Bitcoin in 2016 at around the very start of that big run-up in price to about $20,000. A lot has changed since that last bull run with infrastructure being built, new types of buyers in the market and more. We riffed on why we think this bull market is different and what could happen in the coming year.

Apex explained how he saw the hyperinflation happening in front of his eyes while he lived in Venezuela, and realized the importance of Bitcoin quickly. He talks about seeing the prices of cigarettes rise and noticed something was wrong. Today, in the United States, we are starting to see prices of goods and services rise because of all of the money printing we’ve done this past year. All fiat currencies eventually face the same fate of hyperinflation and wealth evaporation, and seeing these warning signs all around us should be the green light to buy some bitcoin.

Later on, Apex explained how Bitcoin helps you stop over consuming, and he used himself as a good example. He shared that he loves sunglasses and in the past has needlessly dropped some money buying more pairs, but Bitcoin has changed his time preference and incentives, and now he uses that money to buy more bitcoin! I mentioned the FUD of “since Bitcoin is deflationary, people will stop buying things and the economy will fail,” which I disagree with because people today are significantly over consuming, to the point where they just go further and further into debt. Bitcoin fixes this by cutting out the needless spending. This cut back on spending allows for people to save their money and build wealth, while still spending their money on better goods and services that they want.

We ended the podcast by talking about all of the new brilliant minds coming into the space, and how they raise the level of quality of Bitcoin education. Every year, we have smarter and smarter people entering Bitcoin and giving their valuable insights, opinions and research. Apex is bullish on future Bitcoiners! He also thinks that Bitcoin is the perfect tool to advance humanity forward, and I couldn’t agree more. Why does he think that? You’ll have to listen to the show to find out!

Below are some of Apex’s most interesting thoughts shared during the interview. And be sure to check out the full episode for more.

HOW DID YOU FIND BITCOIN AND FALL DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE?

I had first heard of bitcoin on Bloomberg TV out of all places, in 2010. Throughout the years, I would always hear about it in some random podcasts not that were not bitcoin-related and thought it was kind of a joke. Then, one day I went over to my pot dealer’s home to buy some weed and he started pitching me on Ethereum. He was showing me some price charts and shit; we were so fucking high. He started telling me that, in the future, through Ethereum my house appliances would communicate with each other through the blockchain. Anyways, he got me to download the Coinbase app and I bought the shitcoin. I figured I’d buy the other two that were on there (bitcoin and litecoin). This was in late 2016 and as the bull market of 2017 began, I became more intrigued. NGU tech has that effect. I was fortunate to find some good YouTubers who started exposing the truth of bitcoin compared to the other two shitcoins I had. The rest is history.

HOW HAS BITCOIN CHANGED YOUR LIFE?

I spend a lot of time on Twitter, I shitpost more than I should. I check the bitcoin price like seventeen times a day, but I also lift weights, stack sats (almost on the daily) and stopped smoking weed (except on Sundays). While these bad/good habits sound a bit mundane, these changes have made me incredibly wealthy.

WHAT IS THE MOST AMAZING THING ABOUT BITCOIN TO YOU?

Instinctively, I’ve always known that governments and monetary policy always had me climbing uphill to find ways of storing/increasing my wealth. Once I started going through the rabbit hole and grow more confident in allocating fiat shitcoins into bitcoin, I just slept better at night knowing my purchasing power is increasing over time. All this to say that the most amazing thing about bitcoin to me is the overall sensation of peace and well-being it brings to my life.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO IN THE BITCOIN SPACE?

The new wave of plebs finding peace and financial security as they take upon themselves the journey in discovering what this means to their personal and family’s bottom line. Bitcoiners are awesome people, so I’m looking forward to the future of humanity.

WHAT IS YOUR PRICE PREDICTION FOR THE END OF 2021 AND THE END OF 2030?