- According to Coingecko, bitcoin is up 12% on the back of another tweet by Elon Musk. Tesla's owner said the company will resume selling electric cars for BTC when at least half of the miners switch to renewable energy. The tweet was a response to criticism from Magda Wierzycka, the head of Sygnia finance company. She said in the podcast The Money Show the Tesla founder was manipulating the price of the first cryptocurrency. In her view, the billionaire raised the price of digital gold deliberately and eliminated much of his position at highs. Sygnia's CEO emphasized that if Musk's tweets were about any public company, he would have already been targeted by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Musk called the words of the head of Sygnia inaccurate and recalled that the electric car manufacturer sold only 10% of its bitcoins to test the liquidity of the market.
- Venture capitalist and billionaire Tim Draper predicted in 2018 the growth of the first cryptocurrency to $250,000 by 2022 and called the blockchain one of the most outstanding inventions in human history. And he has confirmed his forecast now, albeit with some timing prolongation. Bitcoin will hit the $250,000 mark by the end of 2022 or early 2023, according to his latest statement, despite the sharp price fluctuations. The reasons for the growth, which the billionaire named, are still the same: the limited emission of coins and the growing demand for digital gold. “Give it [bitcoin] about a year and a half and all retailers will use OpenNode,” the investor said. As a reminder, OpenNode is a bitcoin payment processor created by a group of enthusiasts, in the development of which Tim Draper invested $1.25 mln.
- Tunisian Finance Minister Ali Kuli announced the need to change the country's legislation to “decriminalize” ownership of the first cryptocurrency. He said the occasion was reports of the arrest of a 17-year-old for using digital assets. Local media reported in May that Tunisian law enforcement had allegedly accused the young man of money laundering. The incident sparked outrage in the cryptocurrency community: some of its participants expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of clarity in the regulation of the industry.
- Tudor Investment hedge fund trader and founder Paul Tudor Jones said in an interview with CNBC that he would channel 5% of his capital into bitcoin. He is convinced that the first cryptocurrency contributes to the diversification of the investment portfolio through “embedded mathematics.” The billionaire currently reserves 5% each for gold, bitcoin, exchange contracts and cash. It will determine the scenario for placing the remaining 80% funds after analyzing the outcome of the June 16 meeting of the US Fed. The investor hinted that he could increase the share of "inflationary" instruments if the monetary authorities ignore the recent surge in consumer prices. In his view, it was of a “very significant” character. “For me, the first cryptocurrency is just a way to look fundamentally at how I protect my wealth over time. This is a great opportunity for diversification, for preserving capital, the billionaire explained. "If they [the Fed] say, "We are on the trajectory [of a temporary increase in inflation], everything is fine," then I’ll go all-in.”
- El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele proposed a "bitcoin law" to parliament last week. Cryptocurrency is recognized as legal tender and companies are required to accept BTC as payment, unless they are located in rural areas with no internet access. In addition, bitcoin trading is exempt from capital gains taxes. And now Bukele has come up with another initiative. He instructed the head of state-owned electricity company LaGeo to develop a plan to mine Bitcoin using volcanic energy. “Very cheap, 100% clean, 100% renewable energy with zero emissions. We will try to get things done quickly,” the head of state wrote on Twitter. There are over 20 volcanoes in El Salvador, some of which are active. LaGeo is now using volcanoes to generate geothermal energy. And, for example, Genesis Mining in Iceland uses underground heat to generate electricity.
- According to the regular Millionaire Survey, 47% of wealthy millennials in the USA buy crypto assets. At the same time, 35% of them hold more than half of their investment portfolio in digital assets. Millennials have shown greater interest in cryptocurrencies than owners of large fortunes overall. Those were only about 17%. Moreover, only every tenth of them invested more than 10% of their capital in digital assets.
- Banks in Texas (USA) have been authorized to accept and store customers' bitcoins, as well as handle their cryptocurrency transactions. Lending organizations also received the rights from the state authorities to collaborate with startups developing various services for digital assets. It should be noted that of all American states, Texas was one of the first, as early as 2019, to move on the path to legislate this market.
- The Netherlands should immediately impose a blanket ban on mining and bitcoin operations, Pieter Hasekamp, director of the Economic Analysis Bureau at the country's Ministry of Economy, said. The official listed a number of reasons why the authorities need to recognize the first cryptocurrency as illegal. In his view, digital gold has no intrinsic value, and the coin itself does not perform any of the three functions of money: the unit of accounting, the means of payment and the means of accumulation. Hasekamp mentioned security issues, fraud risks and added that digital assets are used in criminal activities. At the same time, he considers the collapse of the crypto market inevitable.
- According to the New Indian Express, India's hostile stance on bitcoin is changing to a more loyal one. The authorities now intend not to ban but regulate the crypto sphere. India wants to create an alternative asset class that will include digital currencies. The regulatory framework will be created by the Securities and Exchange Council in partnership with the Ministry of Finance.
