- Experts agree that Bitcoin will be able to withstand the pressure of banks and reach a new level. According to one of scenarios, the correction of the main cryptocurrency from $19,480 to $16,280, which was fixed last week, is associated with the decision of the US President Donald Trump Administration to tighten control over the circulation of digital assets. Officials chose to change the rules for registering cryptocurrency wallets as one of the ways to manage transactions. Many crypto companies have already begun developing new versions of wallets, which will receive permits from the US Securities and Exchange Commission before launching. Trump is probably trying to resist China in this way, which is preparing to release its own cryptocurrency. If the digital yuan becomes a cross-border payment instrument, it can be used instead of the dollar. This will make sanctions against China ineffective, and Washington will lose the ability to put pressure on Beijing. “Bitcoin has an indirect relationship to everything that happens, but even the first statements by representatives of the American government about the desire to start controlling the industry brought it down by several thousand dollars in a matter of hours. But I do not think this will lead to serious problems, as the market has already managed to recover from the correction,” said Mark Yusko, the head of Morgan Creek investment company. Moreover, according to experts of Stack Funds, this correction is not only “healthy”, but also will allow bitcoin to prepare for a new high of $86,000.
- According to Mike Novogratz, head of the Galaxy Digital crypto trading bank, everyone should invest 2-3% of their funds in bitcoin. “After that, it is enough to wait a little time, and you will be surprised, but cryptocurrencies will cost significantly more. If you wait five years, the assets will multiply several times,” he wrote. According to the head of Galaxy Digital, bitcoin volatility can be expected in the near future, but it is unlikely to sink below $12,000, and even a correction to such levels is unlikely.
- An unknown user received 7 Ethereum coins (about $4,200 at the time of writing) for a solved puzzle that began with a billboard in the Warsaw subway. An ad with an ethereum address and hashtags #0xPOLAND and #0xPOLANDHEIST appeared at one of the metro stations and urged passengers to solve the puzzle hiding the secret phrase for withdrawing funds to ETH. The tips were posted on a Twitter account called 0xPoland. The final clue appeared in the print and electronic editions of Gazeta Wyborcza. The organizers explained that they wanted to invite people to join their team "to create a decentralized financial infrastructure."
- Authorities in Delaware County (Pennsylvania, USA) paid hackers $500,000 in bitcoins after the county's information systems were attacked by the DoppelPaymer ransomware virus. The extortionists gained access to police records, payment documents, procurement information and other databases, however, it is argued that the attack did not affect the voting systems. After getting the ransom, the hackers advised authorities to change passwords and gave recommendations for configuring the Windows domain.
- The number of addresses containing more than one bitcoin is growing steadily and has exceeded 820 thousand. These wallets hold 95% of the total digital gold market volume. This is evidenced by data from analytics companies Glassnode and BitinfoCharts. Smaller addresses store about $16 billion of digital gold. There are 32.6 million addresses with non-zero balance in the world.
- The value of bitcoin could surpass the $500 thousand mark, the founder of the Gemini crypto exchange Tyler Winklevoss, one of the twin brothers who was called the first cryptocurrency billionaires, told CNBC. He called the current price of the main digital coin “an opportunity to buy” as it could rise in price by 25 times in the future. “Bitcoin will surpass gold. If this happens, the capitalization of this cryptocurrency will exceed $9 trillion,” predicted Tyler Winklevoss. It became known in summer 2020 that the Winklevoss brothers are planning to make a film about their history of investing in cryptocurrency. Ben Mezrich's biographical book "Bitcoin Billionaires" will be filmed for this purpose.
- Global Macro Investor CEO Raul Pal has placed an order to sell all of his gold to invest in BTC and ETH at an 80/20 ratio. He announced this on Twitter and clarified that in addition to gold, there are some bonds and US dollars in his portfolio. The head of Global Macro Investor expects that even conservative institutional investors, who usually prefer precious metals, will start investing in bitcoin next year. Therefore, Pal made the bold assumption that the rate of the first cryptocurrency cad reach $250,000 in a year.
- A message from South America: the Venezuelan army is mining cryptocurrencies. A Digital Asset Mining Centre for the Armed Forces of the country has opened in Caracas. An area on the territory of the Fort Tiuna headquarters was allocated for the Centre. The military called the creation of a mining center" an unblockable source of income" and an example of cooperation with the civilian sector. The amount of computing power has not been specified, but it is known that the Venezuelan National Guard has previously detained a truck with 315 mining blocks from Bitmain. The equipment was confiscated and has apparently become the basis for a new military crypto facility.
- Joe Biden's administration should focus on integrating bitcoin into the US financial system instead of creating a digital dollar like China. This is the opinion of Niall Ferguson, a former professor at Harvard and Oxford and now a senior researcher at Stanford. In a new article, the world-renowned economic historian looked at the US dollar, gold and bitcoin as the monetary revolution continued, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing parallels with the plague of the 14th century, the historian noted that the pandemic let digital gold cover a decade-long path in only ten months. And this happened not only because of the closed banks, but also due to the tightening of financial supervision.
- Payment system Visa has entered into cooperation with crypto startup BlockFi to launch a credit card with cashback in bitcoin in early 2021, writes Bloomberg. Users of the "Bitcoin Rewards Credit Card" product will receive a cashback of 1.5% of the amount spent in BTC and will also receive $250 in cryptocurrency once they spend more than $3,000 in the first three months. The rewards earned will be automatically transferred to the client's account in BlockFi, where they will be available for various transactions or withdrawal to a third-party wallet.
