- Tesla and SpaceX owner Elon Musk received a video allegedly from the Anonymous hacker group. It says that his tweets regarding cryptocurrency ruined the lives of ordinary working people, their dreams collapsed due to Musk's public tantrums. The man in the video, in the group's familiar Guy Fawkes mask, changed his voice and called the billionaire a Bond villain who pretends to be a visionary, but in fact is a narcissistic rich man desperately in need of attention. The video indicates that Musk abandoned bitcoin only because he feared Tesla would lose subsidies from the state. And the hackers called Musk's recent initiative to create a Council of Bitcoin Miners an attempt to take control of the industry. The video, which has already garnered about 2 million views, ends with a challenge: “You consider yourself the smartest, but this time you will play against an equal opponent. We are Anonymous! We are legion! Wait for us".
- Goldman Sachs bank experts have downgraded the "rating" of bitcoin from "gold" to "copper". According to them, it is still difficult to put the main coin on a par with gold, since it does not have such a powerful support as this precious metal. Commodities expert Jeff Curry explained that the volatility of the main coin is very similar in nature to the price swings of copper in the global market. Previously, a similar point of view was voiced by JPMorgan experts. According to them, the main cryptocurrency is a cyclical commodity, and therefore cannot compete with precious metals or fiat. Investment companies are well aware of this, which is why they have portfolios that only consist of a few percent of bitcoin and other digital assets.
- The opposite point of view to bankers was expressed by the CEO of the crypto exchange Gemini and bitcoin billionaire Tyler Winklevoss. He believes that bitcoin is still in its early stages of development. “Bitcoin is Gold 2.0,” Winklevoss said, “and its market cap should be over $10 trillion, just like gold. It is currently at the level of $1 trillion, that is, growth may be at least 10 times more. " In his opinion, even a rate of about $35,000 is an excellent opportunity to enter a long-term investment. With a capitalization of $10 trillion, 1 BTC will be worth $500,000, and this may happen within the current decade, or maybe within the next 5 years. “We will hodl to at least $500,000, and even then, we will not have to sell the asset, because it can be lent, used as collateral, etc.,” the billionaire added. And then he flew into space in his fantasies, claiming that bitcoin could be used for transactions between planets in the future: “Bitcoin is a project that continues to evolve and can achieve much more. It could become the global reserve digital currency of the world or even several planets when we get to Mars. "
- The MIT students who participated in the bitcoin research spent the cryptocurrency they had been given on textbooks and food. As Bloomberg calculated, they missed ... 13,000% of their profits. In 2014, Bitcoin Core developer Jeremy Rubin and Nascent co-founder Dan Elitzer, while students at the university, launched the MIT Bitcoin Project. Each project participant received $100 in the first cryptocurrency (0.3 BTC at the exchange rate at that time) in order to create an ecosystem of digital currencies on campus. More than 3,100 students joined the study. Every tenth student got rid of cryptocurrency in the first two weeks, and by mid-2017, every fourth student had converted it to fiat and used it for purchases and other expenses. The participants in the experiment spent digital gold mainly in the campus bookstore. They also bought beer and ordered food. The rest kept the coins in their wallets, expecting further growth in their value. One of the project participants said that she wanted to spend bitcoins on a T-shirt that cost $35, but abandoned her idea, and did the right thing: the price of these coins exceeds $4,000 now.
- Billionaire Mark Lasry, founder of Avenue Capital Management, said bitcoin's explosive growth in 2021 has exceeded his expectations. He also expressed regret that he had not invested enough in the first cryptocurrency. Commenting on his previous forecast regarding the rise in the price of the coin to $40,000, the investor noted that the cryptocurrency market has already formed, and nothing threatens it. “If a market is created, it does not disappear anywhere. For this reason, I became interested in bitcoin. I thought that with the arrival of institutional investors, the price would start to rise,” he added. At the same time, Lasry stressed that any movement of digital gold can be explained: “To be honest, I do not know where bitcoin is going. I can justify why it will rise to $100,000, but I can also justify why it will fall to $20,000."
- Analytical software provider MicroStrategy Inc. announced a $400 million convertible bond offering maturing in 2028. Accredited investors will become buyers of securities. The company will use the funds raised from the placement to buy bitcoins. According to Bitcoin Treasuries, MicroStrategy currently owns 92,079 BTC worth over $3.37 billion so far.
- Against the background of the market correction, bitcoin whales have increased their positions, and large Ethereum wallets continue to hold assets. Analysts of Santiment came to such conclusions. According to the company, the number of bitcoin addresses with balances from 100 BTC to 10,000 BTC has been growing steadily for two and a half weeks. “It seems that whales are buying confidently on the fall,” the experts concluded. As for the addresses holding 1,000-100,000 ETH, their number practically does not change during the period when the asset fluctuates in the range of $2,000- $2,500. “This group of investors is still holding on to the huge number of tokens that they have been accumulating at a rapid pace since last October,” the experts note. The NVT indicator (a tool for identifying bubbles in the cryptocurrency market) indicates the continued bearish sentiment for the first cryptocurrency. The NVT confirms investor bearish sentiment for Ethereum as well, for the first time since April 2020.
- The American company Progressive Care began accepting bitcoin as payment for rapid tests for COVID-19. The service is available in PharmcoRx pharmacies, and one can pay for tests through a QR code. The company stressed that they believe in the future of the blockchain and want to provide an opportunity for testing for coronavirus "to those who have an alternative view of payment systems."
- The Kalashnikov Concern, which produces the well-known AK-47 machine, would like to abandon the international payment system SWIFT and switch to using digital currencies. Such an unexpected statement was made by a rock singer, former Deputy Minister of Transport of Russia, and now the owner of the concern, Alan Lushnikov. “We really need it,” he said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) According to him, this alternative system is not tied to SWIFT and is not controlled by banks. For this reason, the company is less interested in central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
