Tag: Musk

Bitcoin tops $40,000 after Musk says Tesla could use it again, BFSI News, ET BFSI

Personal Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less


LONDON/SINGAPORE: Bitcoin climbed above $40,000 on Monday, after yet another weekend of price swings following tweets from Tesla boss Elon Musk, who fended off criticism over his market influence and said Tesla sold bitcoin but may resume transactions using it.

Bitcoin has gyrated to Musk‘s views for months since Tesla announced a $1.5 billion bitcoin purchase in February and said it would take the cryptocurrency in payment. He later said the electric car maker would not accept bitcoin due to concerns over how mining the currency requires high energy use and contributes to climate change.

“When there’s confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing Bitcoin transactions,” Musk said on Twitter on Sunday.

Bitcoin, which jumped nearly 10% on Sunday, breaking above its 20-day moving average, was up 4.3% on Monday at 40,692.27, its first foray above $40,000 in more than two weeks.

“Musk’s words caused bitcoin to surge,” said Simon Peters, market analyst at eToro.

Bitcoin was also supported Monday after billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones told CNBC on Monday that bitcoin is a great way to protect his wealth over the long run and is part of his portfolio just like gold.

Bitcoin prices were also helped by software company and major bitcoin-backer MicroStrategy raising half a billion dollars to buy bitcoin, said Bobby Ong, co-founder of crypto analytics website CoinGecko.

Bitcoin is up about 40% this year but has collapsed from a record peak above $60,000 amid a regulatory crackdown in China and Musk’s apparently wavering enthusiasm for it. Tesla stock is down about 30% since the company’s bitcoin purchase.

Musk’s tweet was made in response to an article based on remarks from Magda Wierzycka, head of cybersecurity firm Syngia , who in a radio interview last week accused him of “price manipulation” and selling a “big part” of his exposure.

“This is inaccurate,” Musk said. “Tesla only sold ~10% of holdings to confirm BTC could be liquidated easily without moving market.”

Musk had tweeted in May that Tesla “will not be selling any bitcoin” and “has not sold any bitcoin” but investors are keenly awaiting Tesla’s next earnings update – due next month – for any disclosure of changes to its position.

Musk has taken issue with the vast computing power required to process bitcoin transactions and in early June posted messages appearing to lament a breakup with bitcoin.



[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment , , , ,

Suddenly Bitcoiners and Ethereans just swapped talking points, BFSI News, ET BFSI

Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less


Everything’s getting weird in the crypto world. But to understand what’s going on, I want to go back to our recent podcast episode with Aaron Lammer, an Ethereum true believer, who was asked what he thought about Elon Musk going after Bitcoin over green concerns.

Tracy: OK. Just one more, but on a day like today, when, you know, Elon Musk tweeted, Bitcoin fell 16%. Although, you know, as we’re recording this, it’s pared some of those losses, but all the crypto coins, all the crypto-related stocks are all falling. What was today like for you? Like what did your yield-farming portfolio look like?

Aaron: You know, I honestly didn’t even check like most of this yield stuff, just kind of happening in the background, I’ll look and see how much I’ve made, but I’m looking more at the prices of the tokens than yields. I think that there are people who are just seeking yield out there, but those are people who have a lot more capital to start with than I do and are, like, not wanting to risk it, but want to just earn yield on like stable coins. I’m primarily holding Ethereum and other DeFi tokens. So when I saw that I actually was happy because I’m in Ethereum. I’m a true believer. And I believe that Ethereum will pass Bitcoin at some point. And I am fine with accelerating that if it can pass Bitcoin by going up or by Bitcoin going down. And I love the hostility and the space between the two camps. It’s getting ugly out there.

So basically a couple of weeks ago, when Elon Musk went after Bitcoin and tanked the entire market, the reaction among (at least some) Ethereans was that it was good, because Ethereum has a plan to go green (which Matt Leising wrote about today) and Bitcoin will always be proof of work (which is electricity intensive). So if proof of work becomes vilified, then that’s good for Ethereum in the long run, even if in the short run they all collapse. That’s the theory anyway.

Except now Musk is sounding warm to Bitcoin again, talking about his discussions with miners regarding renewable-energy mining in North America. Actually, the full context is that Michael Saylor, the Microstrategy’s chief executive officer, is convening a meeting between Musk and various miners. And note he specifically cites ESG considerations in the second tweet:

So now you have at least some Bitcoin industry leaders trying to make a point of sounding “green” or ESG-friendly.

What’s interesting, too, is that while Bitcoin leaders start to tout their green bonafides, the Ethereum world is starting to sound like hard-money types.

A lot of people are talking about this Packy McCormick blog post about upcoming changes to the Ethereum protocol, one of which includes a plan to slowly shrink the available number of coins out there.

Substance aside, this is part of the new Ethereum rhetoric:

But EIP 1559 and Eth2 flip that. With Eth2, new issuance to reward validators is expected to drop dramatically versus Proof of Work rewards. With EIP 1559, by burning ETH in every transaction, assuming a conservative amount of daily transaction fees and that 70% of the gas fee is burnt and 30% is sent as a tip, then more ETH will be burnt than issued every day. Together, the supply of ETH will actually begin decreasing after EIP 1559 and the Eth2 merge. It’s better than sound money. It’s Ultra Sound Money.

So you have Michael Saylor talking about ESG, and you have Ethereum bulls talking about “Ultra Sound Money.” Not sure what it means, but it sounds like the End Times.

Meanwhile, both Bitcoin and Ethereum are surging today after a horrible weekend. So for all of the ostensible disputes between the two camps, they still trade more or less in unison.



[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment , , , , , , ,

Musk jolts Bitcoin higher with push to burnish miners’ image, BFSI News, ET BFSI

Personal Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less


Elon Musk continued to toy with the price of Bitcoin Monday, taking to Twitter to indicate support for what he says is an effort by miners to make their operations greener.

Musk and Michael Saylor, another long-time Bitcoin booster, tweeted that they held a call with major North American miners, including Michael Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital and publicly traded Hut 8 Mining Corp., on Sunday to discuss “energy usage transparency.” Saylor said the group agreed to form the Bitcoin Mining Council “to standardize energy reporting.”

The world’s largest cryptocurrency advanced as much as 19% to trade around $39,944 following the tweets. It has slumped to as low as $31,132 on Sunday.

The latest was at least the fourth tweet by Musk that has sent Bitcoin prices running one way or another in the past two weeks. The volatility, almost unprecedented in an asset known for its wild swings, has raised concern among Wall Street veterans and regulators alike that Bitcoin might not be ready for the prime time its backers envision.

“If the market continues to see wild swings based on Elon Musk tweets, it’s going to be a big set back for this asset class. The fact that it sees such wild swings to the tweets from one person takes away the legitimacy of the asset class,” said Matt Maley, chief market strategist for Miller Tabak + Co.

A spokesperson from Galaxy confirmed that a company mining representative participated in the call. Hut 8 Mining tweeted that it also was on the call, and would be part of an effort to “educate the market that sustainable mining is possible and a priority.”

The timing is conspicuous. Two weeks ago, Musk roiled the crypto world when he said Tesla Inc. wouldn’t accept Bitcoin for cars because of its energy-intensive proof-of-transaction process. While the creation of a mining industry council might standardize energy-usage reporting, it will take years for many of the largest miners to recalibrate where they source their energy.

Pledges to make the industry more green picked up since Musk’s tweet, with several miners joining the Crypto Climate Accord, a private-sector initiative to decarbonize the crypto industry by 2030. The group was inspired by the Paris Climate Agreement.

Energy usage — a long-known problem — had not seemed to bother Musk as he hyped crypto and earlier this year plowed $1.5 billion of Tesla’s corporate cash into it. Miners use hundreds of computers that run around the clock to verify Bitcoin transactions in exchange for new coins. While some have hooked into energy sources powered by hydroelectric dams or solar and wind farms, much of the power comes from coal-fired plants.

Musk’s tweet criticizing the energy usage sent Bitcoin tumbling the most in years, wiping more than $500 billion from its market value. He later tweeted that he still believed in Bitcoin, helping the token recoup some of its losses. The volatility persisted through the weekend before a modest rebound Monday got supercharged by his latest online missive.

Saylor, CEO and founder of Microstrategy Inc., announced last week that his enterprise-software company bought more Bitcoin as prices fell, bringing its holdings to approximately 92,079 Bitcoins, which it says were acquired for about $2.25 billion at an average of about $24,450 per token.

A host of crypto bulls are lining up to hype the industry as it holds one of its biggest conferences of the year this week. Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard noted at the Consensus conference that a big issue for central banks with regard to a digital currency is the impact on the financial system.



[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment , , , , , , ,

Dogecoin’s popularity soars ahead of Nifty, mutual funds in India, BFSI News, ET BFSI

Personal Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less


MUMBAI: A joke well said is when everyone laughs or at least goes back home and Googles it. Mind-numbing rallies in the cryptocurrency world are not absurd, but the rise of the ‘Doge’ has confounded even the biggest of cryptocurrency lovers.

Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency born out of a light-hearted joke in 2013 with no revolutionary endeavours, such as those of Bitcoin creator, has soared 5,500 per cent in 2021 so far, despite having nearly halved its value over the past week.

Simply put, Dogecoin is an Internet meme currency with the symbol of the Japanese Shiba Inu dog for the meme generation, backed by individuals like Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, SpaceX and Starlink.

And, Indians are intrigued.

The popularity of the meme cryptocurrency has been soaring among Indians since the beginning of April from virtually zero interest prior to that. Much of the interest has been driven by reports that pegged the digital currency’s returns at over 10,000 per cent year to date, something unheard of in the world of traditional investing.

More Indians were searching for the term ‘Dogecoin’ on Google on Friday than Bitcoin and mutual funds combined, data on Google search trends showed. The rise in popularity of the cryptocurrency has been such that it is threatening to overtake popular search terms in India’s investing landscape like ‘Nifty’ and ‘Sensex’.

Industry watchers in India said almost all of the interest in Doogecoin is being driven by young investors, who are ardent admirers of Elon Musk, given his image as a futurist and his involvement in the development of some of the most revolutionary companies of the 21st century.

The surge in interest is despite Dogecoin giving up almost half of its value earlier this week following the Tesla Founder’s comments on a popular US comedy show that the cryptocurrency was nothing more than a ‘hustle’, confirming the suspicion of most.

Prior to Musk’s appearance on the Saturday Night Live last week, the interest in Dogecoin virtually broke the roof for the cryptocurrency market, as several cryptocurrency exchanges in India such as WazirX were unable to handle the deluge of orders.

WazirX, India’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, reported one of the highest single-day trading volumes of $350 million on May 7, a day prior to Musk’s appearance on the show. Some industry watchers suggested that much of the volumes were being driven by Dogecoin investors.

Musk has tried to make amends ever since his SNL gaffe by announcing the launch of a moon mission called DOGE-1, which will be funded entirely by Dogecoin.

Further, his Twitter poll earlier this week on whether Tesla should accept payment in Dogecoin or Bitcoin coincided with the shock announcement on Thursday that the electric vehicle company will suspend acceptance of Bitcoin as payment due to environment-related concerns.

“…if Elon Musk is able to improve some of its technical flaws as he said, that could help it gain long-term value,” said Vikram Rangala, chief operating officer at ZebPay.

Dogecoin’s lack of fundamental value compared with other major crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum is not lost even on cryptocurrency experts, who argue that it has none of the traits such as fixed supply that have made Bitcoin popular.

However, when the world’s second richest man is himself on the driver’s seat, one can only expect people to hop on to the bandwagon.



[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment , , , , , , , ,

Bitcoin falls below $50,000 as Musk calls energy use ‘insane’, BFSI News, ET BFSI

Personal Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less


By Yakob Peterseil and Dana Hull

Tesla Inc.’s Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk doubled down on his attack on Bitcoin’s energy demands, calling recent consumption trends “insane.”

Musk posted a chart on Twitter from the University of Cambridge showing Bitcoin’s electricity consumption has skyrocketed this year. It’s the second day he’s criticized crypto mining for using fossil fuels and comes after an announcement that Tesla would suspend car purchases using Bitcoin.

The turnaround by one of crypto’s loudest believers took investors by surprise and sent prices tumbling across the board. Bitcoin plunged 10% in early U.S. trading to below $50,000. Exchange operator Coinbase Global Inc. sank 2% in the premarket and other tokens including Ether and Dogecoin slumped.

“Bitcoin is also a manifestation of the value of the internet, and hence it stands to reason that social media and the cult of celebrity has, and will continue to have, an effect on driving demand,” said Stephen Kelso, head of markets at ITI Capital.

Mining the token consumes 66 times more electricity than it did back in late 2015, according to a recent Citigroup Inc. report.

Musk signaled on Wednesday that Tesla might accept other cryptocurrencies if they are less energy intensive, and said the company won’t sell any of its Bitcoin.

It’s unclear what prompted the decision and Musk and Zachary Kirkhorn, Tesla’s chief financial officer, didn’t immediately respond to an email inquiry for comment. Kirkhorn in March added the tongue-in-cheek title “Master of Coin,” according to a regulatory filing.Still, Musk’s tweets raise questions about Bitcoin’s attractiveness as an investment at a time when institutional firms are increasingly vocal about climate change and environmental issues.

“Surely he would have done his diligence prior to accepting Bitcoin?” said Nic Carter, founding partner at Castle Island Ventures, and a leading voice among defenders of Bitcoin’s energy use. “Very odd and confusing to see this quick reversal.”

Musk’s decision in February to buy $1.5 billion in Bitcoin and plan to accept it as a form of payment has been a major catalyst in the crypto bull market. In the eyes of analysts, it helped add legitimacy to the token and usher in new investors.

Musk’s crypto tweets have often been in jest, and his attention toward Dogecoin brought the joke token into the mainstream. He’s quipped about being the “Dogefather” in the past, and tweeted on Tuesday, “Do you want Tesla to accept Doge?”



[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment , , , , , , ,

Elon Musk | Bitcoin: What crypto insiders think about Elon Musk’s bitcoin U-turn, BFSI News, ET BFSI

Personal Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less


Cyptocurrency enthusiasts got a nasty shock Wednesday when Elon Musk, founder of Tesla Inc. and the second-richest person on the planet, announced on Twitter that his automaker wouldn’t accept payment in Bitcoin any more due to environmental concerns.

After all, this is the same man who just a few months earlier said Tesla bought into Bitcoin, to the tune of $1.5 billion. He tweeted “True” in response to a thread citing research that mining the token might actually spur the uptake of renewable energy, from Ark Investment Management LLC. Bitcoin mining is known to be energy-intensive, with the industry prizing cheap and plentiful power supplies.

Bitcoin slid as much as 15 per cent to nearly $46,000 before recovering. It was down 6.4 per cent at $51,039 as of 2:45 p.m. in Hong Kong.

Here’s what some people in the crypto industry have to say about the development:

New Highs Await?
“This may be the selloff that sets Bitcoin up for new all-time highs,” said David Grider of Fundstrat Global Advisors LLC. “We think the news is overblown and wouldn’t be surprised if Tesla is signaling plans to make crypto ‘greener.’” In a note Wednesday, Grider said Bitcoin has been consolidating for months as its market dominance has waned, but he’s still bullish, with a target of $100,000.

Seeking an Explanation
“The most logical answer is that he’s feeling pressure” from people who think “that one can’t be green and own crypto,” said investor Michael Terpin, calling that position “uninformed.”

“First, there’s virtually no energy expending in SENDING Bitcoin; and the mining of new coins to keep the network secure is still a far lower amount of energy (and 70 per cent of it from renewable sources) than the amount of energy expended to mine the world’s gold or power the global banking systems.”

Watching Other Cryptocurrencies
It wasn’t lost on some pundits that Musk might have his sights set on boosting a rival coin with a greener, perhaps even fluffier, profile. One of the most-liked replies on Twitter to Musk’s original statement was from Billy Markus, the co-creator of Dogecoin — the Shiba Inu-themed cryptocurrency that started as a joke in 2013. That token has become a favorite of Musk’s, and a darling among the retail set of investors and enthusiasts.

“If only there was a merge-mined cryptocurrency that had a much smaller carbon footprint than Bitcoin, and also had a dog on it,” Markus said.

Doesn’t Add Up
“Broadly it’s a bit surprising given Tesla bought Bitcoin for their treasury in January and the argument is the same whether you’re using Bitcoin as a store of value or for transactional purposes,” said Vijay Ayyar, head of Asia-Pacific at Luno Pte., in an email. “So it doesn’t add up. Usually in such cases there are unknown motives at play.”

It Can’t Be
For some, the reaction bordered on disbelief.

“Tell me your account got hacked without telling me your account got hacked,” said Yassine Elmandjra, crypto analyst at Ark, in a reply to Musk’s tweet.

Chance to Buy
“In retrospect, it was a great buying opportunity,” quipped longtime crypto enthusiast and co-founder of Gemini Trust Co. LLC, Cameron Winklevoss, on Twitter.



[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment , , , , , , , ,

Second-biggest cryptocurrency ethereum breaks $4,000 to hit record high, BFSI News, ET BFSI

Personal Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less


LONDON/SINGAPORE: Cryptocurrency ethereum broke $4,000 for the first time on Monday, climbing to a new peak for a third day in a row on bets it may find new uses, although some analysts said it was overvalued at current levels.

Ethereum, the second-largest coin by market capitalisation, jumped more than 6% to just below $4,175, and was last up around 2%.

It has soared this year, fuelled by expectations of wider use, based in part on its role in decentralised finance – “DeFi” – platforms that facilitate crypto-denominated lending outside traditional banking.

An upcoming technical change to its software seen as reducing its supply has also provided a boost, while new institutional investors in the crypto sector have warmed to it amid a tepid quarter so far for bitcoin.

“(Crypto has) got a lot more institutional involvement than people who haven’t followed the market believe,” said Chris Weston, head of research at brokerage Pepperstone.

“And everyone’s been in ethereum. It’s not a meme joke coin, it actually has some application use,” he added, referring to its role in DeFi.

But some analysts said ethereum’s increasing valuation was not underpinned by data of how widely it is used.

“The continued divergence of its price relative to network activity raise questions about its valuation,” J.P. Morgan analysts wrote in a report to clients dated May 7.

Factors such as the number of active digital addresses in its network would be more consistent with a price of around $1,000, the US bank said.

In the crypto world, the terms “ethereum” and “ether” have become synonymous. Technically, ethereum is the blockchain network in which applications are embedded, while ether is the token or currency that enables or drives the use of these applications.

Altcoins

Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, rose to a three-week high above $59,600 on Monday. Dogecoin, a recent outperformer, stabilised after losses on Sunday after comments by Tesla Inc chief Elon Musk on the Saturday Night Live TV show, where he said it was a “hustle”.

Smaller cryptocurrencies, like Dogecoin, known as “altcoins,” have been in demand in the past few weeks, pushing bitcoin’s share of the overall $2.5 trillion digital currency market to its lowest in around two years.

Dogecoin, which began as a social media joke in 2013, is up more than 700% in the last month.

It was last trading at $0.51, after tumbling 38% in the last 24 hours on Musk’s comments. It later steadied after Musk’s commercial rocket company SpaceX said it would accept the meme-inspired cryptocurrency dogecoin as payment.

The meme-based coin has become the fourth-largest digital currency, with a market capitalisation of $69 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. It hit a record high on Thursday above $0.73.



[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment , , , ,