Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

The infamous meme-crypto dogecoin has seen double-digit gains in recent days after Tesla’s Elon Musk tweeted about his upcoming Saturday Night Live appearance on May 8. On Wednesday, Musk tweeted “The Dogefather SNL May 8,” and a great number of people assume dogecoin will be mentioned to some degree on the show. Dogecoin Captures a $50 Billion Market Cap This weekend, dogecoin (DOGE) has started to surge again, as the token featuring the likeness of the Shiba Inu dog is nearing the asset’s all-time high (ATH). The last dogecoin ATH was two weeks ago when the cryptocurrency reached $0.44 per token. DOGE has jumped more than 45% during the last seven days, and 30-day stats show dogecoin gained 537.92% against the U.S. dollar. In recent times, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell was asked about dogecoin at a press conference, and Shark Tank star Mark Cuban talked about DOGE with Ellen Degeneres. Just before the weekend, Tesla’s Elon Musk, who tweets about dogecoin often, mentio...

A chief economist at UBS, the largest bank in Switzerland, sees a number of problems with bitcoin. In attempting to answer the question of whether the cryptocurrency defies the zeitgeist, he claims that “bitcoin is denied to those minority groups who have reduced online access.” UBS Chief Economist Sees Multiple Problems With Bitcoin Paul Donovan, Chief Economist of UBS Global Wealth Management, published a weekly update entitled “Does Bitcoin defy the Zeitgeist ?” on the UBS website Friday outlining a number of issues he sees with the cryptocurrency. UBS is the largest bank in Switzerland. “There is something weird about Bitcoin. Bitcoin seems to specifically defy the spirit of the age, in a way other cryptos do not,” he began, adding: Some suggest bitcoin is a safe haven from runaway inflation. But controlling supply does not guarantee value … Bitcoin has a history of extreme price fluctuation. “We cannot keep living on environmental credit and must become increasingly sustai...

Visa CEO Al Kelly says that the payments giant is leaning into the cryptocurrency space “in a very, very big way.” He outlines five key areas of crypto opportunities that Visa is focusing on, stating that his company is “extremely well-positioned.” Visa Is Focusing on 5 Crypto Areas During Visa’s earnings call for the period ended March 31 last week, the payments giant outlined its commitment to the crypto space, highlighting five key areas the company is focusing on. Al Kelly, Visa’s chairman and chief executive officer, began by noting that there are “two market segments” his company sees in the crypto space. One is bitcoin, which he described as “primarily” an asset held by people. “We kind of think of them as the digital gold,” he continued. “Then there are digital currencies, including central bank digital currencies [CBDCs] and stablecoins that are directly backed by existing fiat currencies.” The CEO further revealed: Our focus is on five different opportunities that we s...

Investment bank Goldman Sachs has compiled a list of 19 large-cap stocks with cryptocurrency exposure that have massively outperformed the S&P 500. “On average, these stocks have dramatically outperformed the S&P 500 during the last several months alongside the surge in the price of bitcoin,” the firm wrote. 19 Stocks With Crypto Exposure That Outperformed S&P500 Goldman Sachs released a research note last week listing 19 large-cap U.S. stocks with blockchain and cryptocurrency exposure that outperformed the S&P 500. Ben Snider, the bank’s strategist and managing director, said: “Our screen yields 19 stocks with market caps greater than $1 billion … On average, these stocks have outperformed the S&P 500 by 34 percentage points year to date (+46% vs. +12%).” He noted that during the same time period, the price of bitcoin rose by 86% and Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index increased 156%. The Goldman Sachs strategist elaborated: On average, these stocks have dramatic...

Fundstrat Global Advisors’ most recent “Weekly Crypto Briefing” and the company’s lead digital asset strategist, David Grider, opines a target bitcoin price of $100k per coin is still “intact.” Moreover, Fundstrat believes that the price of ethereum will reach a $10k target, while the entire crypto-economy is “on pace to hit $5 trillion.” Fundstrat Maintains $100K Target for Bitcoin The independent financial research firm Fundstrat has a very bullish view of the current trajectory of cryptocurrency markets in the future. Fundstrat’s digital asset strategist, David Grider explains in the company’s weekly briefing covering digital assets that bitcoin (BTC) has rebounded after a “healthy cooling-off period last week.” Grider’s report further says that “the macro backdrop remains accommodative [and the] bull market remains intact.” The Fundstrat briefing stresses: We believe the bull market remains intact, and we are maintaining our $100k Bitcoin price target. One of the accommo...

During the Second 421 Wet Season Festival and Mining Ecology Conference the Chairman of the Bitdeer Group and cofounder of Bitmain, Jihan Wu spoke about institutions flocking to cryptocurrency mining. During the event Bitdeer outlined the company’s computing partnerships and its plans to make digital currency mining greener. Bitmain’s Cofounder Jihan Wu Is Optimistic About the Future of Cryptocurrencies and Mining Two weeks ago, Bitdeer Group, the corporate organization behind the web portal bitdeer.com , announced the firm has been granted funding for $12 million from the Hong Kong subsidiary of Genimous Technology , Genimous Investment. The funding aims to be allotted toward the development of Bitdeer’s cloud mining services. Bitdeer was founded by Jihan Wu and is backed by Sequoia Capital, IDG, and other financial institutions. At the Second 421 Wet Season Festival and Mining Ecology Conference, Jihan Wu, spoke to the crowd about institutions stepping into the digital currency...

The American billionaire entrepreneur and television personality, Mark Cuban, has waged a bet with Creative Planning’s founder Peter Mallouk over the performance of cryptocurrencies versus the S&P 500. Cuban said on Twitter that the two should put $1 million into a stablecoin-based smart contract, in order to place a bet over the return performance of either ethereum or bitcoin in ten years against the Standard and Poor’s 500 index. Mark Cuban Backs His Statements With a $1 Million Bet With Peter Mallouk One of the investors on the ABC reality television series Shark Tank, Mark Cuban has been talking about cryptocurrencies a lot lately, and recently the billionaire told Ellen Degeneres about the potential of dogecoin (DOGE) . Being the owner of the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Dallas Mavericks, Cuban now has the Mavs accepting digital currencies for goods and services. Just recently, however, Peter Mallouk the founder of Creative Planning, a financial management g...

Actress Mila Kunis has revealed that she and her husband, Ashton Kutcher, started investing in bitcoin more than eight years ago. She initially thought that investing in bitcoin was “a horrible idea.” However, now she is using cryptocurrencies and said she has never been happier to be wrong. Mila Kunis Is Happy to Be Wrong About Bitcoin Famous film and TV actress Mila Kunis, who is married to actor Ashton Kutcher, talked about bitcoin on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Thursday. She explained that before making an investment, Kutcher would run them by her. “The best part about him is he is really smart about including me in everything and making sure that I am aware of everything that is happening,” Kunis shared. She started dating Kutcher in 2012 and the pair married in July 2015. “He is also really smart at knowing that, sometimes, you shouldn’t listen to your wife,” she opined. “Early into our dating, two things came up,” Kunis described. They were Uber and Bitcoin. After...

Bitcoin use cases in African countries continue to expand with the latest one being its use as an alternative source of retirement income. On a continent plagued by high inflation and unstable currencies, bitcoin, which is decentralized and censorship-resistant, is seen “as a safer source to contribute to for retirement.” According to a local report , this shift towards bitcoin is more profound in countries like South Africa where traditional pension funds “have historically had issues of fraud and instability.” The report, which relied on an analysis by a crypto startup, Yellow Card, explained: This has been especially noted in countries such as South Africa, where a high number of users reported utilising Bitcoin savings as a safer source to contribute to for retirement. Nevertheless, the report still notes that bitcoin is yet to be proven a reliable investment for a long-term horizon. Consequently, the report cautions long-term savers to consider all the possible scenarios and...

Russian authorities have recently labeled one of the leading independent media outlets in the country as a “foreign agent.” Such a maneuver led Meduza to set up a fiat and crypto fundraiser to survive the consequences of labeling. Fund Will Accept Donations in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Binance Coin According to an editorial statement published by the outlet, the Russian Justice Ministry added Meduza on April 23 to its “foreign agent” media list. It implies that every news piece or social post they do should be accompanied by a message, notifying their readers about its new status. However, the Meduza team says that Kremlin considers them an “enemy of the state” with such labeling. It will make the journalistic routines more complicated, such as looking for sources or reporting any news, the statement added. Afterward, advertisers stopped their business ties with the news outlet, which cut a financial flow that keeps alive to the outlet, and they expect a further loss of a “significa...

PRESS RELEASE. AscendEX, formerly BitMax, an industry-leading digital asset trading platform built by Wall Street quant trading veterans, has announced the listing of the DefiDollar Token (DFD) under the pair USDT/DFD on Apr 29 at 1:00 p.m. UTC. DefiDollar is a DeFi lab that aims to bring mass adoption to DeFi with a wide-ranging product suite. The first product offering to go live will be the stablecoin index – DUSD, with ibBTC and optionCoin currently in development. DefiDollar (DUSD) aspires to be a risk-insured stablecoin layer for DeFi. It is designed to provide a safe and stable way for users to hold their assets with DUSD being optimized for peg safety, yield, and diversification. DefiDollar uses DeFi primitives to stay close to the dollar mark. DUSD provides an avenue for diversifying stablecoin holdings to hedge against an event where the underlying stablecoins like Tether or DAI deviate from their peg. DUSD is collateralized by Curve Finance LP tokens. DFD is the n...

A group of South African investors recently confessed to losing money to a brazen scammer after he convinced them to buy and hold nearly worthless physical coins. The coins, which are denominated in the Bostwana pula currency, were initially sold to a group of South African women back in 2019 when bitcoin was only worth $3,500. However, according to a report , this con only came to light when one member of the group, who is only known as Lizet, attempted to cash out after she lost her job. Lizet explained: I lost my job and decided to sell one bitcoin since it had doubled in price (and that is when) I found out I had bought two 5 pula coins for $6,988 (100,000 rands) and now the Nigerian man who scammed us is no where to be found. Meanwhile, Lizet adds that before the women realised they were being conned, the scammer would tell them that what they were “doing is what investors call hodl” and that “when the price is right people will be fighting to purchase the coins from us.” It...

Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary, also known as Mr. Wonderful, says “Bitcoin will always be the gold,” outperforming other cryptocurrencies, such as ethereum, in the long run. He said “there are interests being brought out of all kinds of institutions” for bitcoin. Kevin O’Leary Bullish on Bitcoin Kevin O’Leary shared his thoughts about bitcoin and ether in an interview with CNBC Wednesday. While acknowledging that ether has been performing well lately, O’Leary insisted: Bitcoin will always be the gold. The chairman of O’Shares ETFs added that “Ethereum will always be the silver,” but emphasized, “that’s not a bad thing necessarily.” He did not mention other cryptocurrencies by name. While noting that there is potential upside for Ethereum as it shifts to a new model, the Shark Tank star believes that Ethereum is primarily “going to be used as a form of tracking and payment system.” O’Leary pointed out, however, that Ethereum 2.0 has the potential to be “far more green in terms of...

A cryptocurrency exchange with about 2 million users worldwide announced that it has “suffered a serious cyber attack.” A number of basic services are paralyzed and the attacker tried to access the exchange’s wallets. Consequently, the platform has shut down, stating that it needs to perform a “comprehensive inspection” which is expected to last one to two weeks. Hotbit Says It ‘Suffered a Serious Cyber Attack’ Crypto exchange Hotbit announced Friday: Hotbit just suffered a serious cyber attack starting around 08:00 PM UTC, April 29,2021, which led to the paralyzation of a number of some basic services. The announcement adds that “the attackers also tried to hack into Hotbit’s wallets,” but the exchange claims that “the attempt was identified and stopped by our risk control system.” The exchange says that it is “about to exceed 2 million registered users and has a huge service system architecture of more than 200 servers online, in order to ensure security, Hotbit team will com...

Authorities in Beijing have been conducting checks on cryptocurrency mining datacenters to assess and understand its energy consumption and thus the impact on the electric infrastructure. Although it was reported as a rumor by international media outlets, Chinese state media confirmed it. Authorities Sent an ‘Emergency Note’ to Three Biggest Telecom Operators As first reported by Reuters, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology was the entity that ordered the checks on the city’s data centers. In the first instance, they wanted to verify if these companies are involved in bitcoin ( BTC ) and other cryptocurrency mining businesses by sending an “Emergency Notice Concerning the Data Center Involving Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrency Mining Businesses in Our City’s Data Centers.” According to an unnamed source cited by Reuters, the notice also targeted three of the biggest telecommunications operators in China. The measure took place on Tuesday, and then s...

PRESS RELEASE. Peer-to-peer internet ThreeFold integrates with several popular blockchain ecosystems in an effort to increase adoption for the world’s largest such network 29th April 2021, Dubai, United Arab Emirates – ThreeFold plans to integrate its peer-to-peer internet platform with three of the leading blockchain ecosystems in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space; Binance Smart Chain (BSC), Ethereum, and Huobi’s ECO Chain. ThreeFold is set to integrate BSC in the next couple of weeks, with Ethereum and Huobi’s ECO Chain following shortly later on in Q2. These integrations will provide the ThreeFold ecosystem access to a wide array of DeFi applications. In turn, this will allow ThreeFold to be more accessible to the DeFi world and provide ThreeFold Farmers and users with more platforms to exchange TFT. ThreeFold ’s bold move comes while the wider cryptocurrency market is booming. The total value of all cryptocurrency-related or blockchain-based projects has surpassed $2.1 ...

Federal Reserve Chair, Jerome Powell, discussed a number of topics this week such as inflation and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) following the multi-day Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meetings. The central bank’s lead executive was asked about feverish stocks like Gamestop shares and the crypto asset dogecoin. Powell said that the Federal Reserve aims to provide financial stability but notes there are some things in capital markets that are a bit frothy. Fed Chair on Inflation: The committee Seeks Inflation Moderately Above 2% This week the FOMC meetings have shown that the U.S. central bank plans to continue its monetary easing policies until it is satisfied the economic effects of the pandemic are dealt with. The FOMC meetings were also followed by press conferences where the Fed Chair Jerome Powell answered questions from a number of different news agencies. Powell discussed the benchmark interest rate and inflation, while he was also asked about digital currenci...