Amid turbulence in markets, economy and society, there’s no better time or purpose to launch CoinDesk TV, writes Executive Producer Joanne Po.
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Author: Joanne Po
The outlet compared Bitcoin and Visa’s energy use, reaching several highly misleading conclusions, our columnist says.
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Author: Nic Carter
After growing in Latin America, the firm wants to bring its micro-loans and stablecoin savings features to other emerging markets.
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Author: Daniel Palmer
The largest cryptocurrency surged at least 11% to surpass the previous peak price of $41,962 reached in early January.
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Author: Omkar Godbole
Tesla also expects to begin accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for its products “in the near future.”
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Author: Daniel Palmer
Tesla has disclosed in a recent SEC filing that it has bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin.
“In January 2021, we updated our investment policy to provide us with more flexibility to further diversify and maximize returns on our cash that is not required to maintain adequate operating liquidity,” reads the filing. “Thereafter, we invested an aggregate $1.50 billion in bitcoin under this policy and may acquire and hold digital assets from time to time or long-term.”
In addition to the bitcoin purchase, Tesla expects to begin accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for its products “in the near future, subject to applicable laws and initially on a limited basis, which we may or may not liquidate upon receipt.”
Bitcoin’s price has been soaring on the back of this news. It is currently trading around 10% up at about $42,500.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk first inquired about converting “large transactions” of Tesla’s balance sheet into bitcoin in December in a Twitter exchange with Microstrategy CEO Michael Saylor.
Saylor at the time encouraged Musk to shift cash from Tesla to bitcoin and “do your shareholders a $100 billion favor.”
Shortly after that exchange, Musk wrote in a separate tweet at the time: “Bitcoin is my safe word.”
Earlier this month, Musk changed his Twitter bio to mention bitcoin and said: “I think bitcoin is really on the verge of getting broad acceptance by sort of the conventional finance people.”
A week later, Musk then removed the bitcoin mention from his Twitter bio and posted a series of Dogecoin-related tweets. Musk has previously said that he “occasionally” makes “jokes about Dogecoin,” suggesting that they shouldn’t be taken seriously.
© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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Author: Yogita Khatri
With Beijing being the next city joining the digital yuan test, China has now issued a total of 110 million (worth $17 million) of its central bank digital currency, also known as DC/EP.
The Chinese capital city of Beijing announced on Sunday that it is distributing 10 million digital yuan – worth about $1.5 million – to 50,000 local residents via a lottery as part of a wider test that will eventually see digital yuan being used in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
Similar to previous tests, lottery-winners in the Beijing trial will be able to spend the free digital yuan in offline and online merchants that support the DC/EP payment method.
Beijing is the third Chinese city that has kicked off the real-world digital yuan test after Shenzhen and Suzhou.
Shenzhen has conducted three tests so far with a combined issuance of 50 million ($7.7 million) digital yuan. Suzhou, on the other hand, conducted its first run in December with 20 million ($3 million) digital yuan and now is having its second test with 30 million digital yuan, worth $5 million, which is purposed to boost domestic consumption during the upcoming Lunar New Year.
When an internal DC/EP wallet test developed by the Agriculture Bank of China was leaked in last April, the wallet app indicated the internal test was set to start initially in Shenzhen, Suzhou, Chengdu and the Xiong’An New District.
The Xiong’An government announced on Sunday that the local branch of the Agriculture Bank of China has completed the research and production of DC/EP hardware wallets, which marks a major step in preparation for a wider rollout of China’s central bank digital currency.
The city of Chengdu was previously said to also start a city-wide test digital yuan test in February but it appears the schedule has been pushed back to March, according to a report from Chinese media The Paper on Monday.
© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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Author: Wolfie Zhao
The additional funding will go towards the acquisition of more miners, expanding infrastructure and boosting working capital.
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Author: Sebastian Sinclair
Quick Take
- A recap of MicroStrategy’s historic bitcoin summit for corporates interested in investing in Bitcoin as a treasury asset.
This research piece is available to
members of The Block Genesis.
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Author: Ryan Todd
Quick Take
- The interoperability protocol Cosmos IBC will be launching after Cosmos’ latest upgrade Stargate is activated on February 18th
- Notable projects built on the Cosmos SDK are Binance Chain, Kava, Terra, Band Protocol, and Thorchain
- Application-specific chains offer more sovereignty but decrease composability. Notably, the security architecture for an ecosystem of blockchain applications changes
This research piece is available to
members of The Block Genesis.
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this Genesis research on The Block.
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Author: Mika Honkasalo
