On 7 September, El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, which means that companies and businesses in the country are obliged to accept it as a form of payment in day-to-day transactions. However, in this country there are only four Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency ATMs (machines where users can buy or sell cryptocurrencies). The US is the country with the most cryptocurrency…
Fernando Alberca | Tesla backs down on bitcoin. The electric vehicle manufacturer has suspended the use of bitcoin as a means of payment to buy its products. The reason for this decision was given on Twitter by the CEO of the company himself, Elon Musk, on Thursday May 13 shortly after midnight. “Tesla has suspended the purchase of vehicles with bitcoin. We are concerned about the rapid increase in the…
Fernando Alberca | Retail customers of hundreds of US banks will soon be able to buy, hold and sell bitcoins directly through their existing accounts at those banks, according to business news outlet CNBC. This will be made possible by a deal between cryptocurrency custody firm New Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) and financial technology giant Fidelity National Information Services (FIS). It will allow US banks to offer cryptocurrency trading and…
Energy-intensive crypto mining is no different than coal or oil a century ago. According to Cambridge University analysis, Bitcoin uses around 120 TWh of energy per year, on par with countries like Norway and Argentina, and is estimated to reach as much at 184 TWh, nearly the same consumption as that of London. That comes out to more than 90 million metric annual tons of CO2. Should progressives be thinking twice about greenhouse gas emissions from Bitcoin?
Litecoin, Dash, and Binance Coin have also made double-digit gains in the dizzying rally, which comes amidst a string of positive headlines. PornHub made cryptocurrency the default payment option on Tuesday, the Federal Reserve committed to additional stimulus on Wednesday, and Elon Musk whipped up a social media frenzy on Sunday by asking MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor how to buy large amounts of Bitcoin.
Adam Vettese (eToro) | Cryptoasset backers and analysts are increasingly divided over the outlook for Bitcoin amid the ongoing surge in its price. Bitcoin jumped above $16,000 this week amid news of another vaccine against coronavirus, this time from Moderna.
María Fernanda Martínez Sierra | “Investment portfolios usually contain positions of different risks, and today covering that part of high risk assets not correlated with the rest is a problem. That is why many investors access this market… many savers only contract bank deposits, because of their low risk, and then buy lottery. The strategies in investment portfolios are not so far removed from that analogy,” says Alberto Toribio’s, whose company was the first Spanish to be set up with crypto-currencies.
Analysts have warned cryptoassets such as bitcoin and ethereum could be in for a bout of volatility come Friday when nearly $2 billion-worth of options contracts expire, according to Forbes. The data, provided by Skew, suggests the level of options contracts has tripled in the past three months to $1.9 billion in total. Around $1 billion of this is focused on bitcoin alone, with many contracts set between $11,000 and $12,000, higher than bitcoin’s current dollar prices.
Brazilian fund management firm Hashdex is working with Nasdaq to launch the world’s first bitcoin ETF on the Bermuda stock exchange, according to Coin Telegraph.
Just Eat, one of the UK’s leading online food delivery platforms, has added cryptoasset payment options for its France subsidiary. The company has partnered with cryptocurrency payment provider Bitpay to allow its users to pay in bitcoin. The move means Just Eat users will now be able to order food from across 15,000 restaurants in France and pay using bitcoin…