Bitcoin crushing Gold in 2021, Jack Dorsey helps Bitcoiners lawyer up and Kim Kardashian accused of a token pump and dump. These stories and more this week in crypto.
2021 saw bitcoin outperforming major asset classes such the S&P 500, Crude Oil and the NASDAQ, as reported by CoinGecko. Bitcoin’s 60% price increase made it the clear winner over these major asset classes for the second year in a row. Gold, Bitcoin’s traditional rival as a hedge asset during financial instability, saw its price decline by 6% in 2021.
Twitter founder, Jack Dorsey, has written an open letter promising to provide legal assistance to developers working on Bitcoin or related projects. The letter is addressed to developers who find themselves under pressure to cease activity under threat of litigation. Dorsey, along with two other industry heads, have formed what they are calling the Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund.
Billionaire investor, Bill Miller, is so bullish on Bitcoin that crypto and related investments now represent 50% of his personal assets. Miller is famous for beating the S&P 500 index for a record-breaking 15 years in a row from 1991-2005 as a fund manager. Miller started buying Bitcoin at around $200 following a tech talk he attended in 2014.
According to a survey by Visa, as many as 24% of surveyed small businesses are focused on enabling cryptocurrency payments to aid their growth in 2022. Meanwhile, Visa itself is teaming up with blockchain company, ConsenSys, to help bridge central bank digital currency networks with existing fiat payment rails.
The Central Bank of Bahrain has officially announced the successful completion of a payment test in collaboration with JP Morgan’s blockchain and cryptocurrency unit, Onyx. The test enabled real-time payment settlements between two counterparties using JPM Coin, a blockchain-based stablecoin pegged to the value of the US dollar.
With increasing complaints about the environmental impact of the Bitcoin network, the Mozilla company, famous for their Firefox web browser, has paused their acceptance of crypto donations. Concerns around cryptocurrency’s energy use and environmental impact have grown louder in recent years. Mozilla began accepting bitcoin for donations in 2014.
Mining pools dominate the hashrate of the Bitcoin network, so when a solo Bitcoin miner defies the odds and successfully adds a new block to the Bitcoin network, it’s big news. But this week, not one, but two solo miners accomplished the feat, each of them being rewarded with 6.25 BTC for mining a block. For just one of the miners to have mined a block, the odds were 1 in 1.4 million, so the chances that it would happen twice in such a short period, are almost unimaginable.
Reality TV star, Kim Kardashian, and boxing champ, Floyd Mayweather, are among a number of celebrities being sued for allegedly leading investors into a cryptocurrency “pump and dump” scam. The celebrities and other defendants are accused of making “false or misleading statements to investors about EthereumMax through social media advertisements and other promotional activities.”
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