Date: 03/31/2021
“Don’t defy DeFi.” — Elon Musk
Weekly Headline News
1. Elon Musk’s Bitcoin Marketing Coup
Coindesk
2. Why Bitcoin Is a Better Risk Bet Than a Stack of Penny Stocks
Coindesk
3. Money Reimagined: NFTs Can Learn From DeFi’s Growth
Coindesk
4. Mark Cuban: The Dallas Mavericks are thinking about ‘turning our tickets into NFTs’
CNBC
5. New Zealand Fund Manager Puts 5% of Retirement Plan’s Assets Into Bitcoin: Report
Coindesk
6. Bitcoin no longer a fringe asset due to US dollar debasement, says Soros Fund exec
Cointelegraph
7. Goldman Files to Offer Notes Linked to an ARK ETF That May Have Bitcoin Exposure
Coindesk
8. The 11th Anniversary of the $500 Million Bitcoin Pizza
THE RICHEST
Summary
Elon Musk’s Bitcoin Marketing Coup
● By embracing bitcoiners, Tesla is likely to make more sales among that crowd even if they pay in fiat. Any extra BTC the carmaker gets is gravy.
● This week, the manufacturer began accepting bitcoin as payment for its cars, delivering on a promise made in early February by its impish chief executive, Elon Musk. Underscoring his faith in the currency, Musk declared on Wednesday that Tesla would keep rather than convert any bitcoin it earns from car sales.
● In the Wednesday tweet, Musk also revealed Tesla is running its own node, rather than relying on a third party to tell it what’s happening on the Bitcoin network. This is considered a best practice for advanced users, but it’s also a signal to the tribe: I get it. I’m one of you. It’s closely associating the Tesla brand, and Musk’s, with the ethos of the sovereign individual that animates the crypto community, not least of all the bitcoin faithful.
Why Bitcoin Is a Better Risk Bet Than a Stack of Penny Stocks
● Volatility is a measure of risk, and that’s often measured in relation to returns. By that measure, bitcoin is a beast so far this year. A crypto index doesn’t need more volatility because crypto assets already have the volatility of penny stocks.
● Penny stocks are always a hot topic — more so than ever these days as mainstream media chronicle the efforts of COVID-bound day traders to find and build a bandwagon for the next GameStop. But for investors who aren’t yet convinced of their own brilliance at picking investments and playing momentum, bitcoin may be a better place to look for risk.
Money Reimagined: NFTs Can Learn From DeFi’s Growth
● Once the frenzy around NFTs subsides, the category will need new ways to grow. DeFi is one promising avenue, says CoinDesk’s chief content officer.
● In the Web 2.0 phase, developers discovered the real opportunity lay in integrating with other internet applications and services to build audiences through enhanced network effects. We saw an explosion of apps built on the iPhone and Android operating systems, as well as services that tapped Facebook’s and Google’s APIs. The apps and platforms forged symbiotic relationships that expanded the combined ecosystems’ impact, utility, and value.
● Similarly, DeFi represented a break from the ICO model that preceded it. Whereas the unproven token projects of the ICO boom were mostly standalone ideas with self-contained value propositions, the defining features of DeFi are interoperability and “composability.”
Mark Cuban: The Dallas Mavericks are thinking about ‘turning our tickets into NFTs’
● Billionaire investor Mark Cuban sees a lot of promise in the future of NFTs or nonfungible tokens. In fact, Cuban is now looking for ways to use the technology to bring in more money for his NBA team, the Dallas Mavericks.
● “With the [Mavericks], we’re trying to find a good option for turning our tickets into NFTs,” Cuban said on “The Delphi Podcast” on Wednesday. “We want to be able to find ways so that not only can our consumers, our fans, buy tickets and resell them, but we continue to make a royalty on them.”
New Zealand Fund Manager Puts 5% of Retirement Plan’s Assets Into Bitcoin: Report
● The fund falls under the auspices of the national KiwiSaver program founded by the New Zealand Labour party in 2007. New Zealand Funds Management Ltd. (NZ Funds)’s KiwiSaver growth fund has invested 5% of its money in BTC.
● The KiwiSaver Growth Strategy Fund, which had NZ$350 million (US$244 million) in assets at the end of December, began investing in cryptocurrency in October, according to a company product disclosure document.
Bitcoin no longer a fringe asset due to US dollar debasement, says Soros Fund exec
● Soros Fund Management chief information officer Dawn Fitzpatrick said Bitcoin may once have been considered a fringe asset, but Bitcoin is no longer out on the fringes, thanks to the debasement of the U.S. dollar over the past year.
● Speaking to Bloomberg, Fitzpatrick said her firm — an asset management fund created by global investor George Soros — had recently begun to take an interest in Bitcoin. “We think the whole infrastructure around crypto is really interesting, and we’ve been making some investments into that infrastructure — and we think that is at an inflection point,” said Fitzpatrick.
Goldman Files to Offer Notes Linked to an ARK ETF That May Have Bitcoin Exposure
● Payout on the notes would be dependent on the performance of the ARK Innovation ETF, an actively managed fund offered by Cathie Wood’s ARK Investment Management.
● The filing continues a trend by Goldman of offering structured notes with payouts tied to the performance of other instruments or funds with possible bitcoin exposure and that trend seems to be accelerating.
● It also comes after the bank recently relaunched its cryptocurrency trading desk with the intention of supporting futures trading for bitcoin, three years after shelving plans to do so.
The 11th Anniversary of the $500 Million Bitcoin Pizza
● May 22, 2021, will be the 11th anniversary of the first official Bitcoin transaction: a pizza purchase now estimated to cost over $500 million.
● The moment has become a tentpole in Bitcoin’s history. Celebrations occur every year for early pioneers and adopters of the currency, marking May 22 as “Bitcoin Pizza Day.” On May 22, the event is celebrated by ordering pizza and reflecting on the unexpected and ever-increasing value of Bitcoin, along with the winding journey the cryptocurrency has taken.
