Bitcoin hasn’t changed. But recently, the narratives around it have. While skeptics still dismiss it, at this point it’s obvious it’s not going away.

Last week, an important person in my life asked me, in a cautious tone, if they could ask me a question about my new job. (I joined Decrypt on March 1 after spending a decade at legacy media outlets.) I had a feeling I knew what question was coming. The person’s question came out like this: “You didn’t take the job because you believe in that stuff—like, you agree it’s ridiculous, and you don’t think it’s real, right?”

Well, Bitcoin is certainly real. But I understood what the person meant: Am I a true believer, a crypto crazy? Do I think Bitcoin is going to replace the US Dollar? Do I pray at the Church of Crypto?

No. And I didn’t join a cryptocurrency news site in order to pump coins. (I own less than 1 Bitcoin, which I bought back in 2014 as a reporting tool—I believe crypto journalists should own a little bit to play with because they need to test out the exchanges and products they write about.)

I suspect any journalist who has covered crypto for a few years believes, at the very least, that the technology is interesting, exciting, and potentially transformative. Crypto is cool, even for non-coders. (I still remember the thrill of playing with the 21 Bitcoin Computer, a handheld mini mining rig—really it was just a souped-up Raspberry Pi—from Balaji Srinivasan’s company 21, which he later rebranded Earn and sold to Coinbase.)

I have heard the same person say to me, “When I hear the word crypto, my eyes glaze over.”And that’s perfectly fine. Bitcoin skeptics still abound, and I understand their skepticism. Bitcoin didn’t exist, and then it did, and 11 years isn’t so long in the big scheme of things. For a lot of people, it’s hard to see how something created out of thin air by a pseudonymous person in 2009, that you can’t physically touch, could be worth $60,000. (And who’s to say what the ‘right price’ is for Bitcoin?)

But I do believe something has changed in the last few years, since the mania of late 2017, when many onlookers viewed Bitcoin as a punchline: a larger number of people than ever before at least acknowledge that Bitcoin is something that exists and will continue to exist. They may dismiss it as boring, or nerdy, or stupid, or avoid it as an investment, but it’s clear that Bitcoin isn’t about to vanish or collapse tomorrow.

Fraud, tulips, rat poison, turds
Sure, we all know the most famous negative sound bites. Nouriel Roubini has repeatedly called Bitcoin a Ponzi scheme. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon called Bitcoin a “fraud worse than tulip bulbs.” Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett said Bitcoin investing is “not really investing,” and his respected longtime business partner Charlie Munger has called Bitcoin “rat poison” and “turds.” Saudi Prince Al Waleed bin Talal called Bitcoin “another Enron in the making.”

But those sound bites were almost all from a few years ago, mostly in 2017 amid the notorious ICO boom, when crypto startups made millions through “initial coin offerings” of tokens that, in most cases, served no purpose and had no product behind them. Apart from Roubini, none of those folks have repeated their sentiments at any time recently.

Jamie Dimon has repeatedly walked back his comments, saying in 2018 he regretted calling Bitcoin a fraud, and saying in 2020 that it’s “just not my cup of tea” and that “very smart people” are investing in it. His own bank just filed with the SEC to start offering a “cryptocurrency exposure basket” to clients. His rival bank, Goldman Sachs, is relaunching its Bitcoin futures trading desk this month.

As for Prince Al Waleed’s comparison to Enron, billionaire investor and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban earlier this month, in an interview with Decrypt, said pretty much the opposite: He raved that if industries like healthcare and insurance start embracing blockchain record-keeping, “There’d be no Enrons. You wouldn’t have the level of fraud that you have now.”

Read more: Decrypt

Bitcoin is constantly the subject of controversy, bringing out pundits, skeptics, and critics of all kinds and of various domains. Economists call it a bubble, investors call it rat poison, and environmentalists claim it is slowly killing the planet.

Energy FUD is an easy target for the cryptocurrency due to the complex, proof-of-work consensus algorithm that requires power to operate, but according to a relatively new figure in Bitcoin investing, the answer to dispelling the energy FUD lies in Elon Musk. But why?

The Bitcoin Network Energy Consumption Conundrum
When Bitcoin was first introduced more than ten years ago by Satoshi Nakamoto, nothing else like it existed in the world. Today, thousands of cryptocurrencies exist all based on some form of the original blockchain technology that launched with the Bitcoin network.

To solve the double-spend issue plaguing past attempts at making digital cash, and to keep the network itself and its assets decentralized – meaning able to function without a third-party intermediary such as a bank – Satoshi added the proof-of-work consensus mechanism.

Mining is the intensive process of converting energy into the computing power necessary to keep this system in operation. The larger the Bitcoin network grows, the more computing power and therefore energy is required to keep it chugging along.

The network now consumes more energy than small countries like Switzerland and Argentina, and as it expands, so will the demand for energy. The recent growth of Bitcoin adoption almost overnight has environmentalists sounding the alarms, but it isn’t nearly as bad as it seems.

In fact, one CEO could be the answer to the energy FUD once and for all.

Coming To Save Crypto: How Elon Musk Is The Answer To Energy FUD
Elon Musk has now become synonymous with crypto, whether he meant to or not. For years, the Tesla and Space X CEO has spoken out on Twitter about Bitcoin and Dogecoin, even being cheekily labeled as the “CEO of Dogecoin”

Musk’s Tesla recently disclosed a substantial BTC buy, adding the green-focused company to the many who now hold the cryptocurrency as part of their corporate treasure strategy.

Relative newcomer to the Bitcoin space but heavy hitter, Anthony Scaramucci, says that Musk is the best come back to any claims regarding the ongoing energy FUD surrounding the crypto sector.

Scaramucci claims that “no living person has done more to protect the planet against climate change” than Musk, and the idea he’d support something so harmful to the environment is “absurd.”

Instead, he says that Musk sees the future in a different view, and understands that renewable energies will replace the current environmentally harmful mining processes keeping Bitcoin going, and will convert that renewable energy into monetary value with the potential to demonetize gold, art, equities, and just about everything else.

Read more: NEWSBTC

Last month, The Guardian’s Lauren Artani wrote, “It’s not just the value of bitcoin that has soared in the last year – so has the huge amount of energy it consumes”.

Why, exactly, does bitcoin consume so much energy?

It has a do with the mining process. Like traditional mining. which requires a lot of physical energy, bitcoin mining also requires a lot of electrical energy.

For bitcoin to be created, a computer must solve a complex series of algorithms. Not any old computer, of course, but highly powerful, hugely expensive computers. These computers require enormous amounts of electricity to function.

As bitcoin becomes more difficult to mine, these computers will have to dig deeper, electrically speaking, to produce the goods. Bitcoin operates on the principle of scarcity, meaning only a finite amount of the cryptocurrency can be created (21 million, to be precise). As it becomes more scarce, the algorithms become more complex in nature, and this is what makes the mining process so incredibly expensive. Now, we’re told, bitcoin uses more electricity than Argentina, a country of some 45 million people.

Bitcoin, it seems, is very bad for the environment. So, with that being said, should we stop mining? The simple answer is no, and here’s why.

With climate activists around the world, bitcoin has become a bête noire of sorts. It’s very much in style to write an article lamenting the destruction being caused by the crypto giant.

However, many of the ‘bitcoin bad’ arguments fail to capture the full story.

In fact, a number of writers appear to have limited knowledge of what bitcoin mining actually entails; to be more accurate, they are not writing from a point of objectivity (see here and here). Luckily, there are people like Mustafa Yilham, a crypto expert who works for Bixen, a firm that actually mines bitcoin. In a recent Twitter post, he explained how so many environmentally conscious writers fail to understand what the mining process actually involves. Yilham is intimately familiar with the intricacies of mining, unlike a number of high-profile commentators who appear to have very little knowledge of the subject.

To get a true, panoramic picture of the mining process, one must ask, as Yilham actually does in his Twitter thread, “What type of energy does Bitcoin consume?”

This is where the rubber meets the road, and where so many bitcoin naysayers fall short in their criticisms.

The answer is “hydropower and flare gas from excess waste”. In other words, renewable energy. Do Yilham and his colleague opt for renewable energy because they are environmentally conscious? No, not necessarily. They are bottom-line conscious. As Yilham notes, miners will always opt to use the “cheapest electricity rate available,” and renewable energy ticks this very important box.

The reports of bitcoin’s catastrophic effects on the environment appear to be hyperbolic, like so much of the reporting on environmental issues. According to a study carried out by the University of Cambridge last year, 76% of cryptocurrency miners use electricity from renewable energy sources.

Maybe “digital gold” isn’t quite as environmentally destructive as we have been led to believe. The same cannot be said for actual gold. The mining process is highly destructive in nature. It is responsible for the displacement of communities and the contamination of once clean, drinkable water.

And what about traditional money, what are its effects on the environment?

Take the US dollar, for example; it’s 75% cotton. This might sound environmentally friendly, but current cotton production methods are simply unsustainable. In an effort to fend off the pests who feed on cotton plants, farmers often turn to insecticides. Such substances result in the pollution of groundwater and the air we breathe.

Furthermore, many cotton farmers use nitrogen fertilizers. Again, such chemicals often end up in waterways, upsetting aquatic communities in the process.

What about the actual coins in millions of people’s pockets around the world? Quarters, dimes, nickels, and cents, all of these are the products of costly mining processes. From carbon dioxide emissions to the amount of power consumed, these coins, some argue, are simply not worth the effort.

Read more: ZyCrypto

A metric indicating BTC’s market tops suggests that there’s still room for growth and hinted that bitcoin could surge by 4.4x from here to above $260,000.

Bitcoin’s current bull run could continue for another 4x price increase, according to the Long-Term Holder MVRV metric, suggested Glassnode.

Simultaneously, the network’s activity keeps escalating as the non-zero and 0.01+ accounts have both reached new all-time highs.

Bitcoin to $250K and Beyond?
The primary cryptocurrency has been on a bull run in the past several months. After all, its price increased by roughly six-fold since early October to its recently-registered all-time high at $61,800.

Despite this impressive surge in a relatively short period, the analytics resource Glassnode indicated that the run could continue to well within a six-digit price territory.

According to the company, the Long-Term Holder Market Value/Realized Value metric, which takes into consideration only UTXOs with a lifespan of at least 155 days, is a “good indicator of bitcoin market tops.”

The metric is currently at ten, which is still beneath the red zone (above 20). During the previous bull cycle in 2017, BTC traded at $4,500 when the LTH MVRV was at a similar spot. From that point on, the asset price exploded by about 4.4x to its December 2017 peak at nearly $20,000.

Should a similar scenario occur now, bitcoin’s price would explode to over $250,000 per coin. Its market capitalization would be about $4.7 trillion – or more than two times larger than Apple’s.

Although these potential price tags sound quite optimistic as of now, it’s worth noting that numerous bitcoin advocates have recently predicted similar projections. Max Keiser, who was very accurate about his end-of-2020 forecast, has repeatedly said that $220,000 per coin is “in play” in 2021.

The popular S2FX model, the upgraded version of the stock-to-flow, sees $288,000 this year, while its creator recently doubled-down on his belief.

Network Activity to New ATHs
Apart from the price reaching new highs, the BTC network activity has been exponentially increasing in the past several months as well.

The number of non-zero bitcoin addresses, which saw a sharp drop during the year-long bear market in 2018, has reached a new all-time high of over 36,700,000.

Additionally, other accounts, holding at least 0.01 bitcoins (worth roughly $590 as of today’s prices), have gone for a new record as well. Further Glassnode data indicated that such wallets are now more than 8,900,000.

Read more: CryptoPotato

After a brief period of consolidation, Bitcoin price today finally breached its previous all time high of $58, 350 and moved past $60,000 mark. Bitcoin analyst Max Keiser has predicted next short target as $77,000. Analysts are contributing this rise in price to large negative bitcoin price premium difference at coinbase & binance suggesting large spot buys for bitcoin.

Coinbase Pro (USD pair) and Binance premium gap at -$332
Coinbase premium as reported by coingape has served as one of the indicators for quantifying price movement. It is worth noting that this move up past $60,000 by Bitcoin seems to be fueled by large Bitcoin spot buying at Binance. As per the data shared by CryptoQuant, the bitcoin price premium difference between Coinbase Pro and Binance for USD pairs reached as low as -$332 which is one among the lowest so far.

This means that price was probably driven by huge spot buys at Binance. Apart from this stablecoin inflows to exchanges is continuously up suggesting bulls are still buying.

As predicted by famous Bitcoin analyst Max Keiser, next short term target for Bitcoin price is $77,000 while the long term target of $220,000 is still in play by the end of 2021.

As for Altcoin market, prominent cryptocurrencies like Ethereum & LTC as also showing great recovery and approaching their previous ATHs. The previous all time highs for Ethereum is $2042 and at the time of reporting is trading at $1893 while previous all time high for LTC was $247 and is currently trading at $225.

Read more: CoinGape

Bitcoin touched high above $60,000
The largest cryptocurrency reached an all-time high of $60,310 on the 13th February, according to the market information provided by Coinmarketcap. However, the price has slightly dropped to $59,746 during press time, although it still represents a six percent increase over the past 24 hours. With about 18.6 million BTC (89 percent of BTC maximum supply – 21 million), Bitcoin currently has a market capitalization of $1.117 billion.

Additionally, the increase today raises its market dominance to about 61.75 per Coinmarketcap. For the record, BTC is currently up by 1,000 percent when compared to the market value over the past 12 months. Going by the numbers, it will be easier for the cryptocurrency to reach $100,000 than dropping down to zero. In fact, many prominent industry players think BTC will only get better in market value.

Anthony Pompliano tweeted that it’s all going to be fun, as the United States government is looking to release stimulus checks this weekend. Some of these funds might end up in Bitcoin, as seen last year.

Can you recall BTC trading below $5,000 in 2020?
By this time last year (March 12 actually), BTC faced its worst dip, as the price dropped to about $5,000 following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Some people panic-sold their cryptocurrencies amid the drop, but Bitcoin wasn’t the only asset affected by COVID-19. Some people saw it as an opportunity, buying some of the cryptocurrency as an inflation hedge asset. This same reason attracted the biggest corporate Bitcoin investor, MicroStrategy, after the market recovered.

Read more: cryptopolitan

The most popular cryptocurrency, bitcoin (BTC), reached another milestone today, surpassing the USD 60,000 level for the first time in its history. (Updated on March 14, 07:20 UTC, with the latest market data.)

At 07:17 UTC on Sunday, BTC trades at USD 60,935, correcting from its new all-time high of USD 61,712 (per Coingecko.com), reached on Saturday. The price is still up by 7% in a day and 24% in a week. It rallied by 27% in a month and 998% in a year.

Other major cryptoassets are also in green today, with ethereum (ETH) extending its gains by 7%, to USD 1,895, while other coins in the top 10 club advanced by up to 3%.

Per Chainalysis data, BTC reached a new all-time high as inflows to exchanges declined and trade intensity data suggests that some exchanges are starting to receive much less actual supply of the underlying asset than historically despite high demand.

A year ago, BTC and many other assets experienced a major crash, dropping even below the USD 4,000 level. And the world’s first crypto has come a long way since.

“There are many positive developments to keep pushing the coin’s price up, particularly the skyrocketing demand, and the scarcity it caused,” Greg Waisman, Co-founder and Chief Operating Offering of payment network Mercuryo, said in an emailed comment.

According to him, it took over a decade for institutional investors to develop an interest in Bitcoin, but now that they have entered the industry, they have no intention of backing down.

“Another move that has attracted institutional investors is the launch of the third Bitcoin ETF [exchange-traded fund] in Canada, which is also the third BTC ETF in entire North America. It was launched by Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital, as the US itself still stubbornly refuses to launch an exchange-traded product, even though companies continue to file for ETFs. The most recent examples include WisdomTree, while Grayscale [aims to hire] ETF specialists, indicating that it might be planning to file its own proposal,” Waisman added.

Meanwhile, Luke Ellis, CEO of Man Group, the world’s biggest publicly traded hedge fund firm, told CNBC yesterday that he sees BTC “as a trading instrument, not a thing that you think of as a long term asset allocation play” and warned that companies are not supposed to speculate with their cash balances.

However, as reported, US-based business intelligence company MicroStrategy bought an additional BTC 262 for around USD 10.5m in cash at an average price of USD 57,146 per coin. Per CEO Michael Saylor, as of March 12, the company holds BTC 91,326 (USD 5.5bn) acquired for USD 2.21bn at an average price of USD 24,214 per bitcoin.

Read more: cryptonews

“Bitcoin has no fundamental value” has long been the war cry for many traditional financial participants. This week we thought we could shed some light on this short-sighted mantra.

To highlight the clear value that Bitcoin affords, we first need to define what it is we are talking about.

So, what is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is both a network and an asset. The Bitcoin network is a real-time gross settlement system comparable to Fedwire and Target. Settlement systems are the base layer of any financial system, and they leverage net settlement systems built on top to scale and provide utility to the day-to-day user.

The Bitcoin network requires participants called miners to contribute resources in order to process, execute and settle transactions. The process of performing these actions is costly, and miners are rewarded with bitcoin, the asset, for their participation.

Bitcoin, the asset, is a commodity on the Bitcoin network, it can be sent across the world, and you require it to pay the network’s fees. It is fungible, divisible, durable, portable, verifiable, scarce and has the additional properties of being censorship and seizure resistant.

Bitcoin also provides the user with high levels of certainty over its future dilution. Unlike fiat money, the issuance of bitcoin is codified and enforced by changes in the difficulty adjustment. This codified approach means bitcoins supply is impervious to changes in its demand.

Market Selected Forms of Money vs Fiat
No one reading this article has witnessed the rise of a market selected form of money; the money we use today is imposed on us and enforced by governments. A leader snapped his fingers and decided – “let it be done” (fiat’s direct translation) – that this paper we issue is now money and has value, backed by the promise of our government. It automatically served the role of being a medium of exchange, store of value and unit of account within that economy.

Market selected forms of money are different. They experience an evolution that challenges people’s perceptions of the money/asset. Historically, market selected forms of money have been commodities.

Gold is our best example. It initially started as a collectible, became a store of wealth, then widely adopted enough to be a medium of exchange and eventually became the very thing (or unit) we price everything in.

Bitcoin in its early days was merely a collectible that miners earnt for providing work to the Bitcoin network. The reason people wanted this collectible in its early days is different from why they demand it today. Initially, people would mine it or acquire it due to its perceived rarity and uniqueness; some, however, had incredible foresight and realised it may serve the role of money in the distant future.

The reasons people want it now are very different. Demand for Bitcoin today is driven by a market need for a non-discretionary, apolitical form of money. The price of Bitcoin is merely a lagging indicator of changing assumptions around money’s role in society. Market participants and institutions are buying bitcoin because it is superior to alternative monetary assets.

Even though market participants choose to store their wealth in Bitcoin, it doesn’t mean that Bitcoin is currently a safe or store of value asset. People are just voting (with their money) that Bitcoin will continue to succeed if demand for a non-discretionary apolitical monetary system continues to grow.

Will this demand continue?
The great financial crisis was a turning point for fiat money. This event — driven by the actions of irresponsible institutions caused an earthquake in financial markets. More importantly, the event caused interest rates all over the developed world to hit a zero bound.

When interest rates hit zero, monetary policy loses its effectiveness and even worse, the cost of money becomes zero. We have seen interest rates continue lower, and in some countries, even go negative. This transforms what is meant to be an asset for the buyer of a bond into a liability. The bond market is breaking in front of our eyes.

Total negative yielding debt is $18 trillion and growing. According to Bloomberg this means that 27% of the world’s investment grade debt is now sub-zero. Governments simply can’t afford to let rates go up.

Add quantitative easing to the mix, and the storm becomes that much harder to weather. Not only are bonds becoming liabilities, but governments are rapidly debasing the value of their currencies.

Read more: CITY A.M.