Norwegian billionaire and investor Øystein Stray Spetalen has secretly purchased bitcoin and bought into Norway’s largest Bitcoin exchange to become a shareholder in an unexpected twist of events.

Spetalen, one of Norway’s most distinguished and experienced stock market investors is the latest Bitcoin convert to join a pool of many institutional investors who have in the past dismissed bitcoin as an investment asset and a practical, sound virtual currency.

According to a report by Norwegian news site Dagens Naeringsliv, Spetalen bought bitcoin and invested in MiraiEx, Norway’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange after meeting with its two founders who helped to change his mind about Bitcoin.

Miraiex crypto exchange is specifically designed for the Norwegian crypto market, enabling people to buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and XRP directly using the Norwegian Kroner (NOK).

Spetalen: I was wrong about Bitcoin
Earlier in March, during a DNB Invest conference, Spetalen talked about bitcoin but showed no interest in investing in digital assets. In fact, he reportedly said Bitcoin’s energy consumption is higher than that of his country’s entire consumption and therefore extremely environmentally hostile.

Spetalen added that the current payment systems in place today are doing well and then suggested that the EU intervene and take action against bitcoin’s usage in the region.

“If one really meant anything about bitcoin the authorities and the EU should ban this immediately. Then you cut CO2 emissions considerably.”

However, in a new interview with the same news site, the 58-year-old oil and petroleum investments guru said that he changed his mind about Bitcoin after he met MiraiEx founders, Thuc and Øyvind.

“When the facts change, I change. I met Miraiex founders Thuc and Øyvind the day after the podcast was recorded in March and realized that I had been wrong.”

Norwegian Energy Giant Influenced Spetalen’s Decision
Spetalen said his perspective was also altered by Kjell Inge Røkke, the Norwegian energy giant that also acted in favor of its bitcoin interest in early March. The company formed the bitcoin unit Seetee, a crypto company dedicated to investing in bitcoin and other crypto-related projects.

Seetee had an initial purchase of NOK 500 million worth of BTC, at a price which Spetalen referred to as higher than what he paid for his BTC.

Read more: ZyCrypto

The total prize pool in an amateur poker tournament held in March 2010 was worth $120 in BTC. Today, that amount is over 66,000,000% higher at nearly $80,000,000.

Eleven years ago, in March 2010, a group of enthusiasts from the bitcointalk forum played what was touted as the first bitcoin forum online poker challenge event. The creator organized it using 1500 bitcoins as rewards, which were worth around $120 at the time. Fast-forward to March 2021, and that same amount costs more – significantly more – about $80,000,000.

BTC Used In a Friendly Poker Game
The year is 2010, and bitcoin is still a baby with essentially nonexistent applications. This is far before the current institutions’ mania, before ever being considered as digital gold, and even before it was traded on exchanges.

However, one of the first and most popular BTC-related forums, bitcointalk, did exist. In it, a user under the BitcoinFX handle had an idea to host a friendly tournament of Texas Hold ’em. Unlike the traditional games, though, this one had a little twist – instead of using fiat currencies, the host decided to use “no real money – we are playing for electronic bottle tops only” – he meant bitcoin.

He invited anyone who wanted to join with a maximum cap of ten people. The rewards were as follows:

“4 places will be paid. 1st – 750 bitcoins, 2nd – 375 bitcoins, 3rd – 250 bitcoins, 4th – 125 bitcoins (based on 10 players.”

Consequently, the entire pool was supposed to be of 1,500 bitcoins. BitcoinFX said that he will provide 1,000 BTC from himself, while the remaining players had to send 55 BTC as an entry fee.

The Multi-Million Dollar Prize Pool
Although every bitcoin proponent will say that 1 BTC equals 1 BTC and it shouldn’t be compared to fiat currencies, the cryptocurrency is still predominantly weighed against traditional money such as the dollar. As such, it’s compelling to review the aforementioned poker game in terms of USD back then and today.

That’s somewhat challenging, having in mind that it’s tricky to determine BTC’s price in USD that far back. However, data from Investopedia says that the cryptocurrency traded between $0.0008 and $0.08 in 2010. If we take the highest price of $0.08 per bitcoin, that means that the 1,500 BTC price pool was worth $120 in March 2010.

It’s quite remarkable what has happened with bitcoin’s price since then. In fact, it’s doubtful that any one of the participants could have imagined how much their bitcoins would be worth just over a decade later.

So, just for comparison, let’s look at the numbers now. With BTC’s price trading at around $53,000 now, it means that the asset has skyrocketed by about 66,250,000% in eleven years. Yes, that’s over 66 million (%).

This makes the entire prize pool worth 79,500,000. Yes, that’s almost $80 million. Just for reference, the 2019 World Series of Poker (the 50th annual tournament of the largest poker event) had a prize pool of $80,548,600.

If we break the prizes down to participants, it would mean that the winner’s BTC would have a value of close to $40,000,000, 2nd place – nearly $20,000,000, 3rd place – $13,250,000, and 4th place – $6,625,000.
Moreover, the entry fee alone of 55 bitcoins equals almost $3 million with today’s prices.

Read more: CryptoPotato

Key drivers like price, current macro trends and risks indicate that bitcoin is a great investment and possibly the best one available now.

Like many, when I first heard of bitcoin, my reaction was “Why would anyone invest real cash in magic internet money?” It was worth zero — backed by nothing. And, like a fool, I was keen to point this out to anyone who would listen. But still, I was curious what the buzz was about, so I continued to keep an eye on it until, in 2015, I had a mental breakthrough. I was listening to a podcast when Wences Casares made a statement that went something like this:

“The miracle of bitcoin was going from zero to one cent. The debate of whether bitcoin has value has been resolved. The market has already assigned it value, so we can now only argue over how much it is worth.”

Bitten by the bug, I spent months reading anything bitcoin-related, talking with friends, developing an investment thesis and assessing probabilities that bitcoin could actually achieve these outcomes. Like any good MBA graduate, I quickly worked up a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) and a simple pricing model that compared the number of network wallets to price. At the end of this exercise, there was only one answer: It was prudent to invest a small percentage of my portfolio in bitcoin. For me, I chose 1 percent of investable assets. And now, like all other bitcoiners, I wish I had invested far more.

Below is my hopefully simple and concise explanation as to why I still believe bitcoin is a great investment, and quite possibly, the best investment opportunity there is right now. Let’s look at some key drivers of price, current macro trends and risks.

MONEY SUPPLY/STIMULUS
In my opinion, “printer go brrrr” is not exactly accurate as some of this is a swap of similar assets, but the Federal Reserve did effectively prevent wide-scale deleveraging during the COVID-19 pandemic by aggressively opening lines of credit, lowering rates and embarking on the most aggressive quantitative easing (QE) program we have ever seen.

Meanwhile, politicians are dropping cash on their constituents. Some of that stimulus will chase asset prices, and these actions have moved all markets to “risk on,” given that widespread deleveraging risk is off the table. In simple terms, deleveraging is the selling of assets by institutions or individuals to repair balance sheets and/or pay debt. This was a primary cause of the Great Financial Crisis. In my opinion, the risks today appear more tilted toward higher inflation, not deleveraging, and what better way to hedge inflation than with digital gold?

DEMOGRAPHICS
Millennials are the largest generation in the United States and are now entering their prime earning years (see the Fundstrat chart below). This generation watched during the Great Financial Crisis as their parents lost their jobs and homes. A Facebook survey showed that 92 percent of them mistrust banks, but that they love bitcoin. A survey has shown that 20 percent of them own bitcoin now, and more are likely to buy bitcoin in the future. I believe it. Anyone with kids today can see that youth value digital property as much, or more, than they do real property. I say, don’t fight youth.

RETAIL ADOPTION
The value of a network is related to its number of users, says Metcalfe’s law. Back in 2015, I modeled bitcoin’s price based on the number of network wallets (as a proxy for users). The statistical correlation was very good and the relationship very clear — more users equals higher price. What is particularly interesting about bitcoin is every FOMO event raises price, peaks interest and creates more HODLers.

I have watched this play out for two bitcoin Halving cycles. Now, as I watch a third cycle, I do not see that trend reversing. The bitcoin community is stronger than ever, and once someone falls down the bitcoin rabbit hole, they rarely climb back out. Bitcoin’s fixed supply, portability and auditability make an ideal potential global savings vehicle. I foresee adoption continuing until each country effectively has a currency duopoly — local currency for spending and bitcoin for long-term savings.

INSTITUTIONAL ADOPTION
Not all adoption is created equal. The small amounts retail has invested in bitcoin will pale in comparison to when institutional investors become heavily involved. MassMutual and Tesla are just the start. Bitcoin is an ideal institutional investment for several reasons.

Read more: BITCOIN MAGAZINE

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