Summary of the week
Although bitcoin started to climb slightly during the last week of November 2021, it still has not resumed the next stage of the current bull race. The recent drop has seen many large HODLers rack up more bitcoin, while several large mining companies have once again confirmed their intention to HODLer the bitcoin they mine.
Interestingly, this week also saw reports appear that major US banks are considering the possibility of providing bitcoin-backed loans, and Korean stock executives are also showing interest in bitcoin. Let’s take a look at what happened in bitcoin this week.
MicroStrategy Moves Monday
The week started on a bullish note. Thailand has revealed plans that they can waive bitcoin taxes for tourists in the countryside. Jack Dorsey announced his resignation as CEO of Twitter, leading many to believe he will focus on bitcoin after saying: “If I wasn’t on Square or Twitter I would be working on Bitcoin“to Bitcoin 2021 earlier this year.
As expected in my last post, MicroStrategy and the nation of El Salvador bought the drop, with MicroStrategy buying an additional 7,002 BTC, bringing their total holdings to 121,044 BTC. El Salvador, on the other hand, bought another 100 BTC, bringing the country’s total holdings to 1,220 BTC.
Asset manager Invesco has launched a spot bitcoin exchange traded product (ETP) on Deutsche Boerse under the ticker symbol BTIC.
Tuesday ETF talk
Tuesday saw very little news in the market except that Purpose Investments launched the first bitcoin ETF offering monthly returns in Canada. US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the the risk of rising inflation in the United States increased, which will likely drive more people to invest in bitcoin, the better inflation hedge.
Adoption by retailers on Wednesday
With the U.S. government rejecting several spot ETFs over the past month, Fidelity has announced plans to list a Bitcoin spot ETF in Canada pending government approval. Croatia’s largest retailer Konzum has announced that it will start accepting bitcoin payments for online orders.
Jack Dorsey announced that Square will be renamed Block Inc., while Square Crypto, which focuses on bitcoin, will be renamed Spiral. The company would focus more on blockchain technology in the future. It was also announced that their payment application, CashApp, would support Bitcoin’s latest upgrade, Taproot.
Bitcoin node maker nodl has launched a Lightning Network-focused node aimed at emerging market merchants who want to accept bitcoin payments.
Thursday regulation themes
Facebook announced that they relax licensing and advertising restrictions on companies that promote bitcoin exchanges and wallets, signaling an overall positive sentiment for the future of the market. Yves Choueifaty, the founder and CIO of Tobam, said that it is more risky to invest $ 1 million in the S&P 500 than $ 25,000 in bitcoin.
Korea Exchange (KRX) chairman Son Byung-doo said the country needs to study the adoption of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. For reference, KRX has 2,448 listed companies with a combined market capitalization of $ 2.6 trillion.
Canadian bitcoin miner Hut 8 announced that it mined 265 BTC in November and intended to HODLer everything, bringing the company’s total bitcoin holdings to 5,242 BTC. And finally, the Indian government announced plans to regulate bitcoin, instead of banning it.
Friday Freedom Guaranteed Loans
Early Friday, a report was released that Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street banks were exploring the possibility of offering bitcoin-backed loans, meaning that individuals and businesses could take out loans by providing bitcoin in guarantee.
Bitcoin miner, Riot Blockchain, also revealed they mined 466 BTC in November and intends to just HODLer and Marathon, another mining company, has announced that it will extend its agreement with data center provider, Compute North, to add 100,000 miners in its primarily powered data centers to the solar and wind power.
This Week’s Bitcoin Story
On December 5, 2010, in one of his last posts on the BitcoinTalk forum, Satoshi Nakamoto pleaded with WikiLeaks not to start accepting bitcoin payments because they “couldn’t stand getting more than cash, and the heat that you would bring would probably destroy us at this point.
On November 28, 2012, the first bitcoin halving took place, at the time a single bitcoin cost only $ 12. On December 5, 2013, China’s first bitcoin ban was announced, which resulted in the shutdown of BTC China, the largest bitcoin exchange at the time. On November 29, 2017, bitcoin broke the $ 10,000 mark for the first time in the 2017 bull run, it would surpass $ 18,000 just 10 days later.
The long and prosperous road ahead
First, at the end of November, PlanB’s popular floor model turned out to be wrong, despite the accurate prediction of the price of bitcoin in late August, September and October through June. Of course, he said the stock-to-flow model is still on the right track and bitcoin is still set to go during the current bull run.
Seeing US banks interested in adopting bitcoin-backed loans is another interesting piece of this week, showing how bitcoin has turned out to be an asset that’s here to stay and banks simply can’t ignore it anymore. It remains to be seen whether HODLers decide to opt for loans, but the more services available to them the better.
While the US government remains reluctant to approve Bitcoin spot ETFs, many have been launched in Canada and Europe and the US is slowly falling behind. It is likely that as more become available in other countries, the United States will turn around and adopt companies in the hopes of both offering the funds and there. invest.
As I said before, it was highly likely that MicroStrategy and El Salvador, both pioneers in their respective fields, would buy the drop. Their leaders seem to have a clear strategy in mind and it is likely that they will continue to buy future dips just as they have this one. Their example should see many more adopt the same strategy, because apparently if we say so, it is not convincing on it.
Overall, more and more individuals, businesses and even countries are embracing bitcoin. Whether through investments, favorable laws or simply the promotion of its uses in general; Bitcoin is getting more screen time than ever. Despite the drop, the more coverage the better.
It is likely that with the newly discovered omicron variant, the COVID-19 pandemic has no end in sight and its effect on the global economy will continue to persist. Inflation in some of the major economies will continue, which will eventually affect developing countries, likely pushing more to follow in El Salvador’s footsteps.
There are still centuries to come for bitcoin to thrive, although bitcoin is over 11 years old now, we are still in the early days and there will be days when we aspire to be able to buy bitcoin at 58,000. $.
This is an article invited by Dion Guillaume. The opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.