Tesla names Musk ‘Technoking’ in cryptic regulatory filing

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Last month, Tesla revealed it had purchased $1.5 billion of bitcoin and would soon accept it as a form of payment for cars, sending the price of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency soaring

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Tesla Inc added “Technoking of Tesla” to billionaire Chief Executive Elon Musk’s list of official titles on Monday in a formal regulatory filing that also named finance chief Zachary Kirkhorn “Master of Coin”.

The electric-car maker did not elaborate on the reasons for the cryptic new titles in a pair of statements that also said President of Automotive Jerome Guillen had moved to the role of President for Tesla Heavy Trucking, effective March 11.

Also Read | Elon Musk wants clean power, but Tesla’s carrying bitcoin’s dirty baggage

Last month, Tesla revealed it had purchased $1.5 billion of bitcoin and would soon accept it as a form of payment for cars, sending the price of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency soaring.

Musk’s recent promotion of dogecoin on Twitter has also lifted the price of that cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin hit new highs of near $62,000 over the weekend but retreated around 5% early in the European day on Monday.

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Bitcoin ATMs are coming to a gas station near you – Times of India

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NEW DELHI: A new feature has appeared at smoke shops in Montana, gas stations in the Carolinas and delis in far-flung corners of New York City: a brightly-lit bitcoin ATM, where customers can buy or sell digital currency, and sometimes extract hard cash.
The machines have multiplied quickly through the United States over the past year, fueled by a frenzy in crypto trading that sent bitcoin prices over $58,000.
Kiosk operators such as CoinFlip and Coin Cloud have installed thousands of ATMs, scouring areas competitors have not yet reached, executives told Reuters.
“I just assumed there was demand and people wanted bitcoin everywhere,” said Quad Coin founder Mark Shoiket, who flew to Montana after scanning a US map for bitcoin ATM deserts.
During a week-long road trip, he found seven places to install machines, including 406 Glass, a store in Billings, Montana, that sells tobacco, vape juice and colorful glass pipes.
As of January, there were 28,185 bitcoin ATMs in the United States, according to howmanybitcoinatms.com, an independent research site. Roughly 10,000 came within the prior five months.
Bitcoin’s growing popularity has been the primary driver for new installations.
The reasons people use ATMs rather than transacting online vary. Some get paid in cash, some lack bank accounts, some want to send remittances abroad or want anonymity, while others feel more comfortable interacting with a physical machine.
Rebecca White, a 51-year-old bitcoin investor who lives in the Pittsburgh area, makes larger investments online and uses bitcoin ATMs when her family has extra money.
“When we do our grocery shopping and we have $60 left, I will stop at the bitcoin ATM,” said White, who works in the nuclear power industry.
Some machines only offer bitcoin, while others let customers invest in various digital currencies. Few bitcoin ATMs can actually spit out cash, and they cost more than regular ATMs or transacting online.
Fees range from 6% to 20% of a total transaction, said Pamela Clegg, director of financial investigations and education at cryptocurrency compliance firm CipherTrace. Fees vary depending on the location and Bitcoin ATM operator.
“The growth of the ATM market – it is not even a gentle increase, it is almost a 45% increase,” said Clegg. “The growth is quite astonishing.”
Government agencies have raised red flags about some machines because of their cost and the potential for illicit activity.
The New Jersey State Commission of Investigation detailed some of those concerns in a February report titled “Scams, Suspicious Transactions and Questionable Practices at Cryptocurrency Kiosks.”
None of those concerns have stopped the industry’s growth.
Coast to coast
There are now bitcoin ATMs in every state except Alaska, as well as in Washington, DC, according to an online map by Coin ATM Radar. Reuters journalists spotted recent additions at gas stations, stores and restaurants in North Carolina, South Carolina, rural Pennsylvania and the outskirts of New Jersey and New York City.
Las Vegas-based Coin Cloud has 1,470 machines around the United States and expects to have 10,000 by year-end, said CEO Chris McAlary. Although there were concerns that the pandemic might hurt business, foot traffic actually rose during lockdowns.
“We expected the worst as Covid hit, but stimulus payments came out and that helped quite a bit,” McAlary said. “Some people took stimulus and bought digital currency with it.”
Chicago-based competitor CoinFlip grew its ATM footprint from around 420 last year to 1,800 now, said CEO Daniel Polotsky. Transactions per ATM nearly tripled during that period.
“There are people who don’t have bank accounts or don’t like to use them,” Polotsky said.
CoinFlip charges customers 6.99% to buy crypto and 4.99% to sell, he said.
Atlanta-based Bitcoin Depot similarly grew its number of ATMs from 500 to more than 1,800 machines over the past year, said CEO Brandon Mintz. Most customers are 25-40 years old and find machines by searching online, he said.
General Bytes, which manufactures bitcoin ATMs, temporarily ran out of stock last summer as demand soared. The company sold 3,000 machines last year, 90% of which went to North America, said founder Karel Kyovsky.
Not every ATM draws lines of customers.
Quad Coin’s Shoiket removed a handful of the 200 ATMs he installed last year because they had not turned a profit within six months.
At Grassy Point Bar & Grill in Broad Channel, New York, an employee had to plug in a bitcoin ATM for a Reuters journalist to see how it worked.
And only a handful of truck drivers have stopped by the Pioneer Auto Museum in Murdo, South Dakota, to use a Coin Cloud machine installed five months ago, said owner Vivian Sonder.
Coin Cloud offered her $200 a month to house the machine, and periodically sends maintenance people to check on it from Rapid City, 140 miles away.
“I didn’t understand why they wanted to put one here,” said Sonder. “It’s a seasonal business in a town with less than 500 people.”

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Bitcoin hits $60,000 in record high

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Bitcoin, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency, on Saturday crossed a record high of $60,000.

Bitcoin has risen sharply this year, broadly outperforming conventional asset classes, partly due to broader acceptance as a form of payment.

Raising money

In recent weeks, companies have taken advantage of its strength to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in funding, capitalising on improved market sentiment.

A $1.5-billion bitcoin bet last month by Tesla saw Elon Musk’s electric car company join business software firm MicroStrategy and Twitter boss Jack Dorsey’s payments company Square in swapping some traditional cash reserves for the digital coin.

Coinbase, the biggest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, filed last month for a Nasdaq listing. Regulatory approval would represent a landmark victory for cryptocurrency advocates seeking mainstream endorsement.

Amid rising customer demand to own and invest in bitcoin, Goldman Sachs Group said it is exploring how to serve those clients while remaining on the right side of regulation. It recently restarted a cryptocurrency trading desk and this month it started dealing bitcoin futures and non-deliverable forwards.

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Bitcoin Hits Record High, Passes $60,000 for First Time

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Bitcoin briefly rose above $60,000 for the first time on Saturday, as increasing backing from corporate heavyweights helps the world’s most popular virtual currency continue its record-breaking run.

The cryptocurrency hit an all-time high of $60,012 at 1149 GMT, according to the website CoinMarketCap.

Bitcoin has been on a meteoric rise since March last year, when it stood at $5,000, spurred by online payments giant PayPal saying it would allow account holders to use cryptocurrency.

Last month Elon Musk’s electric carmaker Tesla invested $1.5 billion in the virtual unit, while Twitter chief Jack Dorsey and rap mogul Jay-Z said they are creating a fund aimed at making Bitcoin “the internet’s currency”.

Others jumping on the bandwagon include Wall Street player BNY Mellon, investment fund giant BlackRock and credit card titan Mastercard.

Bitcoin, which was launched back in 2009, hit the headlines in 2017 after soaring from less than $1,000 in January to almost $20,000 in December of the same year.

The virtual bubble then burst in subsequent days, with bitcoin’s value then fluctuating wildly before sinking below $5,000 by October 2018.

However the last year’s rise has been more steady, with investors and Wall Street finance giants wooed by dizzying growth, the opportunity for profit and asset diversification, and a safe store of value to guard against inflation.

Bitcoins are traded via a decentralised registry system known as a blockchain.

The system requires massive computer processing power in order to manage and implement transactions.

That power is provided by “miners”, who do so in the hope they will receive new bitcoins for validating transaction data.

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Bitcoin price: Bitcoin hits record high; passes $60,000 for first time | International Business News – Times of India

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PARIS: Bitcoin briefly rose above $60,000 for the first time on Saturday, as increasing backing from corporate heavyweights helps the world’s most popular virtual currency continue its record-breaking run.
The cryptocurrency hit an all-time high of $60,012 at 1149 GMT, according to the website CoinMarketCap.
Bitcoin has been on a meteoric rise since March last year, when it stood at $5,000, spurred by online payments giant PayPal saying it would allow account holders to use cryptocurrency.
Last month Elon Musk’s electric carmaker Tesla invested $1.5 billion in the virtual unit, while Twitter chief Jack Dorsey and rap mogul Jay-Z said they are creating a fund aimed at making Bitcoin “the internet’s currency”.
Others jumping on the bandwagon include Wall Street player BNY Mellon, investment fund giant BlackRock and credit card titan Mastercard.
Bitcoin, which was launched back in 2009, hit the headlines in 2017 after soaring from less than $1,000 in January to almost $20,000 in December of the same year.
The virtual bubble then burst in subsequent days, with bitcoin’s value then fluctuating wildly before sinking below $5,000 by October 2018.
However the last year’s rise has been more steady, with investors and Wall Street finance giants wooed by dizzying growth, the opportunity for profit and asset diversification, and a safe store of value to guard against inflation.
Bitcoins are traded via a decentralised registry system known as a blockchain.
The system requires massive computer processing power in order to manage and implement transactions.
That power is provided by “miners”, who do so in the hope they will receive new bitcoins for validating transaction data.

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Bitcoin Rises 6% as Risk Assets Rally, Here’s Why It Could Be at a ‘Tipping Point’

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Bitcoin rose nearly 6% on Monday as risk assets rallied after last week’s bond rout cooled, and Citi said the most popular cryptocurrency was at a “tipping point” and could become the preferred currency for international trade. With the recent embrace of the likes of Tesla Inc and Mastercard Inc, Bitcoin could be at the start of a “massive transformation” into the mainstream, Citi added.

Bitcoin, which has risen to $47,000 from $4,700 last March, could in the future become the preferred currency for international trade or face a “speculative implosion,” the investment bank said.

It was up 5.7% at $47,834 as of 1127 GMT on the Bitstamp exchange. Smaller rival Ether rallied 7.5% to $1,525.

Bitcoin’s recent performance has come with the growing involvement of institutional investors in recent years, contrasting with its heavy retail investor focus for most of the past decade, Citi added.

If businesses and individuals gain access via digital wallets to planned central bank digital cash and so-called stablecoins, bitcoin’s global reach, traceability and potential for quick payments would see it “optimally positioned” to become the preferred currency for international trade, Citi said.

Bitcoin, designed as a payment tool, is little used for commerce in major economies, hampered by high volatility and relatively costly transactions. Still, it has over the past year gained traction in some emerging markets such as Nigeria.

Such a dramatic transformation for bitcoin to the de facto currency of world trade – a status currently held by the dollar – would depend on changes to its market to allow wider institutional participation and closer oversight by financial regulators, Citi said.

Still, shifts in the macro-economic environment may also make the demand for bitcoin less pressing, it added.

The recent surge in interest in bitcoin, sparked by a narrative that it can act as a hedge against inflation, has driven the cryptocurrency to a record high of $58,354 and a $1 trillion market capitalisation.

But it has pulled back more than $11,000 from those levels in the last week on questions over the sustainability of such high prices.

“There are a host of risks and obstacles that stand in the way of Bitcoin progress,” Citi’s analysts wrote. “But weighing these potential hurdles against the opportunities leads to the conclusion that Bitcoin is at a tipping point.”



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