Musk gives Doge another boost plus a US$100K call for bitcoin in 2022

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Elon Musk is at it again

Elon Musk can’t leave crypto alone. This week, the price of Dogecoin surged as much as 33 per cent in a single day after the CEO of Tesla Inc. said his company would accept it as payment, if only for merchandise.

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“Tesla will make some merch buyable with Doge & see how it goes,” Musk tweeted on Tuesday.

It wasn’t the first time he has talked up the memecoin: he previously mentioned it during a hosting gig on Saturday Night Live and was behind at least two other surges in value. In May, he tweeted that he was, “working with Doge devs to improve system transaction efficiency. Potentially promising” and in June tweeted support for a proposal that sought to reduce Dogecoin fees.

The Dogecoin exploits weren’t even Musk’s most newsworthy moment of the week: On Monday, he was named Time Magazine’s 2021 Person of the Year. In an interview to mark that honour, he expounded on his views on crypto, noting that while he finds it interesting, he doubts that it will replace fiat currency.

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Dogecoin has been on a valuation roller coaster so far this year, rising from a fraction of a penny to more than 74 cents in May. Of late has been back down to around 20 cents level, and was trading at just north of 18 cents on Wednesday afternoon.

Bitcoin could hit US$100K on U.S. regulation: analyst

A 2022 crypto outlook published last week by Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mike McGlone predicts the U.S. will embrace crypto regulation in the new year and that that could bring “bullish price implications” with it.

What’s more, McGlone believes that Bitcoin will reach the US$100K on the back of such a move.

“We see it as more of a question of time, notably due to the economic basics of increasing demand vs. decreasing supply,” he states in the report.

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“The unlimited supply of fiat currency should sustain rising prices, notably in Bitcoin and Ethereum, which have limited supply,” he added. “We expect wider adoption to prevail and overcome most wobbles, like 2021’s near-50-per-cent correction.”

Bitcoin hit a supply milestone on the Sunday when a coin was mined into circulation that brought total supply to 90 per cent of the 21 million cap.

The milestone occurred on the 11th anniversary of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto’s disappearance from the internet.

That 90 per cent includes Bitcoins that are lost or stuck in unrecoverable wallets. A 2019 Coin Metrics report places that number at 1.5 million BTC, but some estimate it to be higher.

Its estimated that by 2030, 98.02 per cent of all Bitcoins will have been mined.

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The dominant cryptocurrency has seen a volatile 2021 full of peaks and valleys, and heads into the end of the year price at about US$49,000.

Nike buys metaverse shoemaker

On Monday, Nike announced the acquisition of RTFKT Studios, a brand that makes virtual shoes in the metaverse.

The studio claims that in February, its collaboration with the teenage artist FEWOCIOUS to sell actual as well as virtual sneakers netted over $3.1 million in six minutes. The priciest of these, the ‘FEWO SHOE EPIC,’ is on sale for 420 ETH or US$1,581,463.80 at the time of writing on OpenSea.

“This is a unique opportunity to build the RTFKT brand and we are excited to benefit from Nike’s foundational strength and expertise to build the communities we love,” says Benoit Pagotto, one of RTFKT’s co-founders in a statement. “Nike is the only brand in the world that shares the deep passion we all have for innovation, creativity and community, and we’re excited to grow our brand which was fully formed in the metaverse.”

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Nike did not reveal how much it spent on the deal. RTFKT also announced this week its Clone X NFT collaboration with the Japanese artist Takashi Murakami.

Formed in January 2020, RTFKT’s website states, “the human development in consciousness has accelerated faster than anticipated. We are here to accelerate our digital future now.”

Binance withdraws plans for Singapore exchange

Binance Singapore this week announced that it was withdrawing it licensing efforts in the country and would also wind down it digital payment token services by early next year.

Starting immediately, new user registrations were no longer permitted and existing users are now unable to deposit crypto or fiat on the platform.

CEO Changpeng Zhao explained the decision on Twitter: “Binance made a sizable investment into regulated exchange HGX last week. This investment made our own application somewhat redundant. We will continue to work through our partners to grow the crypto industry in Singapore.”

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That investment was an 18 per cent stake in the Singapore-regulated private securities exchange. Binance had already ceased some services after a September warning from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

Some of the other countries who issued regulatory warnings against the exchange this year include the U.S., U.K., South Africa, Australia, Norway, Netherlands, Hong Kong, Germany, Italy, India, Malaysia and Lithuania. Last week, speaking on efforts to appease the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Zhao stated, “We’re making a number of very substantial changes in organizational structures, product offerings, our internal processes, and the way we work with regulators … We’re in the process of setting up real offices, legal entities, a proper board, proper governance structures in most places.”

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Switzerland’s bigger online bank to open crypto exchange

Jan De Schepper, chief sales and marketing officer at Switzerland’s largest online bank Swissquote, told the Finews.asia publication that his company plans to open its own crypto exchange before the end of the first half of 2022.

The bank currently supports 24 cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, XRP, Bitcoin Cash, Chainlink, Ethereum Classic, EOS, Stellar, Solana and Dogecoin and more. Crypto trading first became available to private customers four years ago.

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De Schepper stated that the bank wants to become “the leading Swiss provider of digital assets,” adding, “We want to enable more trading in various cryptocurrencies on the platform.”

This decision was likely spurred by the first half of the bank’s 2021 which saw its net income from crypto investments increased by over a thousand per cent to 63.2 million Swiss francs. Last spring, the company saw an extreme demand for cryptocurrencies, with De Schepper saying, “Our compliance and customer service teams were almost overrun by the crypto rush.”

The country has been a bit of a trailblazer in Europe when it comes to crypto. In September the Swiss digital asset bank Sygnum launched an exchange and this week the BBVA Switzerland became the first traditional bank in Europe to add Ethereum to its crypto custody and trading services.