Coins

  There’s no denying it: support for bitcoin among publicly-listed companies is growing. As of June this year, more than 34 public companies collectively held over 213,000 bitcoin on their balance sheet, roughly equating to 1.14% of the asset’s circulating supply. From vehicle manufacturers (Tesla) and business intelligence firms (MicroStrategy) to crypto-native companies (Coinbase, Riot Blockchain, Inc) and fintech platforms (Square, Inc), forward-looking organizations are increasingly backing “digital gold” to provide a handsome rate of return amidst rising inflation. WHY PUBLIC FIRMS ARE BUYING BITCOIN This influx is a relatively recent phenomenon. Indeed, it’s been little over a year since Nasdaq-listed MicroStrategy became the first publicly-traded firm to buy bitcoin as part of a capital allocation strategy. At the time, CEO Michael Saylor called bitcoin “a dependable store of value and an attractive investment asset with more long-term appreciation potential than holding cash.”

  There’s a strong reason behind the recent wave of bitcoin adoption among the world’s least stable and poorest countries. Bitcoin disproportionately benefits the underbanked and underprivileged because it gives them access to an open global monetary network with predictable policy and low barriers to entry. Although the U.S. has attracted substantial amounts of bitcoin interest and investment since its inception, it’s safe to say that the average American citizen knows little beyond what the mainstream media headlines and FUDsters say. While this runs counter to the U.S.’s typical affinity for technological advancement, it makes sense. As the home of the world’s reserve currency, the U.S. is uniquely positioned to provide wide access to basic financial services and stable infrastructure to its constituents, who rarely see the need to transfer money outside of that ecosystem. Consequently, the average American doesn’t sense any pressure to move beyond pseudo-decentralized platforms and

  Bitcoin miner Stronghold announced today the launch of its initial public offering (IPO) of 5,882,352 Class A common stock shares. The anticipated IPO price will be between $16 and $18 per share under an S-1 Form filed with the U.S. SEC, which has not yet become effective. The company plans to list its shares on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker “SDIG.” Stronghold Digital Assets has officially launched its Nasdaq IPO of 5,882,352 shares of Class A common stock at an anticipated price of between $16 and $18 per share, according to a release shared with Bitcoin Magazine. The company has already filed the final prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), but it has not yet become effective. The bitcoin miner first filed for a Nasdaq IPO in July. Stronghold plans to list its Class A common stock on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker symbol “SDIG” and become the first North American company of its kind to go public through an actual IPO, different from the

One of the chief characteristics of Bitcoin (BTCUSD) is its limited supply. Other forms of money, including fiat currencies, can be printed at will by central banks—i.e., they have unlimited supply.  Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto capped the number of bitcoin at 21 million, meaning there will only ever be 21 million bitcoins in existence. On average, these bitcoins are introduced to the Bitcoin supply at a fixed rate of one block every 10 minutes. In addition, the number of bitcoins released in each of these aforementioned blocks is reduced by 50% every four years. By August 2021, 18.7 million bitcoins were available, leaving roughly 2.3 million to be mined.1 The supply limitation makes Bitcoin scarce and controls inflation that might arise from an unlimited supply of the cryptocurrency.  As Bitcoin reaches its capped supply, its economics will alter. The incentives for various members in its ecosystem, such as miners and traders, will change. For example, miners may rely less on bl

  My son recently celebrated his fifth birthday. We had a party for him and we did the obligatory “party packs” for the children. The highlight was the bubbles. It always is. The kids ran around and showered one another in bubbles. But there weren’t as many bubbles at that party as there have been bitcoin bubble-critics, some of whom are world-renowned intellectuals. I can’t help but look at these critics in the same way I looked at the kids at my son’s party. I don’t mean that in a condescending way. I couldn’t be condescending toward these intellectual giants, even if I wanted to be. But honestly, how else do you look at someone who can’t (or simply won’t) assume a wider perspective? It is entirely true that bitcoin did, at various stages in its 13-year history, enter “bubble-territory” where the price was due for a major correction. But describing bitcoin itself as a bubble (in its entirety) ignores any comparison between its price history and that of other infamous bubbles. But bef

  Cryptocurrencies based on owning a large number of hard discs, rather than using computer processors, could offer a less energy-intensive alternative to bitcoin and might even make it cheaper to build data centres – although one is already causing soaring demand for hard discs that is disrupting supply chains. Bitcoin and several other popular cryptocurrencies are created, or mined, using a concept called proof of work, which involves solving computationally difficult puzzles that consume a large amount of electricity. Bitcoin’s annual electricity consumption is estimated to be 148 terawatt-hours and rising, or around the same amount as Poland’s. Now, rival currencies are emerging that instead make use of large numbers of empty hard discs, a concept known as proof of space. Because hard drives are less energy-intensive to run than processors, proof-of-space currencies are touted as being more environmentally friendly. However, demand for one such currency, Chia, has become so high th