🐻 Bitcoin isn’t going to $1 million (yet)

Plus, which bank is next to collapse?

AuthorAuthor

Rahul & Oleena
May 04, 2023

GM friends, we’ve got a big week ahead of us. Interest rates are continuing to hike and banks are continuing to go down. Where does Bitcoin sit in all this? Right at the center of it. We may not be hitting $1 million Bitcoin yet, but we certainly need it more than ever.

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In this issue:

📣The big story of the week. Bitcoin isn’t going to $1 million (yet). Balajis ends the Bitcoin to $1 million bet early, but not all may be lost.

🚀Bullish news. Sui mainnet launches successfully, Bitcoin NFTs reaches 3 million inscriptions and Amazon NFT marketplace is set to launch in the coming weeks.

🐻Big, bad FUD. Biden administration wants to tax Bitcoin miners 30%, BUSD stablecoin is down bad and Coinbase is shutting down its Bitcoin Borrow program.

📣The big story of the week

Bitcoin isn’t going to $1 million (yet)

You may recall about a month ago, a little $1 million Bitcoin bet went viral among the crypto community.

Bitcoin is going to $1 million in 90 days! This was the bold statement that Balajis was betting on.

At that time, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank had just collapsed, and several other banks were at risk of following the same path. An obscene amount of money was being printed to rescue these failing banks and Balajis made the bold prediction that as we enter into hyperinflation, Bitcoin would reach $1 million in 90 days.

In fact, he was so bullish on it that he publicly placed a bet with two individuals wagering on Bitcoin to hit $1 million in 90 days, or he will send $1 million in USDC.

Well, only 30 days in and the bet has been closed at under 97% of his $1 million target price. Sticking to his word, Balajis donated $1.5 million (more than the original bet) of his own money to Bitcoin core developers, a non-profit for poverty and James Medlock, one of the betters Balajis lost to.

That’s a hefty bet to lose, but according to Balajis, not all was lost. Instead, he sees it as a necessary sunk cost to sound the alarm that something is wrong with the economy because we can’t rely on the public sector to warn us.

“I spent my own money to send a probably costly signal that there’s something wrong with the economy and that it's not going to be a ‘soft landing’ like Powell promises — but something much worse.”

Balajis

Good guy Balajis.

Bitcoin may not be hitting $1 million (yet), but Balajis is on to something. Banks are continuing to plunge with PacWest Bancorp as the next target to get axed following First Republic Bank earlier this week.

It’s a mess and it’s only going to get worse as bank deposits continue to fall and more money gets printed.

Bitcoin is the only way.

🚀Bullish news

🚀 Much anticipated SUI blockchain launches to mainnet successfully. Developed by former Meta employees, this new L1 chain is said to be a “Solana killer” that is designed for speedy transactions and reduced delay in smart contract deployment. Recently, it raised over $49 million from 100,000 users and Binance users staked over $4 billion worth of crypto to farm SUI tokens.

📈 Bitcoin NFT reaches 3 million inscriptions. There are now over 3 million NFTs tied to the Bitcoin blockchain. Most of them are text-based, which costs less than digital art. Looks like Bitcoin NFTs are here to stay!

🛍️ Rumor has it that Amazon NFT marketplace is launching on May 15th. Amazon has been quite tight-lipped about the details, but what we know so far is that users will be able to easily purchase NFTs with their credit card and that there may be a mix between physical and digital. Regardless, this is huge news and win for mass adoption!

🐻Big, bad FUD

💰️ Biden wants Bitcoin miners to pay a 30% US federal tax. In a blog post published by the White House, the Biden administration proposed that Bitcoin miners should be taxed 30% for their high energy consumption. They even go on to argue that crypto doesn’t drive significant economic activity. Okay then.

📉 Binance USD stablecoin is down bad. BUSD’s stablecoin supply use to be over $23 billion, but it now sits at just over $6 billion. This comes after the heavy regulatory scrutiny against Binance. So who's in the lead now? Tether’s USDT.

🪦Coinbase is shutting down their Bitcoin Borrow service. Starting May 10th, Coinbase will stop allowing users to borrow Bitcoin using cash due to continued regulatory uncertainty. But Bitcoin Borrow isn’t the only thing the SEC has its eyes on. Coinbase staking, Coinbase Prime and Coinbase Wallet have also been under question.