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Elon Musk announced, Tesla is reconsidering Bitcoin as Payment after Miners Turn 50 % Green.

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The globally known business tycoon, Elon Musk, CEO of famous automobile company Tesla, announced on Sunday, 13 June 2021, that Tesla will resume taking payments through bitcoin once the miner’s industry will confirm the usage of adequate clean energy from now onwards.

Musk tweeted on Sunday that if miners provide a formal assurance of using at least 50% of clean energy in order to maintain a positive impact on our environment, Tesla will indeed start bitcoin transactions. 

The electric-car producer company stopped putting up with installments from customers who intended to pay their car expenses with bitcoin. Tesla took this sudden step in mid-may 2021 as the company had some serious concerns regarding how cryptocurrency mining is affecting climate change. This concern was raised as cryptocurrency mining makes use of vast pools of powerful computers.

In may Musk said, his company is deeply concerned about this rapid increase in the use of fossil fuels in order to carry out Bitcoin transactions and mining, particularly coal, which is well known to produce the worst emissions among whole categories of fuel.

Musk reacts to the tweet of the CEO of South African asset manager

The CEO of South African asset manager sygnia, Magda Wierzycka, tweeted that Elon Musk is trying to manipulate the market by tweeting about bitcoin prices. He added that Musk’s behaviour should trigger a thorough investigation on the matter by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

On Sunday, Tesla CEO denied allegations imposed on him by Magda Wierzycka regarding market manipulation. He explained that his company has hardly sold 10 per cent of its bitcoin ownership to substantiate that bitcoin could be liquidated effortlessly without any need to move the market, he said in his tweet. 

Furthermore, by disclosing its earnings statements, Tesla announced it has sold some 272 million dollars worth of crypto assets during the initial quarter, and this move helped the company to reduce regulating losses by 101 million dollars, as mentioned in the company’s earnings statement.

In February 2021, Musk’s company, in an SEC filing, revealed that it purchased 1.5 billion dollars worth of bitcoin and also confirmed that Tesla would soon begin to accept bitcoin as an installment method for its products.

Conclusion 

Often, the Tesla owner Elon Musk’s statements on social media regarding cryptocurrency makes significant rise and fall in crypto prices, but on Sunday, it appeared to show an instant effect as bitcoin prices overall elevated nearly 8 per cent just around the daytime on Sunday.

Elon Musk announced, Tesla is reconsidering Bitcoin as Payment after Miners Turn 50 % Green.

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S.E.C. charges 5 for illegally promoting $2 billion Bitconnect Ponzi

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Three years and some unforgettable memes later, the Securities and Exchange Commission has announced that 5 individuals will face charges relating to promoting the Bitconnect Ponzi scheme. 

“The SEC’s complaint alleges that these promoters offered and sold the securities without registering the securities offering with the Commission, and without being registered as broker-dealers with the Commission, as required by the federal securities laws,” the release reads.

The promoters, including Trevon Brown, Craig Grant, Ryan Maasen, and Michael Noble are said to have “advertised the merits of investing in BitConnect’s lending program to prospective investors, including by creating “testimonial” style videos and publishing them on YouTube, sometimes multiple times a day.” In exchange for their promotional efforts, the influencers and representatives were paid on a commission basis.

The release also named Joshua Jeppesen as “a liaison between BitConnect and promoters.”

Shortly after the release, Trevon Brown (better known as Trevon James) posted a Tweet in which he did not deny the charges and said that the community would “rally” around him.

“We will seek to hold accountable those who illegally profit by capitalizing on the public’s interest in digital assets,” said Lara Shalov Mehraban, Associate Regional Director of SEC’s New York Regional Office in the release. 

The company, which collapsed in 2018, was widely accused on being a ponzi scheme from several analysts and observers, including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. Last year, an Australian man was charged in connection with the company’s fraud. Many will be familiar with the project due to a now-legendary presentation from investor Carlos Matos:

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Multiple crypto lawyers have taken to Twitter to speculate on the long-term ramifications of this case. Gabriel Shapiro noted that even though the S.E.C. is targeting a known fraud in Bitconnect, it could end up being a “blueprint” for action against other DAOs. 

S.E.C. charges 5 for illegally promoting $2 billion Bitconnect Ponzi

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Tesla Will No Longer Accept Bitcoin Due To Environmental Issues, According To Elon Musk

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Tesla will no longer allow Bitcoin as a form of payment, according to a tweet by CEO Elon Musk, citing environmental issues

“We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel,” Musk tweeted on wednesday. He went on to say that while cryptocurrency is a “good idea on many levels,” it cannot come at a “high cost to the environment.”

Musk raised environmental questions about Bitcoin’s “mining” techniques, which necessitate a lot of computer resources and use a lot of electricity. Currently, the sector consumes 149.6 terawatt-hours of oil, which is significantly less than the total electricity consumption of Egypt’s entire population.

The announcement caused a 13 percent decline in the value of the cryptocurrency, and Tesla stock has also plummeted.

Musk has long been a promoter of Bitcoin, having purchased 1.5 billion dollars worth of Bitcoins, as reported in an SEC filing in February, and even changing his Twitter bio to #Bitcoin in January. “You can now buy a Tesla with Bitcoin,” he said in March, adding that Bitcoin charged to Tesla will be kept as Bitcoin and not translated to dollars.

Tesla, he said, would not sell any of its Bitcoin holdings. Following Musk’s remarks on Twitter, the price of Bitcoin dropped about 5% to $51,847. Tesla’s stock fell 4.4 percent on Wednesday.

He mentioned that the company is looking at other cryptocurrencies that require less than 1% of the energy that Bitcoin consumes.

Bitcoin is produced when high-powered computers compete against each other to solve complex mathematical puzzles, a time-consuming process that currently relies heavily on electricity extracted from fossil fuels, especially coal.

According to the latest available statistics from the University of Cambridge and the International Energy Agency, Bitcoin “mining” consumes about the same amount of energy annually as the Netherlands did in 2019.

Musk made the announcement three days after announcing the DOGE-1 launch to the Moon, which would be the first space mission paid for in Dogecoins, another cryptocurrency he supports. It’s uncertain if that’s even a possibility. On May 8, when hosting Saturday Night Live, he referred to the currency as a hustle.

Tesla Will No Longer Accept Bitcoin Due To Environmental Issues, According To Elon Musk

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XRP’s Market Cap Hits $75 Billion, 3% of Total Crypto Market Cap

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The fourth-largest cryptocurrency has hit a new high, with a market cap of $75 billion. This is around 3.2% of the total market cap for cryptocurrencies.

Ripple’s XRP has risen by over 40% in the past week. The crypto has been doing well in its price recovery by trading above $1.6, with the market cap remaining above $70 billion.

Bitcoin retains its dominance in the market. However, this has fallen to around 48%. Other currencies such as Ethereum have been doing quite well to cover the gap, with ETH’s market dominance standing at 15.7% while that of Binance coin stands at 4.1%.

XRP’s price growth

Since the beginning of the year, XRP has increased by over 500%. In January, the token was trading for $0.23. The price change started towards the end of March and peaked in April when the token reached $1.95, the highest price in three years. The market dominance for the currency has surged since the beginning of April.

The latest growth of other currencies such as ETH, BNB, and XRP has negatively affected the market dominance for Bitcoin. Furthermore, XRP has also been doing well in terms of institutional adoption. In the second week of April, the token recorded around $33 million in institutional use.

Increased interest in XRP

Whale Alert, a blockchain analytics platform, pointed out the large number of transactions taking place on XRP over the weekend. These transactions were reported on the Escrow wallet for Ripple. Data from the wallet show that around $1 billion worth of the crypto was transferred in three days.

In addition, the Whale Report also shows there were around 7 million XRP coins that were transferred from a digital wallet to the Huobi exchange. Before that, 15 million XRP was transferred from a crypto.com exchange to an unknown digital wallet. These two instances show an increased interest in crypto.

XRP is also edging closer to Binance Coin (BNB), with the market cap for BNB is around $90 billion. The total market cap for cryptocurrencies in the market currently reached about $2.2 trillion, which is the most significant record in the market’s history. Bitcoin still holds the largest share of the market cap, standing at approximately $1.08 trillion.

XRP’s progress in the market can be attributed to Ripple’s progress in a lawsuit against the SEC. Winning that lawsuit pushed XRP’s prices to an all-time high price after their prices crashed late last year.

XRP’s Market Cap Hits $75 Billion, 3% of Total Crypto Market Cap

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PrimeXBT Lead Analyst Kim Chua: Lawsuit Upper Hand Sends XRP Price Rising

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The price of XRP has rallied sharply recently on the back of positive developments pertaining to the SEC lawsuit with Ripple.

The latest update on the Ripple lawsuit seems to be giving Ripple the upper hand. Thus far, US judges seem to agree with Ripple more than with the SEC. This became especially clear after the March 23 hearing where 2 significant events advantageous to Ripple sent investor confidence in XRP soaring.

First, the judge of the lawsuit, Sarah Netburn, was observed to have suggested that the XRP cryptocurrency is more like a currency than a security.

Secondly, observers also noted that the SEC, in one of its defences, unintentionally implied that exchanges that list and allow the trading of XRP would not violate any regulation. What happened was that on the March 23 hearing, the judge questioned the SEC lawyer that, based on his theory, “everyone who sold XRP – including you and me – are selling illegal securities”, after which the SEC lawyer responded, “no, under Section 4, only Ripple and affiliates of Ripple can have sold XRP illegally”, and that “everyone who sold XRP” was not selling “illegal securities”. The statements by the SEC lawyer can be interpreted that exchanges will not be held liable for the sale of XRP. Under Section 4 of the Securities Act, only Ripple and its affiliates could be accused of illegal sales. This was a case-turner for the price of XRP since it would mean that exchanges may start relisting it again.

Positive price action began building momentum during this time, where social media attention on XRP soared. The number of XRP-related posts on different social media networks skyrocketed, with over 80% of all the social interactions bullish about XRP, out of which a campaign called “RelistXRP” was initiated and trending on Twitter in the USA.

This positive social engagement has led many large investors to add more XRP to their portfolios. According to on-chain data, large whales with more than 10 million XRP tokens have started increasing by significantly since March 24, just 1 day after news broke.

A crypto exchange named Lykke, based out of Switzerland, has thus decided to re-list XRP. Subsequently, a rumour emerged on April 3 that Coinbase was going to relist XRP. The rumour mill began to churn when a Twitter user going by the name Krish xrp hinted that Coinbase could be readying to relist XRP. Krish xrp noted that backend work was already underway at Coinbase, while attaching a screenshot of Coinbase back-office API with XRP coding on it.

While there has not been any confirmation from Coinbase yet, this rumour sparked an explosion in XRP price, with it surging from pre-rumour level of around $0.60, to a high of $1.12, its highest level in 3 years, within the first 48 hours.

On top of this, on the discovery hearing on April 6, Ripple received another shot in the arm when the court approved Ripple’s request to gain access to SEC Documents on BTC and ETH, something that will be very helpful to Ripple for fighting its case.

Already, someone found something advantageous for Ripple and posted it on Twitter.

These developments caused investors to FOMO back into XRP, creating a mad rush to buy as many investors have already sold XRP when news of the lawsuit broke in December last year. Now that Ripple seems to have the upper hand, investors are back in droves hoping to purchase XRP before the ruling.

On the technical front, this rush to buy caused the price of XRP to over-extend and a undergo a healthy retracement between $0.90 and $1.00, which is a crucial support area for XRP to build a new base in order to support a move higher. The price of XRP also formed a “Golden Cross” mid-March, a sign that the price of XRP is going on a strong uptrend. Price subsequently broke out of a cup-and -handle bullish formation on the weekly chart, with the upthrust being confirmed by a triangle breakout on the daily chart with a price target of $1.50. With the initial price objective being already hit, price may consolidate a little since it has tripled in a week, however, the chart is still looking bullish for XRP and there is the possibly that price may swing up parabolically to test its ATH of $3.30. Where it goes after that however, may depend on the outcome of the lawsuit as well as sentiment in the broad crypto markets .

Meanwhile, there is additional information favouring XRP that seems to be overlooked by the market. On March 29, the court granted a group of XRP holders the right to file a motion to intervene in the case against Ripple by April 19. The holders blame the SEC for inflicting monetary losses on them when the XRP price plunged in December. As April 19 draws near, we could be in for exciting times when XRP investors gather to trounce the SEC, which will inevitably cause volatility in XRP’s price to rise again.

Another interesting event that is developing is a petition to drop the SEC lawsuit. Crypto & Policy founder, Thomas Hodge, has started a Change.org petition directed at the SEC chairman nominee, Gary Gensler, asking him to end the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple once he’s confirmed as chairman of the commission. The petition alleges that former SEC chairman, Jay Clayton, and his SEC Director of Corporate Finance William Hinman, for “favouring” BTC and ETH while harming XRP.  While the petition may not necessarily raise the price, it definitely will be able to generate more awareness and hype in the XRP token.

With the rise in price, XRP has moved up to number 4 on the crypto top 10, just behind BNB. Progress in the lawsuit may further send XRP roaring back to the number 3 spot which it used to occupy, wiping the past few months away as just a small hiccup in the bigger scheme of things.

About Kim Chua, PrimeXBT Market Analyst:

Kim Chua is an institutional trading specialist with a track record of success that extends across leading banks including Deutsche Bank, China Merchants Bank, and more. Chua later launched a hedge fund that consistently achieved triple-digit returns for seven years. Chua is also an educator at heart who developed her own proprietary trading curriculum to pass her knowledge down to a new generation of analysts. Kim Chua actively follows both traditional and cryptocurrency markets closely and is eager to find future investment and trading opportunities as the two vastly different asset classes begin to converge.

PrimeXBT Lead Analyst Kim Chua: Lawsuit Upper Hand Sends XRP Price Rising

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Ripple Vs SEC: Discussions Opened For Defining Crypto As Securities

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The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple Labs have had a very long, very interesting relationship. Recently, however, Ripple Labs has been granted access to the documents of the SEC that express the interpretations and views of the SEC when it comes to crypto assets.

Playing The Technical Game

Law360 showed that one Sarah Netburn, a US Magistrate Judge, had granted Ripple Labs the motion “in large part.” The Judge had concluded that the memos and minutes of the SEC regarding cryptocurrencies are likely discoverable but asserted that staff-to-staff email communications are not to be produced. Another detail Netburn allowed is for either RIpple or the SEC to raise disputes with the ruling if they wished.

It was back in December of last year when the SEC filed its lawsuit against Ripple. In this lawsuit, the regulator accused Ripple Labs, including Christian Larson, the Chairman, and Brand Garlinghouse, the CEO, of raising a total of $1.38 billion by way of an unlicensed security offering, which they did all the way back in 2013.

A Crack Legal Team Is Severely Versatile

Not to give the jig up just yet, Ripple promptly challenged the SEC’s lawsuit, claiming that an asset expressly used for online settlements is more akin to Ether or Bitcoin. Both of these assets have been declared commodities by the SEC. Another important factor Ripple hammers home about is the 8-year time gap the agency took in terms of filing a complaint against RIpple as a whole.

Matthew Solomon stands as the Counsel of Garlinghouse, with Law360 reporting that Matthew Solomon is convinced that the SEC’s lawsuit could be “game over” should they manage to find any evidence that the regulator had compared XRP to ETH or BTC. Through this technicality, XRP would be classified as a commodity instead of security, and thus be outside of the jurisdiction of the SEC.

The Legal System Is Always Complex

Another point lawyers are hammering home on, is the fact that the SEC has taken a whole of 8 years to file the complaint. As such, the law firm is doing its best to undermine the claims of the regulator should they find any documentation that is counterintuitive to the official classification of XRP by the SEC.

Solomon declared that this sort of discovery is needed in order to defend the client in question

Time will tell how successful this antic will be. Many in the crypto space already see RXRP as a security and are simply waiting for them to be caught out for it

Ripple Vs SEC: Discussions Opened For Defining Crypto As Securities

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