Bitcoin (BTC) is on the verge of seeing broader acceptance, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, said in a Clubhouse conversation on Feb. 1. Clubhouse is an exclusive audio chat social media platform that is invite-only. Members can join various conversations, akin to an online private conference. "I am late to the party but I am a supporter of #Bitcoin." - Elon Musk — Dan Held (@danheld) February 1, 2021 Elon Musk publicly comments about Bitcoin During the conversation with Andressen Horowitz and other prominent investors, Musk was asked about his thoughts on Bitcoin. On Jan. 29, Musk put the …

Hundreds of thousands tuned in to a Twitch stream today as U.S. congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez discussed Robinhood’s controversial decision to suspend trading in GameStop after the short squeeze engineered by r/WallStreetBets. Hours earlier, Ocasio-Cortez, who sits on the House Financial Services Committee, slammed Robinhood for favoring the interests of the ultra wealthy at the expense of ordinary investors. “This is unacceptable. We now need to know more about @RobinhoodApp ’s decision to block retail investors from purchasing stock while hedge funds are freely able to trade the stock as they see fit.” The live stream, hosted on Ocasio-Cortez’s personal Twitch …

Bitcoin (BTC) price appears to have flipped the $32,000 level back to support as the wider cryptocurrency market saw renewed optimism on Jan. 28. Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows that BTC has steadily climbed higher in price from $31,000 to its current value of $33,400, an increase of 9.5%. The most notable gainer of the day was Dogecoin (DOGE) which surged more than 200%. The popular meme coin became the latest beneficiary of the 3 million member Reddit community behind the incredible GameStop (GME), BlackBerry (BBY) and AMC Theatres (AMC) pump that happened over the last few days. …

Legislators are responding fast to the madness surrounding GameStop and AMC shares and the hedge funds selling them short. On Thursday, Chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee Maxine Waters announced a coming hearing on short-selling. Sherrod Brown, the incoming chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, similarly called for a reexamination of stock market rules. Short-selling has been the subject of widespread controversy as the past two days have seen wild volatility for certain securities, especially Gamestop. Retail traders, communicating via Reddit and buying on Robinhood, have been busy buying up GME in the face of soon-to-expire short positions from …

Reports are coming in this morning that trading app Robinhood has suspended buying for GameStop stock and others after GME's price surged in a Bitcoin-like parabolic rally. Unless you've been living under a rock, you'll know that average Redditors proved their investing power going up against major Wall Street traders short-selling GameStop stock. Largely fueled by small-time investors pushing back against large hedge funds, the price of the stock has risen more than 1,400% from roughly $20 on Jan. 12 to $358 at time of publication. Purportedly in response to the unprecedented trading action that has been threatening hedge funds …

The success of the GameStop short squeeze in pumping the price above $370— and the reaction from centralized authorities and markets to it — has highlighted the need for decentralized finance, according to some in the crypto industry. The stock, which was trading at less than $20 per share earlier this month, was deemed by members of the r/WallStreetBets subreddit to be under attack by a hedge fund which had disclosed a large short position in the stock. As a result of the pump coordinated on Reddit and executed by individual traders using platforms like TD Ameritrade and Robinhood, hedge …

Since Jan. 22 GameStop has been attracting a lot of attention from the mainstream news as the stock (GME) for the popular video game retailer rallied 860% from $17.40 on Jan. 4 to a high of $159.18 on Jan. 25. On Jan. 25 GME pulled back 51.70% from its high to close the day at $76.79 but what lies behind the massive upsurge warrants closer inspection. While solid fundamentals often lead to price breakouts in both stocks and cryptocurrencies, the recent interest in GameStop appears to have more to do with the ‘Reddit army’ phenomenon which has seen internet groups …

In an interview with Bloomberg Markets on Friday, Guggenheim Partners’ chief investment officer Scott Minerd clarified his seemingly contradictory views on Bitcoin’s potential, and revealed that select Guggenheim private funds have invested in the cryptocurrency. Minerd, who oversees Guggenheim’s $275 billion in assets under management, called for a sky-high $400,000 price target for Bitcoin in an interview late last year — easily among the loftiest price predictions from a major institutional head — but more recently said in a Tweet last week that the market may be overheated. The about-face even prompted some playful accusations of market manipulation. As Minerd …

Following cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase filing a draft registration for a public offering with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday, research company Messari has valued the company at $28 billion. Messari’s model examined the company’s various business segments, such as trading, custody and debit cards, to come to this figure. Coinbase is one of the biggest exchanges worldwide, with daily trading volumes of over $1 billion. Assets under custody have grown to $20 billion from $7 billion in 2019. A previous fundraising round in August 2017 saw Coinbase’s valuation break the $1 billion mark, gaining it unicorn status. The …

S&P Dow Jones Indices — a joint venture between S&P Global, the CME Group and News Corp — will debut cryptocurrency indexes in 2021, it has confirmed. In a press release on Thursday, S&P DJI describes Bitcoin (BTC) and altcoins as an “emerging asset class.” Bitcoin and altcoins hit Wall Street finance The firm will partner with Lukka, a U.S. blockchain data provider, to launch the indexes, which will cover a reported 550 cryptocurrencies. "With digital assets such as cryptocurrencies becoming a rapidly emerging asset class, the time is right for independent, reliable and user-friendly benchmarks,” Peter Roffman, global head …

Centre Consortium, the company behind USD Coin (USDC), has hired former State Street and JPMorgan Chase executive David Puth as its new CEO. Centre made the announcement early Tuesday in a Medium post that praised Puth for his leadership credentials. The new hire will help Centre expand its global partnerships across the fintech, crypto and traditional financial services industries. Puth said that he is excited to be joining Centre “at this critical time in the industry,” adding: “The growth of USDC over the course of 2020 is indicative of what I expect will be the path for Centre business activities …

An SEC filing on Friday indicates that the next Wall Street institution to take a public position in Bitcoin may also be among the largest yet: the $275 billion financial services firm Guggenheim Partners. The Guggenheim filing allows the Macro Opportunities fund to purchase GBTC, a publicly-traded Bitcoin investment vehicle from Grayscale, at an indeterminate point in the future. “The Guggenheim Macro Opportunities Fund may seek investment exposure to bitcoin indirectly through investing up to 10% of its net asset value in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (“GBTC”),” the filing reads. According to independent ratings firm Morningstar, the Guggenheim Macro Opportunities fund …