15.06.2021 – Special Report. Oops, he did it again: Elon Musk has pushed the price of Bitcoin up again. It went almost as high as 40,000 dollars. Tesla may accept BTC again after all. Will this push last? The e-car magnate admitted that his company has indeed sold Bitcoin. That looks like pump and dump. And gives government watchdogs new ammunition for a Bitcoin ban.
Musk calls for green electricity
The Tesla boss tweeted that his company could possibly accept BTC as a means of payment again. But only if the environmental balance of the digital currency improves significantly. As a benchmark for this, the eccentric 49-year-old mentioned a share of renewable energies of around 50 percent in Bitcoin production.
We think: The goal could be achieved if only a large part of the mining disappears from China, where coal is often still used to generate electricity. Beijing wants to displace the cryptos anyway in order to launch its own e-yuan. And if the Americans take over, who already consume a lot of clean natural gas, then maybe the green grandmaster will be happy again. The background: Bitcoins are created by complex computing tasks in server farms. Large amounts of electricity are consumed in the process.
Tesla has sold around 10 per cent of its BTC
Musk had repeatedly disturbed the crypto community with contradictions. On the one hand, he rejected accusations of price manipulation. On the other hand, he admitted that Tesla had indeed sold around 10 percent of its Bitcoin holdings. But this was only to prove that it was possible to sell them off without causing a major shift in the price.
Pump and Dump
Musk was apparently responding to an accusation by Magda Wierzycka, one of South Africa’s richest women and CEO of the financial firm Sygnia. According to CoinTelegraph, thundered she: “The [Bitcoin] volatility we have seen is an unexpected function of what I would call market manipulation by Elon Musk. “She added: “If that happens to a listed company, he would be investigated and severely sanctioned by [the] SEC. “Musk had indeed first pumped up the price and then sold a large part of it at the high. “What we have seen with Bitcoin is price manipulation by one very powerful and influential individual,” said Wierzycka. We think that even if the CEO of a listed company like Tesla does not get into trouble with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, other players could intervene.
For speculation and ransom
Coincidentally, the extremely crypto-hostile head of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Agustin Carstens, has just spoken out again. In an interview with “Der Spiegel” he said: “This is a bubble. “And “an environmental disaster”. The market is “easy to manipulate – Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are susceptible to fraud”, Carstens told “Der Spiegel”. “Bitcoin is only good for two things – speculation and ransom payments,” Carstens said. It was important to improve regulation, he added. Then he gave a hint of things to come: one had to start above all with platforms “on which cryptocurrencies are traded”. The head of the BIS also urged central banks to develop their own digital currencies.
Traders happy – investors sceptical
In any case, the back and forth has made traders happy – those who react quickly to Musk’s tweets earn good money. But investors are put off by the posturing. Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, an analyst at JP Morgan, also admitted this. He stated that institutional investors are holding back: “If I look at these bitcoin fund flows, there is no evidence here of a buying-the-dip mentality,” he explained. Demand from large investors is weak and futures are trading below the spot price. Whatever the case, we are keeping an eye on the situation for you – Bernstein Bank wishes you successful trades and investments!
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