Dr. Violet Howard discusses Bitcoin, blockchain, and cryptocurrency news from the week. Major tech companies are banning crypto ads, Wyoming is changing laws to support blockchain companies, and stablecoins like USDC are being developed.
Alibaba founder Jack Ma thinks blockchain is not a bubble, and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey thinks Bitcoin should be the Internet's native currency. Despite hype from major figures in the crypto world. Maps are mostly red, Bitcoin is just above 8k and Ethereum has dipped below 700. Where is our rally? Tom Lee, you promised. Here is your overview of the week. Time for an episode of the Bing Ban Theory. You heard that right? The Bing Ban Theory. You know what it's like when your more successful siblings do something and you want to copy it. Imagine Google, Facebook and Twitter are those siblings and they've banned crypto ads. Well, awkward less successful little brother also wants in on the action. Bing plans a worldwide crypto ban by July 2018. Worldwide? Really? They believe the current unregulated status of crypto leads to predatory behavior and increases risk for Bing users. The co founder of LinkedIn told Cointelegraph in relation to all of the recent crypto ad bans that these bans are temporary because of unclear crypto market regulations. 3 out of 10 Bing users were upset by the ad ban, 10 being the total amount of Bing users worldwide. Breaking Pope loves crypto, he said recently. This is one of the most exciting things that I've seen in a decade. As far as the possibilities. Not the Pope David Pope, an accountant from Wyoming. Not just some random dude, though he's also part of the state's blockchain coalition. He is one of the many Wyoming residents excited about his state reinventing itself as perhaps the most crypto friendly in the U.S. wyoming Governor Matt Mead signed sweeping legislation in March that makes it easier for blockchain companies to operate. Utility tokens are to be considered assets and cryptocurrency is now exempt from property taxes. This has led to a flood of crypto and blockchain related companies register staring in the state. Wyoming is known as the Cowboy State and crypto is the Wild West. So a perfect shotgun wedding. What's the secret to a stable life? Circle and Bitmain might have the answer. They have partnered in a project to create a token which is backed by US dollars. The two companies have just closed a 110 million dollar fundraising round. They're developing a stablecoin the USDC to address the unstable nature of cryptocurrencies. The USDC will be an ERC20 token and backed by actual US dollars. Circle wants to integrate it in its payment app Circle Trade and offer it on Poloniex. Circle hasn't yet decided whether it will charge fees for traders using USDC as the goal is to increase its circulation. Circle itself is backed by Goldman Sachs, which may excite some but worry others in the crypto community. Tether is perhaps the best known stablecoin. It became controversial after questions arose over whether it had been upfront about its dollar backed reserves. What do you think? Can a so called stablecoin ever be truly decentralized? Hodlers Are you tired of the Buffett blues?
Oh Lord, look who it is. Is that Steve Wastan? I think it is the great and powerful Woz.
Let the Woz lighten your move. Apple co founder Steve W. Wozniak thinks blockchain is the next IT revolution, but we will have to wait a bit. Blockchain and cryptocurrency won't achieve their full potential for at least a decade. He quoted CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey who said Bitcoin will become the world's single currency. The Woz has a history of being a believer. Last year he said bitcoin is better than gold and the US dollar. Although Wozniak doesn't exactly have the temperament to be a true Hodler as he sold all his bitcoins except for one. He said he doesn't like watching the markets. We forgive you Steve. Anyway, that one Bitcoin could be worth 250k pretty soon according to this Draper dude. We know Bitcoin's energy use has been a controversial issue. The first peer reviewed research on the amount of energy used by bitcoin mining shows that it could end up using around 0.5% of the world's energy by the end of 2018. The Bitcoin network already uses almost as much electricity as Ireland. Hey Ireland, would you mind going camping for a month just to help bitcoin out? Seriously though, the article predicts that it will be using as much energy as Austria soon. The solution? The Lightning network. But the Economist predicts it only may help the situation. Since it seems unreasonable to ask Ireland to go camping for a month, we hope this works out. China ranks Ethereum number one in its new crypto rankings. Their Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has ranked Bitcoin 3 13th and Ethereum first out of 28 according to the ranking requirements. Bitcoin is lacking in technology and application, even though it was ranked higher than the other 28 coins in innovation. Some Twitter commentators are confused about these classifications. This Chinese ranking is not the first attempt to rate cryptocurrencies. In January, Bitcoin was assigned C and Ethereum A, B and A. Rather weird rating. And assumably, what was a PR campaign for an unknown rating agency, like, for a rally, like subscribe and Hodl. For Bitcoin to become the world's single currency?
