Presidential Campaigns and Tiktok: Bad Crypto News of the Week

Check out this week’s Bad Crypto podcast.

It’s been another good, stable week for Bitcoin. No big breakout yet but also no sudden collapse and a comfortable rise of around 1.6 percent. If that sounds like Bitcoin is becoming a bit predictable, don’t rest too easy. Some analysts see this sideways period as the prelude to a big move—either up or down. Other analysts, though, are more positive. They see Bitcoin in the same place that Apple was in pre-iPhone days. They think it could reach $60,000 by 2023. 

If that happens, participants in a new German guerrilla marking campaign will be doing a lot of people some valuable favors. The Ideas Are Like Flames collective is distributing stickers extolling Bitcoin and urging people to adopt “freedom money.” Participants can even receive 675 Satoshis for every sticker they stick.

But maybe they should be buying Dogecoin instead. That’s something that TikTok users are doing. Buying Dogecoin has become a trend with TikTok users telling each other they could make a fortune if the price hits a buck. The new demand quickly pushed up the price of the coin by 20 percent and it’s now more than double the price it was at the start of the week. Dave Portnoy, founder of Barstool Sports, hasn’t been the only one to shake their heads at what’s clearly a pump-and-dump scheme.

Talking of spin and exaggerated claims, interesting crypto things are happening in the world of politics. Kanye West, a friend to Bitcoin, is no longer a friend to Donald Trump. The rapper has said that he’ll be standing for the US presidency. He won’t be alone. Brock Pierce, Chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation and co-founder of EOS Alliance, has said that he’ll be running for the White House too.

The Senate is already making moves towards cryptocurrencies. The U.S. Senate Banking Committee held a hearing that discussed the effect of Covid-19 on digital finance and explored the role of the US government in creating a digital currency. At the same time, the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates the derivatives markets, has prioritized regulations for trading crypto assets. The organization has set goals through to 2024.

And Venezuela has confiscated 314 Bitcoin mining machines. The country requires miners to obtain a government permit to operate mining rigs.

In better news, a new app promises to allow users to send and receive Bitcoin and Lightning Network payments using their bank accounts. Zap lets users skip wallets and channels, and keeps Know Your Customer protocols to a minimum.

And finally, UNICEF has said that it has invested $100,000 of equity-free funding into six start-ups, half of them focused on the blockchain. The children’s charity is interested in open-source technologies that can relieve poverty and impact children in developing countries. That would make for a good week.

Check out the audio version here:

Joel Comm is an internet pioneer, New York Times best-selling author, futurist speaker and co-host of The Bad Crypto Podcast. That’s a fancy way of saying he writes words, says things and loves to play with cryptos

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.