Dogecoin continues its transition to a serious cryptocurrency, as it surged to an $18 billion market value.
Dogecoin is unique among cryptocurrencies. It was originally created as a joke and, unlike most other currencies, has no limit on the amount of currency that can be mined.
Amid a broader surge in cryptocurrencies, Dogecoin has soared to new heights. The currency has gained nearly 100% in the last two days. Even though it’s dropped since its peak, it still has a $16.3 billion market value at the time of writing.
Dogecoin has received support from high-profile sources. Mark Cuban threw his weight behind the currency when he announced the Mavericks would accept it as payment, and Elon Musk has been a long-time proponent of Dogecoin.
With bitcoin and Ethereum mining facing a finite future, perhaps Dogecoin will become the next big crypto. In this market, stranger things have happened.
As if six movies of rampaging dinosaurs aren’t warning enough, a tech executive has said Jurassic Park could be created in 15 years.
Max Hodak co-founded Neuralink, along with Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Neuralink is a startup focused on integrating technology in the human brain. Initially, the company plans to use technology to help address brain diseases, as well as eventually help humans better interface with technology.
Hodak believes a real-life Jurassic Park could be created in as little as 15 years, with modern technology.
we could probably build jurassic park if we wanted to. wouldn’t be genetically authentic dinosaurs but 🤷♂️. maybe 15 years of breeding + engineering to get super exotic novel species
As many Twitter users have pointed out, the entire volume of Jurassic Park movies are good examples of why this is a bad idea and will, hopefully, remain the musings of an imaginative tech exec.
Signal may not be as popular as Facebook’s WhatsApp, but even Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg may use the competing product.
Facebook caused a furor when it announced it would share WhatsApp user data with other Facebook-owned companies. The fallout was severe, with many users switching to the more secure Signal. Elon Musk also came out as a vocal proponent of Signal in the aftermath, further driving its growth.
Interestingly, it appears Mark Zuckerberg also uses Signal. Days ago, data for 533 million Facebook users was leaked online. Although the data is from at least a couple of years ago, it still includes a wealth of information. Security researcher Dave Walker perused the data and found Zuckerberg’s information was part of it.
Even more telling, the phone number listed for Zuckerberg is also associated with a Signal account.
In another turn of events, Mark Zuckerberg also respects his own privacy, by using a chat app that has end-to-end encryption and isn't owned by @facebook
This is the number associated with his account from the recent facebook leak. https://t.co/AXbXrF4ZxE
Elon Musk has officially dubbed himself ‘Technoking of Tesla’ and CFO Zach Kirkhorn is now ‘Master of Coin.” Seriously, this title change was in an SEC filing. In other news, Howard Stern is still ‘King of All Media’, and Dwayne Jonson would like to be called Dwayne Johnson but says calling him ‘The Rock’ is also fine.
“Effective as of March 15, 2021, the titles of Elon Musk and Zach Kirkhorn have changed to Technoking of Tesla and Master of Coin, respectively. Elon and Zach will also maintain their respective positions as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer.”
This title change by Musk is not to be confused with Techno King Zenki Fujiyoshi, who made this techno video that garnered over 600,000 views on YouTube:
Obviously, Musk has a penchant for messing with all of us and especially the SEC since they took away his Board Chairman title.
Tesla now accepts bitcoin as payment, several weeks after Elon Musk first teased the prospect.
In a tweet early Wednesday morning, Musk announced that bitcoin is now an acceptable payment method for buying a new Tesla. The CEO also made it clear that Tesla is only using internal and open source software to process the payments, and that the company will retain the payments in bitcoin, rather than transfer them into USD.
Tesla is using only internal & open source software & operates Bitcoin nodes directly.
Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency.
The news has sparked a rally for the cryptocurrency, with it reaching as high as $57,000 shortly after the tweet. Musk also announced the company will be expanding the program internationally later this year.
Pay by Bitcoin capability available outside US later this year
India has proposed legislation that would ban cryptocurrencies, in the most restrictive such legislation worldwide.
Under the proposed bill, India would criminalize owning, mining, trading, issuing and transferring cryptocurrencies, according to Reuters. A government official with knowledge of the plan spoke directly to the outlet.
The bill would have serious repercussions for investors at a time when cryptocurrencies are gaining widespread acceptance worldwide. Tesla’s Elon Musk recently said Bitcoin was on the verge of mainstream acceptance, and his company invested $1.5 billion in the currency.
Unfortunately for the cryptocurrency community, the bill is likely to be passed into law. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government holds a comfortable parliamentary majority, clearing the way for passage.
Once the bill goes into effect, investors will have six months to liquidate their holdings before penalties are levied.
SpaceX wants to expand its Starlink internet access to moving vehicles, including planes, ships, trucks and RVs.
Starlink is a constellation of satellites in low-Earth orbit that provide internet access to remote and underserved communities. The service has already met with favorable reviews, providing internet speeds that were previously unavailable to many of its customers.
In order to work, the satellite constellation is paired with ground antennas. SpaceX is asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for permission to install its satellite receivers on moving vehicles to provide them with internet access.
Consumers are interacting with broadband platforms in an increasing variety of ways. No longer are users willing to forego connectivity while on the move, whether driving a truck across the country, moving a freighter from Europe to a U.S. port, or while on a domestic or international flight.
Elon Musk clarified the service is not aimed at cars, but is intended for larger vehicles.
Not connecting Tesla cars to Starlink, as our terminal is much too big. This is for aircraft, ships, large trucks & RVs.
Following outages that left millions without power, Texas is getting a massive battery backup thanks to Tesla.
While Tesla may be known for electric vehicles, it’s been using its industry-leading battery technology to help out in other areas as well. In 2017, the company built a 100-megawatt battery to assist South Australia with its power outages.
Now the company is preparing to do the same thing for Texas, in an effort to help the state be better prepared for future outages. The state’s utilities were crippled by uncharacteristically severe weather in February, leaving millions without power and leading to fatalities.
A 100-megawatt batter is currently being constructed in Texas and will come online June 1. The battery will be housed near the Texas-New Mexico Power substation, according to PCMag. The battery will hold enough energy to power up to 20,000 households “on a hot summer day.”
If Tesla’s Texas battery is successful, it likely won’t be the last such battery backup in the US.
According to Bloomberg, it appears the Kremlin was at least interested in the possibility.
“It’s undoubtedly a very interesting offer, but we need to know what he means, what’s he’s proposing,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters at the time, adding, “we’ll check it out first and then we’ll respond.”
It appears that Elon Musk never responded to the Kremlin’s follow-up attempts, ensuring a Clubhouse sit down never happened.
“Apparently there was some kind of misunderstanding,” said Peskov. “Most likely, this matter is exhausted.”
Musk has been known for some brash actions in the past, but standing up Vladimir Putin certainly ranks up there. Hopefully, the slight won’t impact Tesla’s business in Russia.
Starlink internet service is poised to expand to much of the world, and double in speed, later this year.
SpaceX’s Starlink is a constellation of satellites in low-Earth orbit. The constellation is designed to provide internet access to remote and under-served communities around the world. Many early adopters are reporting speeds in excess of 150 Mbps and latency of 39 ms.
Elon Musk is teasing the company will significantly improve that this year.
Speed will double to ~300Mb/s & latency will drop to ~20ms later this year
Starlink is already revolutionizing what people can do, providing a level of internet access many rural customers have never enjoyed. Musk’s announcements are good news for potential customers. Starlink’s expansion is especially good news at a time when record numbers of people are working from home, in some cases in areas where traditional internet options are less than ideal.
Bitcoin may have shed 20% of its value over the last week, but that isn’t stopping Fundstrat’s Tom Lee from predicting a $100,000 price point.
Bitcoin has experienced some major fluctuations during its meteoric rise. The cryptocurrency passed $58,000 this weekend, before dropping back down to $48,700 at the time of writing. The drop coincides with Elon Musk tweeting that Bitcoin’s price seemed high.
Despite the drop however, Tom Lee says investors shouldn’t be worried, as corrections are part of Bitcoin’s DNA. Lee also believes the cryptocurrency could reach as high as $100,000.
– part of its DNA and its history – doesn’t change fair value per @David_Grid network value model#bitcoin target $100,000 – looks on sale, right?$SI$MOGO$MSTR
— Thomas (Tom) Lee (not drummer) FSInsight.com (@fundstrat) February 23, 2021
If Lee is right, Bitcoin’s latest correction represents a significant buying opportunity.
Elon Musk has already revolutionized the auto industry, but he wants to go further by making the Roadster hover.
For many, the idea of a hovercraft car is a childhood dream. Thankfully, Musk has the imagination and resources to try to make a childhood dream come true. In a recent podcast chat with Joe Rogan, via Digital Trends, Musk says he has Tesla’s brightest engineers working to make the Roadster hover, “without, you know, killing people.”
“I thought, maybe we could make it hover, but not too high,” Musk said. “So maybe it could hover, like, a meter above the ground, or something. So if you plummet, you blow out the suspension but you’re not going to die.”
Musk thinks his team could place a thruster “where the license plate flips down, James Bond-style, and there’d be a rocket thruster behind it that gives you three tons of thrust.”
It’s a safe bet people would line up in droves if Tesla ever succeeds in making such a Roadster.
Tesla announced in an SEC filing Monday that it has invested $1.5 billion in bitcoin. “We invested an aggregate $1.50 billion in bitcoin and may acquire and hold digital assets from time to time or longterm.” Tesla also announced that they will accept bitcoin as payment going forward. “Moreover, we expect to begin accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for our products in the near future, subject to applicable laws and initially on a limited basis, which we may or may not liquidate upon receipt.”
This news rocked the bitcoin market causing bitcoin prices to soar to record heights. For the first time ever bitcoin moved above $43,000 and currently (as of this writing) sits at $43,735.84.
In January 2021, we updated our investment policy to provide us with more flexibility to further diversify and maximize returns on our cash that is not required to maintain adequate operating liquidity. As part of the policy, which was duly approved by the Audit Committee of our Board of Directors, we may invest a portion of such cash in certain alternative reserve assets including digital assets, gold bullion, gold exchange-traded funds and other assets as specified in the future. Thereafter, we invested an aggregate $1.50 billion in bitcoin under this policy and may acquire and hold digital assets from time to time or longterm. Moreover, we expect to begin accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for our products in the near future, subject to applicable laws and initially on a limited basis, which we may or may not liquidate upon receipt.
“There’s a perniciously false effective markets argument made for shorting,” says Tesla CEO Elon Musk. “It is vice disguised as virtue. Short selling is frankly used against the public. We don’t have shorting in private companies. The vast majority of companies, over 90 percent are private, and you cannot short them. Yet somehow, private companies get things done.”
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, explains in an interestinginterview with Sandy Munro, why short selling is an attack on the people and is actually vice but described by its greedy advocates as virtue:
Short Selling Is An Attack On The People
There are very few areas in life where you can sell things that you don’t own. Short selling, where you can sell shares that you don’t own, when I said it was vestigial I meant it came from an era when stocks were traded by people traveling on horseback to exchange stock certificates. In order to have the transaction speed not take weeks, somebody would say well the stock certificate is coming on that horse. I don’t have the stock certificate right now but I promise you that I’m getting the stock certificate and the rider is going to be here in New York from Chicago in three days and then I’ll be able to give you the stock certificate.
That’s where this whole silly thing arose. But then the problem is like the way short selling is used today is it’s frankly used against the public. Most people aren’t aware that short selling even exists. Then the ones that are aware very few of them know actually how to use it. It’s basically like .01 percent of stockholders know how to use short positions to get ahead. I think it is effectively an attack on the public.
It Is Vice Disguised As Virtue
Tesla was under a massive attack by the short and distort, where they take a short position and then they do everything possible to trash the company six ways to Sunday, and they were successful. This has now happened to Tesla twice. It happened in 2013, and it happened in 2017 through 2019. The intensity of the attack was crazy. I was like man, it would cause you to lose faith in humanity, the extent of the greed of this that went on.
We don’t have shorting in private companies. The vast majority of companies, over 90 percent are private, and you cannot short them. Yet somehow, private companies get things done. There’s a perniciously false effective markets argument made for shorting. It is vice disguised as virtue.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was recently interviewed by renowned manufacturing guru Sandy Munro where he talked about MBAs. Musk is not a fan of how people with MBAs from high profile business schools seem to think that they should go directly from school to a leadership position before they have had any actual experience.
Here are Elon Musk’s somewhat colorful comments on MBAs. The full interview with Elon Musk can be watched below as well:
The path to leadership should not be through an MBA business school situation. It should be kind of work your way up and do useful things. There’s a bit too much of the somebody goes to a high-profile MBA school and then kind of parachutes in as the leader but they don’t actually know how things work. They could be good at say PowerPoint presentations or something like that, and they can present well, but they don’t actually know how things work. They parachute in instead of working their way up. They’re kind of like just not aware of what’s really needed to make great products.
I don’t want to trash MBAs too much here. I actually do have a dual undergrad, a Wharton undergrad, and physics at UPenn. I have direct exposure to business school and I went to do undergrad school with physics and I was a teaching assistant for two semesters and I graded MBAs and undergrads. I think it’s just a little bit too much. People look at MBA school as like I want to parachute into being the boss instead of earning it. I don’t think that’s good.
Elon Musk: People With MBAs Want To Parachute Into Being The Boss
Miami may be the first major city to pay its employees in bitcoin, if the mayor’s ambitious plan comes to fruition.
Bitcoin is gaining wide acceptance beyond the tech industry. It has recently been used to pay part of NFL player Russell Okung’s salary, and even Elon Musk is saying the cryptocurrency is on the verge of widespread acceptance.
Bitcoin may be getting another major boost, with Miami Mayor Francis Suarez working to make it an accepted method of paying city employees, according to Forbes. The move is part of a larger strategy to make Miami an appealing destination for tech companies, and is seen as a way to differentiate the city from competitors.
Suarez is looking at three possible options for how the city could implement bitcoin in its economy:
The first would involve giving city employees the option to be paid in bitcoin.
The second would allow citizens to pay some local fees or taxes with bitcoin, or another cryptocurrency.
The most radical option would see the city invest some of its investment capital in bitcoin.
Should any of these options move forward, it will be a huge step for bitcoin specifically, and the cryptocurrency market in general.
Elon Musk has said bitcoin is on the verge of achieving wide acceptance among investors and conventional finance people.
Tesla’s famous CEO has been on a roll in the last few weeks with his commentary on various companies, services and technology. His tweet about messaging app Signal helped drive unprecedented growth in the wake of WhatApp’s privacy mishap. A tweet about GameStop helped drive further investment in the stock. Musk recently added #bitcoin to his Twitter profile, leading to a 14% jump in bitcoin’s price, and has now predicted the cryptocurrency is on the verge of widespread acceptance.
“I am a supporter of bitcoin,” Musk said in his first discussion on Clubhouse, the invitation-only social media app, according to Business Insider.
“I think bitcoin is on the verge of getting broad acceptance by conventional finance people,” he added, while also admitting he should have invested in the currency eight years ago.
“I was a little slow on the uptake … I do think at this point that bitcoin is a good thing.”
Musk’s comments are the latest indication of the inroads bitcoin has been making, with even an NFL player’s salary being paid in part with the cryptocurrency.
GameStop is having a wild day, as individual investors have helped drive the price to $247, up from $18 just a couple of weeks ago
Like many brick-and-mortar companies, GameStop has been struggling with the effects of its customers transitioning to online buying. The company has been forced to close hundreds of stores and faces an uncertain future.
As a result, many investors started short-selling the stock. Andrew Left of Citron Research, in particular, was one of the most vocal in pushing for investors to short-sell. In response, individual investors on Reddit began grabbing up shares of the stock, causing its price to soar. In fact, its price starting rising so much that many short-sellers were forced to buy it back at higher prices.
Elon Musk even got in on the action, tweeting about the phenomenon.
The stock hit $159.18 Monday, before dropping to close at $76.79. On Tuesday the stock rose $147.98, before skyrocketing to $247 in after-hours trading.
Ultimately, GameStop’s fundamentals are unchanged. This episode, however, shows the power of individual investors banding together against Wall Street, and adds an uncertain factor to future investor recommendations.
Gartner has released its Predicts 2021 reports and the outlook for artificial intelligence (AI) includes some troubling growing pains.
AI is one of the fastest growing industries, and one of the most controversial. Experts have come out on all sides of the debate, with some believing it will help solve some of mankind’s most elusive challenges.
Others, including Elon Musk, believe it represents one of the biggest existential threats to humanity. Recent research suggests that a super-intelligent AI will be impossible to control, further raising concerns.
Gartner’s latest reports indicate there are a number of more pressing issues that could pose challenges for AI researchers and the industry at large. Gartner highlights five specific ways AI will impact society:
By 2025, the concentration of pretrained AI models among 1% of AI vendors will make responsible AI a societal concern.
In 2023, 20% of successful account takeover attacks will use deepfakes to socially engineer users to turn over sensitive data or move money into criminal accounts.
By 2024, 60% of AI providers will include a means to mitigate possible harm as part of their technologies.
By 2025, 10% of governments will use a synthetic population with realistic behavior patterns to train AI while avoiding privacy and security concerns.
By 2025, 75% of conversations at work will be recorded and analyzed, enabling the discovery of added organizational value and risk.
These issues illustrate the need for companies and organizations to take the necessary steps now to ensure AI is a force for good.
Elon Musk is donating $100 million toward efforts to find the best way to capture carbon emissions.
As climate change begins to take a toll, many are turning to efforts to capture and safely store carbon dioxide (CO2) as a solution. In fact, this is naturally occurring phenomenon, with CO2 deposits safely stored in rock formations around the globe.
There are additional advantages to carbon capture and storage (CCS), including the cost and removal of additional pollutants. According to Earth Institute, Columbia University, “the technology also reduces pollutants like sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxide, and particulates. And the best part is that it costs only $40 for per tonne of CO2.”
With President Biden recommitting the US to the Paris Agreement, CCS could be an important step toward bringing carbon emissions within the target levels. Elon Musk is willing to put his own money toward helping find the best way achieve wide scale CCS.
Elon Musk’s second company has hit a major milestone, expanding its Starlink internet service to the UK, its first international market.
Starlink is a satellite constellation in low-Earth orbit that provides internet access. Unlike previous incarnations of satellite internet, Starlink’s low-Earth orbit allows it provide speeds and latency that are competitive with traditional broadband. In fact, early adopters are reporting speeds in excess of 150 Mbps download, more than 30 Mbps upload and latency in the 30s.
With a successful beta test in the US and Canada, Starlink has now been approved for use in the UK, with the first kits already reaching people’s homes, according to Business Insider.
Philip Hall, a resident of rural Devon in southwest England was only getting 0.5 Mbps with his previous internet service. After receiving the Starlink equipment, he’s now averaging 85 Mbps.
“Within the hour we ran a Zoom quiz with grandchildren — it was wonderful,” he told BI.
The company has also received approval for Greece, Germany, and Australia. If people continue to see the results initial adopters are seeing, Starlink could be a game-changer for rural and underserved communities.
