Musk Speculates on Identity of Satoshi Nakamoto as New Year Celebrated in Metaverse

2021 has been a monumental year for the cryptocurrency industry and as the year drew to a close last week, the activity did not stop. Elon Musk continued to voice support of Dogecoin and gave his opinion on who the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto – creator of Bitcoin – might be. Elsewhere, luxury car manufacturer, Ferrari, joined forces with a blockchain developer, MicroStrategy accumulated more BTC, and virtual reality fans celebrated New Year’s Eve from inside the metaverse.

• Elon Musk speculates on the identity of Bitcoin’s creator
• New Year’s Eve parties are hosted in the metaverse
• Ferrari joins forces with blockchain developer
• MicroStrategy purchases more bitcoin
• S&P Global predicts cryptocurrency expansion in 2022

Musk continues to back Dogecoin and speculates on the identity of Bitcoin creator

During an interview with the researcher, Lex Fridman, on Tuesday, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk took the opportunity to support his openly favored cryptocurrency – Dogecoin. Musk has publicly praised the meme cryptocurrency throughout much of 2020 and 2021. 

In contrast to Bitcoin, Musk believes Dogecoin to be superior. “Part of the reason why I think there is some merit to dogecoin, even though it was obviously created as a joke, is that it actually does have a much higher transaction volume capability than bitcoin.” Musk’s problem with bitcoin stems from the difficulties of using it efficiently for everyday purchases.

While Musk outlined his concerns with Bitcoin, many in the crypto community were quick to remind him of the success of the Lightning Network, which has increased the scalability of Bitcoin. Lightning has already been implemented within many applications attached to the Bitcoin network. 

The entrepreneur then went on to discuss the identity of the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. When questioned whether he was Nakamoto, Musk quickly replied “I’m not” and continued that he would tell the world if he was. He then went on to say that the ideas published just before Bitcoin was released could give you a pretty good idea of who might be behind the blockchain. “The evolution of ideas is pretty clear for that, and it seems as though Nick Szabo is probably more than anyone else responsible for the evolution of those ideas.” 

Szabo is a computer scientist that specializes in cryptography and digital currencies but has always denied claims that he is Satoshi Nakamoto.

New Year’s Eve party hosted in the Metaverse

The real estate company, Jamestown, and the crypto investment firm, Digital Currency Group (DCG) partnered up for the end of the year to host a New Year’s Eve party inside the metaverse. The event took place within Decentraland, one of the most prominent metaverse projects.

DCG is one of the biggest investors in Decentraland and Jamestown owns the famous, One Times Square in New York. By combining forces, they recreated the One Times Square New Year’s Eve event within the virtual world. The party was held at section -109, -119 and featured a range of music, entertainment acts, and VIP lounges. There was also a live feed of the real world One Times Square with the famous Ball Drop.

DCG Executive, Simon Koster, commented on the event during the week. “The metaverse is quickly evolving to bring together the most interesting and alluring parts of our favorite physical places around the world. From destinations to gaming, education, retail, and more, we can expect the metaverse to revolutionize our current online experience.” 

Alongside Decentraland, the Roblox metaverse also witnessed a New Year’s Eve party hosted by Paris Hilton. Hilton held the party on her Roblox virtual island called Paris World. She performed an electronic DJ set during the event. 

Ferrari joins the blockchain revolution

Ferrari, the luxury sports car manufacturer, has confirmed a multi-year partnership deal with a Swiss blockchain developer called Velas Network AG.

Velas Network AG provides a range of digital products and services which accompany and work alongside the native Velas blockchain. According to the press release, it is thanks to Velas’s “performance and innovation of its services and its technological leadership” that Ferrari has decided to team up with the developer. 

Within the press statement, the company outlined that the multi-year deal will help with “the creation of exclusive digital content for Scuderia’s fans”. Although unconfirmed it is believed that this will be in the form of NFTs. Velas will also become the Title Sponsor of the Ferrari Esports Series.

The General Manager and Team Principal at Scuderia Ferrari commented on the future collaboration during the week. “We are pleased to start this collaboration with Velas Network AG, a company that makes innovation and performance the hallmark of technologically advanced products and services: these are all values that unite us and that led us to choose Velas as one of our Premium Partners.”

MicroStrategy purchases a further 1,914 bitcoin 

The CEO of MicroStrategy, the business intelligence company, last week announced that another 1,914 bitcoin were going to be added to the company’s balance sheet, taking the total holdings up to 124,391. 

The latest purchase was confirmed by Michael Saylor on Twitter. He stated that the cost of the acquisition was $94.2 million with an average purchase price per bitcoin of $49,229.  The average price for all 124,391 bitcoins now stands at $30,159. 

The company is currently listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange and due to the level of investment in the leading cryptocurrency, the value of shares is now heavily influenced by the price of bitcoin. 

In an interview during the week before Christmas, Saylor said he expects bitcoin to reach $6 million in the future. He also confirmed that he personally owns 17,732 bitcoins, worth $858 million at the time.

S&P Global predicts crypto will expand further in 2022

The business intelligence and data company, S&P Global, released a report last week that highlighted the cryptocurrency industry and decentralized finance will likely continue to grow throughout 2022. The company’s views were detailed within the annual ‘Global Credit Outlook’ which was published on Wednesday. The report covers all aspects of global economics, including cryptocurrencies.

The report describes that although cryptocurrencies are likely to face problems with adoption, the industry is likely to keep growing by complimenting traditional finance over the next year. The company believes that decentralized finance (DeFi) will play a large part in this, but will not remove the need for traditional finance.  

In addition, the report highlighted that three companies, MicroStrategy, Tesla, and Block.one, currently holds 84% of all corporate investments in bitcoin. While this is a small number, S&P Global believes that many more institutions will follow suit in the near future.

With regard to other factors to look out for in 2022, the company believes that tokenization and regulation will play a huge role going forward. Tokenization will provide access to assets that would otherwise be inaccessible and regulation will be required for the continued growth of the sector. 

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