6 days ago
Jack Dorsey, CEO of Block and former CEO of Twitter (Now X), has cautioned that Bitcoin may risk losing relevance if it remains solely a store of value. Speaking during an interview at Presidio Bitcoin, Dorsey emphasized the necessity for Bitcoin to evolve beyond mere “hodling” to ensure its long-term viability, highlighting the importance of enhancing Bitcoin’s utility. “I think it fails through irrelevance,” Dorsey stated. “If it just ends up being store of value and nothing more, I don’t think it gains relevance at all. I think it has to be payments for it to be relevant on the everyday.” Dorsey emphasized that for Bitcoin to succeed long-term, it needs to transition into a practical payment system used in daily transactions. Without this evolution, he believes Bitcoin could become something people “kind of buy and forget and only use in emergency situations.” The tech entrepreneur further pointed to emerging circular economies in regions outside the Western financial bubble as evidence of Bitcoin’s potential. “ You get down to Central America, South America, Africa… people are using Bitcoin to buy coffee, to buy dinner, to pay vendors. There’s tiny little circular economies happening, and they’re not talking about price,” he explained. His comments come as Bitcoin maximalists continue to be criticized for their rigid stance against innovation beyond the original Bitcoin protocol and their reluctance to embrace layer-two solutions that could enhance Bitcoin’s utility. Dorsey challenged maximalist thinking by expressing that the community “can do better than Lightning,” referring to the Lightning Network, a popular second-layer solution designed to enable faster Bitcoin transactions. “ I don’t think we just want to settle with having one layer two. I think we need to experiment a whole lot more and have different alternatives,” he said. Notably, several projects are already working toward making Bitcoin more open and accessible, including efforts to improve scalability, privacy, and payment functionality. Cardano , for example, has been developing interoperability solutions that could potentially enhance Bitcoin’s utility while maintaining its fundamental value proposition. Under Dorsey’s leadership, Block is also actively contributing to this vision through projects like an open-source mining rig, self-custodial wallet development, and their Cash App’s Bitcoin exchange. These initiatives aim to further decentralize Bitcoin’s infrastructure and make the cryptocurrency more accessible for everyday use. That said, as BTC approaches its 17 th year, Dorsey believes it stands at a crossroads. “ We have not lived up to that potential…we’re still pretty far away from it actually,” he noted, referring to Bitcoin’s original vision of “a peer-to-peer electronic cash system.” For Bitcoin to fulfill its promise as a true alternative to government-controlled currencies, he suggested the community must continue building “simple, accessible experiences that solve the payment use case” while making the network faster and more private, giving “real competition” to traditional payment networks like Visa and Mastercard.
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MicroStrategy Could Be Forced To Dump Bitcoin Under These Circumstances, Michael Saylor Responds
MicroStrategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, has long embodied the boldest institutional bet on the cryptocurrency. Co-founder and chairman Michael Saylor’s unwavering belief in Bitcoin has defined the company’s strategy for years. However, that strategy now faces a challenge after a recent SEC filing hinted at the possibility of MicroStrategy being forced to liquidate some of its Bitcoin holdings under financial pressure and the recent Bitcoin price crash. The implications could ripple beyond the company’s balance sheet and affect Bitcoin’s broader market. Mounting Debt, Negative Cash Flow, And The Bitcoin Lifeline MicroStrategy disclosed several important financial vulnerabilities in a recent Form 8-K filed with the SEC. At the time of filing, the firm reported holding 528,185 BTC, acquired at an average purchase price of $67,458 per Bitcoin, for a total cost basis of approximately $35.63 billion. However, despite the massive size of its Bitcoin treasury, MicroStrategy admitted that its core enterprise software business has not been generating positive operational cash flow. The company is also shouldering $8.22 billion in debt and facing an annual contractual interest burden of $35.1 million. Related Reading: Crypto Analyst Warns Bitcoin Price Could See Further Crash If It Falls Below This Level Although it has issued over $1.6 billion in preferred stock tied to substantial annual dividend obligations of $146.2 million, these liabilities are not being met. Instead, MicroStrategy explicitly outlined that it expects to rely on debt or equity financing to meet its obligations, and those efforts may become severely strained if Bitcoin’s price sharply declines. The report warns that if the market value of its holdings drops significantly, it could negatively affect the firm’s ability to raise funds. In such a situation, the company might be forced to sell Bitcoin at a loss. At the time the report was filed, BTC was trading just 13% above the company’s average purchase price. Because Bitcoin forms the majority of MicroStrategy’s assets, its balance sheet is intimately tied to the crypto’s price. As such, a dip below that level could create a chain reaction of falling stock prices and ultimately force selling pressure even on the price of Bitcoin itself. Michael Saylor’s Response: Staying The Course Michael Saylor, MicroStrategy’s co-founder and former CEO, is one of the biggest proponents of Bitcoin and was influential in the company’s adoption of a Bitcoin strategy. Taking to social media platform X after the news of the report broke out, Saylor simply tweeted: “HODL,” a popular mantra among crypto purists that signals long-term conviction. Related Reading: Here’s How Much Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Lost After The BTC Price Crash The post has had over 1.4 million views on the platform and resonated with many bullish proponents, as seen in the comments section. He followed that with another tweet: “Bitcoin is the Best Idea. There is no Second Best.” At the time of writing, BTC is trading at $81,900, up by 6% in the past 24 hours. Even if MicroStrategy were to sell any Bitcoin at this point, it wouldn’t be the first sale of its holdings. Back on December 22, 2022, MicroStrategy sold 704 BTC for $11.8 million under similar circumstances. Featured image from Unsplash, chart from Tradingview.com ZyCrypto
![U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is under fire from Senate Democrats following his recent decision to narrow the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) crypto enforcement priorities and disband its crypto enforcement squad. In a Thursday letter to Blanche, six Senate Democrats — Sens. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I), Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) — blasted his decision to cut the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET) as “giv[ing] a free pass to cryptocurrency money launderers.” The Senators called Blanche’s directive that DOJ staff no longer pursue cases against crypto exchanges, mixers or offline wallets “for the acts of their end users” or bring criminal charges for regulatory violations in cases involving crypto, including violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), “nonsensical.” “By abdicating DOJ’s responsibility to enforce federal criminal law when violations involve digital assets, you are suggesting that virtual currency exchanges, mixers, and other entities dealing in digital assets need not fulfill their [anti-money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism] obligations, creating a systemic vulnerability in the digital assets sector,” the lawmakers wrote. “Drug traffickers, terrorists, fraudsters, and adversaries will exploit this vulnerability on a large scale.” In his memo to DOJ staff on Monday evening, Blanche cited U.S. President Donald Trump’s January executive order on crypto, which promised to bring regulatory clarity to the crypto industry, as the reason for his decision. “The Department of Justice is not a digital assets regulator,” Blanche wrote, adding that the agency will “no longer pursue litigation or enforcement actions that have the effect of superimposing regulatory frameworks on digital assets while President Trump`s actual regulators do this work outside the punitive criminal justice framework.” Instead, Blanche urged DOJ staff to focus their enforcement efforts on prosecuting criminals who use “victimize digital asset investors” or those who use crypto in the furtherance of other criminal schemes, like organized crime, gang financing, and terrorism. Read more: DOJ Axes Crypto Unit As Trump’s Regulatory Pullback Continues For the Senate Democrats, however, Blanche’s claim doesn’t quite cut the mustard. “You claim in your memo that DOJ will continue to prosecute those who use cryptocurrencies to perpetrate crimes. But allowing the entities that enable these crimes — such as cryptocurrency kiosk operators — to operate outside the federal regulatory framework without fear of prosecution will only result in more Americans being exploited,” the lawmakers wrote. The lawmakers urged Blanche to reconsider his decision to dismantle NCET, calling it a “critical resource for state and local law enforcement who often lack the technical knowledge and skill to investigate cryptocurrency related crimes.” New York Attorney General Letitia James raised similar concerns in her own letter to Congress on Thursday, urging lawmakers to pass federal legislation to regulate the crypto markets. Though her letter itself made no mention of Blanche’s memo or the shuttering of NCET, a press release from her office highlighted that her letter “comes after the [DOJ] announced the dismantling of federal criminal cryptocurrency fraud enforcement, making a robust regulatory framework all the more critical.”](/image/67f85ddc173b2.jpg)
Senate Dems Slam DOJ’s Decision to Axe Crypto Unit as a ‘Free Pass’ For Criminals
U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is under fire from Senate Democrats following his recent decision to narrow the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) crypto enforcement priorities and disband its crypto enforcement squad. In a Thursday letter to Blanche, six Senate Democrats — Sens. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I), Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) — blasted his decision to cut the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET) as “giv[ing] a free pass to cryptocurrency money launderers.” The Senators called Blanche’s directive that DOJ staff no longer pursue cases against crypto exchanges, mixers or offline wallets “for the acts of their end users” or bring criminal charges for regulatory violations in cases involving crypto, including violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), “nonsensical.” “By abdicating DOJ’s responsibility to enforce federal criminal law when violations involve digital assets, you are suggesting that virtual currency exchanges, mixers, and other entities dealing in digital assets need not fulfill their [anti-money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism] obligations, creating a systemic vulnerability in the digital assets sector,” the lawmakers wrote. “Drug traffickers, terrorists, fraudsters, and adversaries will exploit this vulnerability on a large scale.” In his memo to DOJ staff on Monday evening, Blanche cited U.S. President Donald Trump’s January executive order on crypto, which promised to bring regulatory clarity to the crypto industry, as the reason for his decision. “The Department of Justice is not a digital assets regulator,” Blanche wrote, adding that the agency will “no longer pursue litigation or enforcement actions that have the effect of superimposing regulatory frameworks on digital assets while President Trump`s actual regulators do this work outside the punitive criminal justice framework.” Instead, Blanche urged DOJ staff to focus their enforcement efforts on prosecuting criminals who use “victimize digital asset investors” or those who use crypto in the furtherance of other criminal schemes, like organized crime, gang financing, and terrorism. Read more: DOJ Axes Crypto Unit As Trump’s Regulatory Pullback Continues For the Senate Democrats, however, Blanche’s claim doesn’t quite cut the mustard. “You claim in your memo that DOJ will continue to prosecute those who use cryptocurrencies to perpetrate crimes. But allowing the entities that enable these crimes — such as cryptocurrency kiosk operators — to operate outside the federal regulatory framework without fear of prosecution will only result in more Americans being exploited,” the lawmakers wrote. The lawmakers urged Blanche to reconsider his decision to dismantle NCET, calling it a “critical resource for state and local law enforcement who often lack the technical knowledge and skill to investigate cryptocurrency related crimes.” New York Attorney General Letitia James raised similar concerns in her own letter to Congress on Thursday, urging lawmakers to pass federal legislation to regulate the crypto markets. Though her letter itself made no mention of Blanche’s memo or the shuttering of NCET, a press release from her office highlighted that her letter “comes after the [DOJ] announced the dismantling of federal criminal cryptocurrency fraud enforcement, making a robust regulatory framework all the more critical.” ZyCrypto
