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Elon Musk and Joe Rogan Slam US Stimulus Money Printing and Incoming Inflation

Elon Musk appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience for the second time and had a few choice words regarding the coming inflation and creative monetary issuance coming into play due to the COVID market meltdown.

While a clear Bitcoin advocate, Musk did not mention the pioneer crypto despite its ability to fix inflationary money issuance.

Musk believes that given the current US stimulus money being sent to US citizens and small businesses on lockdown, that the population is starting to view the economy as a limitless source of support regardless of the loss in production and rising unemployment.

Appearing on the Joe Rogan podcast on May 7, Musk said, “This notion though, that you can just sort of send cheques to everybody and things will be fine, is not true.”

Endlessly Printing Money

The coronavirus pandemic lockdown has created a huge financial chasm and the US government has put a $2 trillion stimulus package in play with the belief that they can endlessly print more.

“If you don’t make stuff, there’s not stuff. You can’t just legislate money and solve these things.” Elon Musk explained the basis for a working economy seemingly unknown to US Lawmakers who only recently suggested having the US Treasury mint a couple of $1 trillion coins and force the Federal Reserve to recognize them so they could back the stimulus “debt-free.”

Elon Musk and Bitcoin and Inflation

As stated in the original Bitcoin white paper, there can only ever be a maximum of 21 Million Bitcoin and does not allow for inflation.

Although Musk and Rogan did not mention Bitcoin during the lengthy two- hour podcast, Musk has appeared bullish on the cryptocurrency recently on Twitter and reportedly owns around 0.25 BTC himself.

In terms of what havoc the coming inflation could have, a positive note for Bitcoin believers are recent reports like that from Bitmex, which highlights that in the aftermath of the current Coronavirus market crash and the subsequent inflation that will be caused by the response of the Federal Reserve and Central banks, Bitcoin will face its truest test and be presented its biggest opportunity to prove itself in its short lifetime.

BitMEX Research outlined that the global response to the pandemic and disruption will, “mark a significant economic regime change from monetary policy to central bank funded fiscal expansion” from which intolerable market inflation will rise.

Recently the Bloomberg April 2020 Crypto Outlook also revealed that the creative financial measures of the US Lawmakers and Central banks around the world appear to be accelerating the status of Bitcoin to a new type of digital gold.

How do you pronounce X Æ A-12?

On May 4th, 2020, Elon Musk and his partner Claire Boucher welcomed their first child together and soon after revealed the baby’s name: X Æ A-1

Musk was immediately questioned by Rogan on how to correctly pronounce the boy’s name.

Musk said his son’s name is pronounced “X Ash A 12.” The X is just “X” and the A-12 is just “A 12.”

Bitcoin's Future Looks Bright as Kanye West Decides to Run for President 2020

Kanye West dropped a bomb on social media on July 4—American Independence Day—and indicated his intentions to run for President in the 2020 US Elections. This is exciting news for Bitcoin (BTC), as Kanye has publicly expressed his support for the cryptocurrency.

On July 4, Kanye tweeted:

“We must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future. I am running for president of the United States! #2020 vision.”

Kanye, one of the world’s most influential musicians has been very vocal on his support for Bitcoin and the crypto industry. He told TMZ that he would like to see the blockchain industry evolve. Kanye tweeted the word “decentralize” on his social media platform, advocating for Bitcoin usage and expressing his desire to see the BTC cryptocurrency replace traditional American dollar bills.

Elon Musk and Cryptocurrency

Backing Kanye West’s announced run for president is the eccentric billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who tweeted out in support of Kanye’s post.

Elon Musk, one of the biggest names in the technology industry and the 31st richest in the world by Forbes (2020), is a friend of Kanye’s. Musk is quite influential in the crypto community and has on several occasions expressed his stance on cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

Elon Musk’s Views on Bitcoin

Musk has also expressed a distaste for the monetary policies of the Federal Reserve. He recently appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast and said that the way the US planned on handling the inflation caused by the coronavirus pandemic was inefficient, as their stimulus packages were not the best solution.

The SpaceX creator recognizes Bitcoin (BTC)’s advantages and thinks that BTC founder Satoshi Nakamoto’s whitepaper was “pretty clever.” Musk also states that though crypto supporters may not want to hear this, Bitcoin may be a bridge between the black market and the legal economy. In his opinion, as cash is becoming increasingly hard to use, Bitcoin might take over in replacing it and in furthering the economy.

Twitter Hack Goes Viral as Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Biden Hit by Massive Bitcoin Scam

Twitter has gone haywire as news of a Bitcoin scam hack targeting multiple high-profile figures such as Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Joe Biden, Jeff Bezos, and even multinational tech company Apple has broken out.

The scammers that hijacked multitudes of verified Twitter accounts belonging to celebrities and key influential figures issued the same message across all platforms:

“I am giving back to the community. All Bitcoin sent to the address below will be sent back doubled! If you send $1,000, I will send back $2,000. Only doing this for 30 minutes.”

This type of promise is a common technique used by crypto scammers to incite people to wire funds straight to their digital wallets.

On Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s account, hackers posted a pinned Tweet entailing that the entrepreneur was going to double any Bitcoin (BTC) amount sent to his BTC wallet address. The multi-faceted entrepreneur is known to possess 0.25 Bitcoins.

Ten minutes into the post, the wallet address displayed on Musk’s Twitter had already received 3.64 Bitcoins, which translated to $34 498 at the time of the reporting. The original tweet was soon deleted by Twitter Support. However, soon after the original post was removed, a new version popped up within seconds, clueing investigators into the fact that the Bitcoin attack was still ongoing.

Donations to another Bitcoin address created by crypto scammers were said to have surpassed $100,000 in collected funds.

After numerous influential Twitter accounts were discovered to be compromised — Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Michael Bloomberg, Uber, Binance, Coinbase, to name a few— scam tweets were still up and running for more than an hour.

Presidential runner Joe Biden’s official Twitter account was among those that were hijacked by scam artists. The scam was however contained and the post deleted within minutes. Chief executive of cybersecurity firm SocialProofSecurity Rachel Tobac addressed the issue and expressed her surprise as to Twitter not going “completely dark to prevent misinformation campaigns and political upheaval.” However, she said that it was a stroke of luck that the attackers were Bitcoin and money-motivated and not aiming for chaos and destruction.

Twitter support then went on to temporarily prevent all verified accounts on their social media platform from tweeting for about half an hour. They tried to reassure their social media community by tweeting that they were working on the security incident and investigating further to fix the breach. Updates will soon be provided, Twitter Support posted.

US Senator Demands Answers from Twitter Over Massive Bitcoin Hack Incident

US senator Josh Hawley has urged Twitter to cooperate with federal agencies and take necessary measures to secure the social media site before the cyber hacking accounts of celebrities, politicians, technology moguls, and major firms in an apparent Bitcoin scam expands further.

In a letter addressed to Twitter, Hawley stated that the social media giant should collaborate with the Justice Department and FBI after hackers took over the accounts of billionaires, democratic politicians, and celebrities, including rapper Kanye West, businessman Bill Gates, former vice president Joe Biden, former president Barrack Obama, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, including accounts of tech companies such as Uber and Apple.

Hawley sent a number of questions asking Twitter regarding an explanation of the incident and what security measures the company undertakes to prevent system-level hacks from breaching its userbase.

Bitcoin Scam Targeted Prominent Twitter Accounts

High-profile Twitter accounts were targeted for a widespread hacking attack to offer fake Bitcoin deals. The incident was one of the most serious security breaches in a social media site. Accounts of rapper Kanye West, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, former president Barrack Obama, and both Apple and Uber posted similar tweets that instructed people to send cryptocurrency to the same Bitcoin address. Suspected Bitcoin scammers had control several of the accounts for more than two hours during the late afternoon.

The widespread nature of such an attack suggested unusual broad access to Twitter’s internal accounts. It was unclear how the attack originated or why the incident went for two hours. However, last night, Twitter support staff confirmed that the cyberattack was caused by “a coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools.”

Twitter clarified that the hackers used that access to take control of several highly-visible and verified accounts and posted tweets about Bitcoin deals. The company said that it is looking into what other malicious activities that hackers may have conducted or information they may have accessed. Twitter finally stated that they would share more information once they get to the bottom of the matter.

Charles Hoskinson Proposes Solution to Fix Twitter’s Problem, Taking Digital Identity to the Blockchain Age

With the recent Twitter hack, implicating individuals including Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Joe Biden, and a few others, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson spoke about the issue in his most recent Whiteboard video.

In proposing a solution to this problem, Hoskinson suggested that Twitter does not need to “change much,” and that “Twitter works.” He added that Twitter does not need to make radical changes and that the authentication and verification process should be easy to use and understand.

In addition, the IOHK CEO said that the process should be built on solid foundations, no business model changes should be made, and it should be cheap and easy to maintain.

With the foundations of solving the issue, Hoskinson explained that cryptographic signatures could be a part of the solution for “fixing Twitter.”

“A signature is where somebody takes a message, […] and they sign it with a mathematical function using their private key, and that creates a signed message.”

Verification can be authenticated as the public key will be able to determine whether the course of action taken is legitimate.

Digital Identification Foundation

Hoskinson introduced a new standard, called the DID (decentralized identification) standard, which originated from the W3C. DID provides a standard to handle online identities using public and private keys. DIF, the digital identity foundation utilizes the DID standard, which is made up of members including Microsoft, IBM, Hyperledger, IOHK, Accenture, and others. He added, “There are lots of standards and we’re building this as a community in an ecosystem.”

The DID standard, as explained by Hoskinson, can be used for cryptocurrencies, as a part of the public key function.

Introducing the idea of “Verified Tweets”

The Cardano founder’s idea of a “verified tweet,” includes the process of sending out the tweet, then creating a hash related to the tweet, and finally a signature with the user’s private key. The hash is linked to the tweet, to verify the tweet hasn’t been tampered with, and the private key is used to sign the tweet.

This would process would result in two tweets, a verified tweet, and a regular tweet. The verified tweet would have the display of the tweet along with a verified symbol, while the regular would not. Hoskinson argues that this process would not be changing the Twitter verification process drastically. He added:

“A verified tweet would allow me to verify that the person tweeting controls it. […] The issue with the Twitter hack is Twitter itself was hacked, so how about we implement this type of solution without requiring Twitter much for that?”

Hoskinson’s proposed solution for Twitter

A user can simply create a new decentralized identifier, or import an existing DID to a whitelisted ID verifier. The whitelisted ID verifier could be a government identity or VeriSign, and this entity could check with all the supporting evidence provided in the process to ensure that the identity presented is legitimate. The verifier would then sign with their key, which then sends it back to Twitter.

Once Twitter receives the DID, they will be able to sign it as well, as long as it meets Twitter’s standards. The DID will have two signatures, one from the whitelisted authority, and the other from Twitter. The user would not be able to forge the signatures, as the user does not have those private keys. However, the user would be able to control the private key associate with the DID. The DID will then be embedded in a blockchain.

Taking the Cardano blockchain as an example, there would be beneficial features, including timestamping, auditability, and immutability. Hoskinson added:

“When the DID is embedded there, you have an ordering of events. You know when it first came in, and you can change it over time. It’s always there. Audit means that anybody can check it, in the entire world, no one can restrict your ability to check that and immutable means that nobody can change the record once it’s there.”

Cardano’s Prism framework

Charles Hoskinson further elaborated on Cardano’s Prism, which has a lot of built-in capabilities that would make the verification process easy on both providers, Twitter, and the whitelisted ID verifier.

With this proposed process, even if Twitter gets hacked and the hackers decided to send out a tweet from a user, the user would only be able to send out unverified tweets. Hoskinson said:

“You can even have a policy for high-value users that they can only send verified tweets, they can’t send anything else, meaning no one can tweet on their behalf.”

By utilizing the Cardano Prism framework, capabilities including threshold proofs, which requires the users to have certain qualities, including age or access. This would be enabled by zero-knowledge proofs. Hoskinson explained:

“The benefit to the end-user is that when we see Trump, or Bill Gates, or Elon Musk tweeting, we now have verified tweet to verify that it’s actually coming from them. No more giveaway scams, they die forever. No more impersonations, if Twitter itself gets hacked, doesn’t matter — no one can actually compromise the account.”

According to Hoskinson, the option of multi-sig tweets would allow for an extra layer of security and curation by having chains of signatures.

The IOHK CEO said that he would be happy to build this process, concluding, “Jack [Dorsey] you know where to find me, send me a private message, I’m sorry you guys went through this but […] great companies always recover, and they recover through great ideas.”

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Apologizes for Bitcoin Hack, But Not Before Dutch Politician Was Compromised

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey came forward on Thursday to apologize thoroughly for his social network company’s failure to prohibit and shut down Bitcoin scam artists’ digital heist of important verified accounts, that ranged from that of tech moguls Elon Musk and Bill Gates to political figure Joe Biden.

The hack was reported to be the biggest one that Twitter has suffered in all of its history, resulting in the seizure of at least 130 accounts on the social platform. All pertained to prominent figures and celebrities, and hackers tweeted out the same message through at least 45 of those accounts, demanding for Bitcoin (BTC) funds. The message that appeared on Elon Musk’s verified account was formulated as so:

“I am giving back to the community. All Bitcoin sent to the address below will be sent back doubled! If you send $1,000, I will send back $2,000. Only doing this for 30 minutes.”

Other accounts, such as that of coin exchange Binance, depicted that the coin exchange had partnered with “CryptoForHealth” and was looking to give back 5000 BTC to the community.

Did Hackers Have a Political Agenda?

Of all the accounts, hackers accessed the private messages of 36 verified accounts. CEO Dorsey revealed that one of those accounts belonged to an elected political official in the Netherlands. Twitter however does not believe any other former or current elected political figures’ direct messages were accessed. This may come as a bit of reassurance to former President of the United States, Barack Obama, and political runner-up, Joe Biden, who also had compromised social media accounts.

Identity of Hacked Political Account Comes to Light

Though Twitter has not disclosed the identity behind the Netherlands elected official’s hacked account, recent information has come to light that may suggest that it belonged to no other but Dutch politician Geert Wilders.

The far-right politician told BBC news recently that Twitter was referring to his verified account when it mentioned that one of the 36 accounts that had their direct private messages snooped through belonged to an elected political official.

Political Figure Spills the Beans

During the Twitter Bitcoin scam attack last week, Wilders’ profile picture was replaced with a cartoon of a black man, and his account’s background picture was switched to the Moroccan flag. The far-right Dutch politician is quite a figure in the Netherlands, as his Freedom Party is the second biggest part in the Netherlands’ House of Representatives.

Wilders told BBC that he had been using Twitter’s direct message tool for about 10 years now. He went on to say that he was informed by Twitter following the fraudulent hack that not only had his Twitter account been hacked for some days, but the hackers also posted tweets on his account and sent DMs in his name. He confirmed that the hackers indeed got full access to his DMS, which “is totally unacceptable in many ways.”

The Dutch politician is extremely concerned with the Twitter security breach, as his Freedom Party had campaigned to ban Muslim immigration and shut down mosques. He expressed his view:

“People critical of Islam or regimes in the Middle East [including those] from within countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria [have sent me DMs over 10 years] and I do hope they will not be in danger if their identity would be exposed because of this hack. I had deleted most of them but maybe some were left there for the hacker to see and copy.”

CEO Jack Dorsey and Twitter Apologizes

Twitter took matters into their own hands and commented on the incident, saying that they have recently implemented safeguards to improve the firewall security of their internal systems. They went on to add that they were working in collaboration with law enforcement to further the investigations of the infamous Twitter BTC scam. Twitter also apologetically said that they are committed to regaining “the trust of all their stakeholders with their every action, including how they address the security issue.”

Twitter Not The Only Victim of Bitcoin Schemes

Bitcoin scams are becoming increasingly common on social media networks, as Twitter is not the only platform that has been targeted in such fraudulent attacks. YouTube has also recently been faced with a lot of backlash, resulting in lawsuits, due to the volume of cryptocurrency scam videos streaming through their platform.

Apple Sues YouTube

In recent news, co-founder of Apple Steve Wozniak filed a lawsuit against YouTube for the video content platform’s failure to take down fraudulent videos that impersonated Wozniak in an effort to extort XRP funds from YouTube subscribers. Google is also implicated in the lawsuit, as they are the parent company of YouTube.

Twitter Says Bitcoin Hack Originated From Phone Phishing Attack

On Thursday, Twitter provided an update addressing the massive Bitcoin hack that overtook its platform earlier this month.

Did Hackers Funnel BTC Funds Via Phone?

The social networking company said that “the hackers behind the high-profile online break-in at Twitter Inc. talked their way onto the company’s network using the telephone.” Though they cared to disclose this new update, further details on how the digital heist was conducted were not provided.

The company had previously said that that the Bitcoin (BTC) scam artists were able to seize control of so many high-profile verified accounts on their network because of insider information that leaked out. Twitter had previously issued a report, that read:

“We detected what we believe to be a coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools. We know they used this access to take control of many highly-visible (including verified) accounts and Tweet on their behalf.”

Twitter Gets An Earful From Law Enforcement

Because of this huge security breach, which consequently led to at least 130 Twitter accounts being compromised, Twitter has received backlash by the US Securities Exchange and Commission (SEC), and the incident is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Senator of Missouri Josh Hawley also addressed the Twitter security breach, writing to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and demanding more information about the hack. He asked whether the company had had stricter access control measures implemented in the past, and if so, why these regulations had not been carried out.

Twitter spoke up on Thursday regarding the digital Bitcoin and said:

“We’re accelerating several of our pre-existing security workstreams and improvements to our tools. We are also improving our methods for detecting and preventing inappropriate access to our internal systems and prioritizing security work across many of our teams.”

Because of the Twitter hack, the verified accounts of high-profile figures ranging from tech moguls such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates to political figures Barack Obama and Joe Biden, to name a few, were compromised. The hack was driven by Bitcoin artists looking to funnel digital funds to their digital wallet. Bitcoin hackers took to the social media profile of the seized verified accounts and generated repetitive tweets from celebrities, high-profile tech moguls and coin exchanges that promised platform users a doubling of their BTC profits if the latter sent $1000 in Bitcoin.

The cryptocurrency stunt was successful, as the Bitcoin scam generated more than $100,000 worth of BTC.

Twitter Stocks Drop

Since the massive hack attack, Twitter’s market value has taken a colossal hit. The shares of the social media company dropped by more than 4%, plummeting with a wipe-out of $1.3 billion in market value.

Since the incident, CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey has come forward and apologized for the security breach, as concerns worldwide have escalated and his and his firm’s reputation has been at stake. On Thursday, his company took to its social Twitter account and said:

“This attack relied on a significant and concerted attempt to mislead certain employees and exploit human vulnerabilities to gain access to our internal systems.”

“Bitcoin Better Investment than Gold," Winklevoss Says to Dave Portnoy Over Talks on Elon Musk’s Plans to Mine Gold in Space

In an interview released Friday, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the renowned Bitcoin billionaires and founders of cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, got together with Barstool Sports “Davey Day Trader” Dave Portnoy to discuss Bitcoin.

The Winklevoss twins backed BTC to the fullest and said that it was a better investment than gold.

Bitcoin’s Value Will Go Up with Gold Mining

The American internet celebrity reached out to the Winklevoss twins through his Twitter account and asked them to educate him on Bitcoin (BTC) and how to trade and invest in it properly. In their interview with Portnoy, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss advised the trader to invest in Bitcoin rather than gold. They said that BTC was a safer asset and the only “fixed asset in the galaxy,” as talks about SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s plans to mine asteroids in the future ensued.

The Winklevoss twins elaborated that given Elon Musk’s plans to mine gold from asteroids, gold’s supply is going to increase, whereas Bitcoin is not. BTC has a supply cap of 21 million, which greatly increases its value as a digital asset given its scarcity in comparison with gold. The Winklevoss twins said:

“Gold is a problem because the supply isn’t fixed like Bitcoin. There are billions of dollars of gold floating in asteroids around this planet.”

In the interview, which generated over 500,000 views on Twitter, Cameron Winklevoss emphasized that for his twin brother and him, Bitcoin was like “internet gold”, which is in parallel to what BTC enthusiasts call the digital cryptocurrency these days – “digital gold.”

Winklevoss thinks that Elon Musk will definitely carry out his plans of mining gold from asteroids in space. Following that logic, when that happens, gold will suddenly become worthless, due to its overflow of supply. In contract, there will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin tokens. As gold does not have a fixed supply, Winklevoss hypothesizes that Musk will potentially “destroy gold.” He further said, “Gold is for boomers who don’t understand that.”

JP Morgan Chase: Bitcoin or Gold?

In a study done by JP Morgan Chase, the strategist team behind the US bank found that older investors have a tendency to invest in gold, while millennials and young investors favored cryptocurrency and tech-related stocks more.

With COVID-19 still looming and investors looking for safe-haven assets, the survey found that older investors trusted the traditional safe-haven asset – gold- more as a hedge. As for millennials, they tended to invest in Bitcoin and tech investment stocks more, despite BTC’s high volatility. In other words, with high volatility comes high risk, but the younger generation was willing to take that chance to potentially gain a high return.

Elon Musk Wants to Conquer Gold in Space

With all this talk about gold and space mining, Elon Musk has publicly answered Dave Portnoy on Twitter, linking a NASA news story reported by Fox News that indicated that it is “eyeing up a nearby asteroid that contains enough gold to make everyone on Earth a billionaire.”

US Space Agency NASA has publicly declared in March that Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s company SpaceX will be the one that will launch a mission in space to conquer the asteroid “Psyche 16.”

Winklevoss Backs Bitcoin

In response to Musk’s tweet, Tyler Winklevoss said, “Looking forward to the day when you smash gold out of asteroids.” The Gemini co-founder is supportive, but it is no secret by now that his brother and he are big Bitcoin advocates.

The Winklevoss twin thinks that this is the perfect time to capitalize on BTC, given the stock market’s entry into “bubble territory” and the depreciation of the US dollar with the Federal Reserve mass printing money for stimulus purposes.

Bitcoin Crowned ‘Most Viewed Asset in the US’ Last Month, Along with Tesla Stock

This week, Bitcoin surged in the market again, recording new highs that have not been seen of the digital asset since June of last year.

Bitcoin Breaks Record in 2020

Needless to say, investors have been closely monitoring Bitcoin (BTC)’s bullish behavior in the market after the digital asset surprised the cryptocurrency community by pulling itself out of a long-time slump last month. On the Luxembourg-based Bitcoin exchange Bitstamp, BTC’s market value hit $12,470 per coin, surging by almost 4%, much to the delight of crypto enthusiasts,. Shortly after the digital asset’s bull run, its price descended slowly again, falling back to a more stable level.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is reported to have passed the $11,500 mark and is valued at $11,928. Investors are anticipating its reach past the $12,000 level in the market.

David Portnoy Talks Bitcoin, BTC Surges

The latest Bitcoin rally was observed after American celebrity and avid trader David ‘Davey Day Trader’ Portnoy came forward and publicly invited the Winklevoss twins to teach him about Bitcoin. The Barstool Sports founder admitted that he had absolutely “no idea what he was doing” when it came to Bitcoin, saying that he had a digital wallet somewhere but that he had lost the keys.

Since then, Bitcoin has rallied and gained over 30% in the last month, according to Forbes. Data findings released by TradingView analysts also indicated that Bitcoin was reportedly the most viewed financial asset in the US last month, trailing behind Tesla stocks.

Tesla, Elon Musk’s prized project, also had a bull run of its own on Monday, following an analysis regarding their yearly price target. Since its gains on the stock market, Tesla has fallen back down a little and maintained a more stable price level.

‘Digital Gold’ Bitcoin in Wall Street Spotlight

David Portnoy’s shared content regarding Bitcoin seems to have triggered a bull run for BTC, as traders were perceived to have renewed interest in the digital asset, starting with Wall Street big-timers and corporate firms directing more attention towards Bitcoin. One BTC advocate is billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones. With the ongoing depreciation of the US dollar sending Bitcoin’s price over the roof, the billionaire had tweeted his regrets and publicly stated yesterday:

“My bet on #bitcoin as a safe haven against the deteriorating dollar is doing incredibly well. My only regret is not buying more. I believe this rise in price we’re seeing is far from over. In fact, it’s just getting started!”

Mixed Views on Portnoy’s Bitcoin Strategy

Though Portnoy’s enthusiasm is welcomed and embraced by some Bitcoin advocates, such as BTC billionaires and Gemini co-founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the Davey Day Trader has also received divided criticism on other ends.

For example, a FxPro senior analyst shared with Forbes that the interest in Tesla and Bitcoin was spurred by ‘fear-of-missing-out’ (FOMO) investors, who are afraid of missing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with Bitcoin’s recent bullish behavior. Alex Kuptsikevich said, “This is almost like a rookie game against the pros. Professionals do not see the ‘business’ in bitcoin and massively short Tesla, a company that accrued massive losses for years and has a tiny share on the overall car market.”

Other cryptocurrency analysts called Portnoy’s “pump and dump” strategy a terrible idea, saying that “it was not a good look for the community,” as they thought that this would devalue digital assets. Famous host of “The Wolf of All Streets” podcast and Bitcoin advocate Scott Melker brought up the question of whether “Davey Day Trader taking the crypto world by storm” was a good thing.

While some investors are saying that Dave Portnoy is bringing good publicity to Bitcoin and prompting its bullish rally, others are arguing that this would lead to a surge and subsequent crash of the cryptocurrency, with new investors who are looking to get rich quickly and through a shortcut suddenly investing heavily in Bitcoin.

This may subsequently lead to a potential “boom and bust” for Bitcoin.

Elon Musk Confirms Russian Bitcoin Ransomware Attack Targeting Tesla, FBI to the Rescue

Elon Musk has confirmed that Tesla was recently targeted in a ransomware attack set to extort $1 million in Bitcoin from the car manufacturing giant.

Ransomware Attack on Tesla

A Russian national reached out to a Tesla employee from the manufacturing factory in Nevada and enticed him to install ransomware malware onto Tesla’s computer network. The Russian scam artist offered the employee $1 million and an upfront payment of 1 Bitcoin (BTC) in exchange for uploading the software.

Rather than accepting the bribe, the employee called the FBI. Upon investigation, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested a 27-year-old Russian, Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov, who was at the basis of the ransomware attempt. Kriuchkov was apprehended in Los Angeles on August 22 and is currently facing up to 5 years in prison for the ransomware scheme, if found guilty.

As shared by Forbes, Bitcoin is highly favored as a payment method by cybercriminals, with the digital asset’s rising value on the market and its increasing popularity as a hedge among investors. Over the past 6 years, ransomware attacks by cyber schemers have generated over $140 million worth of Bitcoin, according to the FBI.

Speaking about the Bitcoin extortion attempt targeting his company, CEO Elon Musk said that it was a serious attack, after having suffered from a previous Bitcoin Twitter hack that overtook his social media platform as well as that of other tech moguls and big-name figures. The Bitcoin ransomware attempt comes at a time when Tesla stock is surging on the market, boasting of a market capitalization of approximately $465 billion after an announced 5-for-1 stock split that quadrupled Elon Musk’s wealth.

Overtaking Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the SpaceX founder now figures among the top 3 wealthiest people in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Gold or Bitcoin as Hedge?

Elon Musk has also been working on a plan to mine gold from asteroids and is to launch a mission with his company SpaceX, as disclosed by NASA.

In parallel to this, Bitcoin billionaire Tyler Winklevoss has continued educating investors on the benefits of investing in BTC rather than gold or USD, due to the digital asset’s protective nature against inflation.

Bitcoin, often dubbed “digital gold” by avid investors, has a limited maximum supply of 21 million, and according to Winklevoss’ predictions, Bitcoin’s value will continue escalating, with the US dollar plummeting and gold’s actual global supply being unknown.

With the cryptocurrency having a maximum cap of 21 million coins in the world, Winklevoss has therefore touted BTC as the best hedge against inflation.