| Bitcoin | $43,672 | 7 day: +28.8% | | Ethereum | $1,733 | 7 day: +31.9% | | All crypto | $1.3T | 7 day: +31% | | Bitcoin dominance | 62.2% | 7 day: -0.1% | Prices as of 10:50 a.m. EST
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 Elon Musk Bitcoin rallied to an all-time high after a new Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) SEC filing this morning confirms that the company purchased $1.5B in bitcoin. The purchase has been rumored for months, which we covered here at Inside Cryptocurrency in December. The company has also announced that it will begin accepting payment for vehicles in bitcoin. Bitcoin all-time highs: - The company purchased the bitcoin in January 2021.
- According to Tesla's December 2020 filing, it would account for approximately 8% of the company's cash holdings.
- The filing states that its investment in digital currency and other "alternative reserve assets" may expand.
- Bitcoin spiked 14% on the news.
- Tesla's investment is already up over $150M.
- Questions are again being raised regarding CEO Elon Musk's potential market manipulation. He spent the last several weeks promoting cryptocurrencies online, which drove bitcoin and Dogecoin to new all-time highs (more on Dogecoin next).
Click to tweet the following text (you can edit it before sending): @elonmusk has purchased $1.5B worth of $BTC for $TSLA and is already up at least $150M on his investment Associated Press 
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 Source: Elon Musk Despite Elon Musk's promotion of Dogecoin (DOGE) as "the people's crypto," over half of all Dogecoins are held by just 20 wallets. A single, anonymous address — created shortly before Musk began promoting the tiny altcoin — owns 28% of the entire float today. Dogecoin will also have never-ending dilution, penalizing current tokenholders in the long-term. The rest of the story: - Dogecoin was created in December 2013, originally inspired by the Shiba Inu internet meme. Billy Markus, with the help of Jackson Palmer (who left the project in 2015), created the token.
- DOGE has seen sparse developer activity, with seven repos and just eight commits on its main Github repo in a typical year. According to several Dogecoin developers, they do maintain the token, but usually work outside of the master branch; therefore, some code commits are not visible.
- DOGE has an available coin supply of 128B that will continue to dilute existing tokenholders due to an ongoing mining reward.
- This story continues below in part 3...
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From Friday until Sunday afternoon, Musk pinned a poll to the top of his Twitter thread, where he has over 45M followers. The text of the poll read, "The future currency of Earth: (A) Dogecoin to the Moooonn (71% of votes) (B) All other crypto combined (29% of votes)." More: - This promotional poll has attracted over 2.5M votes.
- Dogecoin is not a currency, but given Musk's humorous comparison, it is worth noting that Doge has an inferior inflation rate versus most major world currency: 4% (versus 1.8% for USD currently, and a forward expected rate of 2.1% over the next five years).
- Even Binance's CEO Changpeng Zhao, typically a supporter of Musk, admitted that Dogecoin is "kinda centralized."
- A full list of the billionaires and millionaires who control the vast majority of Dogecoin is accessible here.
- American rapper Snoop Dogg and Kiss rock star Gene Simmons have also begun pumping Dogecoin.
- Bitmex, whose co-founders Arthur Hayes and Benjamin Delo are currently charged criminals at large, launched a new DOGEUSDT perpetual swap contract with up to 20x leverage.
Click to tweet the following text (you may edit it before sending): Dogecoin $DOGE is up over 20X since @elonmusk began promoting it. Read the rest of the story here: https://inside.com/cryptocurrency Decrypt
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 Nigerian Central Bank The Central Bank of Nigeria issued a multi-page statement on Sunday. The bank wanted to clarify its position toward cryptocurrencies after a regulatory warning on Friday sent shockwaves across social media. Context: - Note that in December, we covered Nigeria's SEC publication of a final ruling on cryptocurrency, stating that "the position of the Commission is that virtual crypto assets are securities unless proven otherwise."
- According to the Nigerian SEC's decision, almost all individuals and entities working with cryptocurrencies require registration with the Commission.
- Its registration rule is unambiguous: "Any person, (individual or corporate) whose activities involve any aspect of Blockchain-related and virtual digital asset services, must be registered by the Commission and as such, will be subject to the regulatory guidelines."
- The Commission deferred the decision as to whether a cryptocurrency is considered legal tender, such as a central bank digital currency (CBDC), to the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Securities unless proven otherwise: - The central bank's letter to financial institutions on Friday ordered them to close all bank accounts associated with cryptocurrency trading platforms.
- Nigeria's central bankers clarified that the letter was only a reminder that cryptocurrencies are not legal tender in Nigeria. The central bankers have the authority to make that determination, per Nigeria's SEC deferral to them.
- Bankers were merely reiterating a position that the bank has held since 2017 — not imposing new restrictions on the industry.
- "It is important to clarify that the CBN circular of Feb. 5, 2021 did not place any new restrictions on cryptocurrencies, given that all banks in the country had earlier been forbidden, through CBN's circular dated Jan. 12, 2017, not to use, hold, trade and/or transact in cryptocurrencies," the statement read.
- Binance and local electronic payment app Bundle quickly halted deposits in Nigeria after the letter circulated.
Coindesk
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- The CME used the occasion of the Super Bowl to tweet that Ethereum (ETH) futures were "kicking off" last night, providing investors with exposure to the second-largest digital currency by market cap.
- SkyBridge Capital's Anthony Scaramucci said that the retail investor-initiated GameStop (NYSE:GME) movement indicates a "proof of concept" for bitcoin's ultimate success.
- Forbes magazine published its annual list of the top enterprise companies embracing blockchain technology. (Only unicorns by revenue or valuation qualify for inclusion.)
- Japanese exchange bitFlyer has released survey results finding that, while 76% of people in the U.S. have a positive perception about cryptocurrencies, a similar amount of Japanese have a negative perception, surmising that "the last run-up in price was mainly driven by U.S. investors."
- Following a recent WallStreetBets-impacted decision to suspend instant deposits to crypto traders, Robinhood has reinstituted instant access to funds, allowing investors to add up to $1,000 to trade cryptocurrencies instantly.
- PricewaterhouseCoopers' crypto leader, Henri Arslanian, sees two main drivers of the current crypto rally: the continuous entry of institutional players, and retail FOMO supported by increased access to digital currencies from PayPal, Square, and digital currency exchanges.
- Uphold acquired a European debit and credit card issuer, allowing the digital money platform to launch crypto-enabled credit cards across the U.K. and Europe.
- Barry Silbert's Grayscale Investments released a report that explores three approaches to valuing Ethereum (ETH): ether as money, as a consumable community, and as a cash-generating asset. All three positive and intended to promote the price of his assets, as Silbert is a substantial investor in Ethereum.
- CME Group's chief economist Bluford Putnam says bitcoin has become an emerging competitor for gold. Putnam said that the recent rally in gold would likely increase production, giving bitcoin further strength with its fixed supply.
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 |  | Curated by Associated Press fanboy, eye-strained news terminal watcher, and bitcoin follower since $1, Aaron Wise. Temporarily listening to news squawk boxes in Florida while awaiting the construction of cryptopia. |  | | Editor | Charlotte Hayes-Clemens is an editor and writer based in Vancouver. She has dabbled in both the fiction and non-fiction world, having worked at HarperCollins Publishers and more recently as a writing coach for new and self-published authors. Proper semi-colon usage is her hill to die on. | |
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