Mark Cuban says gold buyers are ‘dumb as f—‘, sparking gold vs. bitcoin row with Peter Schiff

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Good year! And what a year it has been for bitcoin and its ilk. Meet Mark DeCambre, editor of MarketWatch.

What does 2023 hold for bitcoin prices or adoption? Will Crypto Face Other Existential Threats in the Coming Year?

These are just a few of the questions we hope to address precisely and succinctly in this episode of Distributed Ledger.

And may the best of 2022 be the worst of 2023 for all of our DL readers.

Of course, find me on Twitter at @mdecambre and on MarketWatch at [email protected].

quote of the week

“We cannot take a one-size-fits-all approach to crypto regulation, the nature, scope and potential of this ecosystem is too broad and too promising to suffocate with clumsy rules.”

“I believe all of our actions were legal open market actions, using the protocol as it was designed, even though the development team did not fully anticipate all the consequences of setting parameters such as ‘they are.”

Cuban gold

Some have taken umbrage at Mark Cuban’s recent comments on gold as he defends bitcoin. Maybe no more than Peter Schiff.

During an appearance on comedian Bill Mahers Club Random podcast, which aired Dec. 25, Cuban offered his unfiltered take on GC00 gold, -0.07% against bitcoin.

If you have gold, you’re dumb as hell, the billionaire investor told Maher.

The NBA Dallas Mavericks owner added: This is not a hedge against anything, what it is is a store of value. Gold is a store of value, just like bitcoin, he said.

He also said he would be interested in increasing his bitcoin holdings as its price drops further. The asset is down more than 64% so far in 2022, while gold is down less than 1% year-to-date, as of Thursday.

I want bitcoin to go down a lot more so I can buy more of it, Cuban said.

He said owning physical gold was impractical in a digital world.

The Cubans’ comments apparently raised the ire of Peter Schiff, a longtime gold advocate and investor.

His lack of understanding of bitcoin is only surpassed by his lack of understanding of #gold, Schiff wrote on Twitter.

Cuban, in the podcast, said he doesn’t recommend anyone buy bitcoin, but thinks the digital asset has more advantages than the precious metal, which he also considers a digital transaction.

Mango Chaos

It’s not Sam Bankman-Fried, but Avraham Eisenberg is building a dubious reputation. This week he was arrested in Puerto Rico for fraud and commodity manipulation after allegedly draining millions from the protocol known as Mango Markets.

According to the lawsuit made public Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, Eisenberg’s trading in futures contracts tied to the Mangos MNGO crypto token allowed him to withdraw $110 million in crypto from other investors’ deposits, with no apparent intent. to repay the funds.

Eisenberg, as recently as October, asserted via Twitter that his actions were all legal:

However, US prosecutors believe otherwise.

Regulate Crypto in 23

MarketWatchs Anushree Dave writes that Congress will need to reach a conclusion on how to classify crypto, either as a commodity or a security, to achieve a clearer regulatory framework for the asset class.

To be sure, there is the question of whether crypto should be regulated, especially following a series of scandals, including the Sam Bankman-Frieds FTX scandal.

Either way, there’s a barrage of proposals on the table, including from Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, as well as one sponsored by Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat from Michigan, and John Boozman, a Republican from Arkansas. There is also one supported by Sens. Cynthia Lummis, a Republican from Wyoming and crypto advocate, and Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York.

Well, see which bills, if any, will gain traction in the coming year.

GROUND setting?

Is the sun setting on Solana, SOLUSD, +13.81%, a cryptocurrency that has already been hyped by former FTX Bankman-Fried? On Wednesday, Solana fell amid fears its top holders would sell it.

In the summer of 2021, when Solana Labs raised $314.2 million from top investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Alameda Research, a crypto hedge fund founded by Bankman-Fried, invested heavily in the project. Bankman-Fried has also created a decentralized ecosystem called Serum on Solana.

But after FTX filed for bankruptcy in November, traders sold their Solana and the price plummeted 65% from around $37 to under $12. It is currently 94.09% below its peak of a year ago.

Argo stays afloat

Argo Blockchain PLC ARBK, +23.19% announced on Wednesday that it is selling its Helios Texas facility and related operations to Galaxy Digital Holdings BRPHF, +13.64% for $65 million.

The cryptocurrency miner said it will also get a new $35 million loan from Galaxy to refinance asset-backed loans with an initial term of 36 months.

Dow Jones Newswire

Bitcoin 2023

What is the outlook for bitcoin? This remains unclear, but some offer estimates. Yves Lamoureux, president of macroeconomic research firm Lamoureux & Co., says he sees bitcoin hitting a low of around $13,000 and then taking another run higher as the dust settles after the recent run. industry scandals.

He sees real momentum for bitcoin settling in 2025 when mass adoption of its ownership will propel the digital asset.

Ryan Selkis, founder and CEO of Messari, a crypto-analytics firm, told MarketWatchs sister publication Barrons that bitcoin is starting to act more like a credible neutral reserve asset.

Based on some metrics comparing bitcoin to gold, Selkis estimates that bitcoin could be worth $500,000, but offers no timeline for such an increase.

Crypto at a Glance

Bitcoin has lost 1.3% over the past week and was trading at around $16,616 on Thursday, according to FactSet.

Ether was down 1.3% over the same period to around $1,196.50, according to data from FactSet.

Meanwhile, native FTX coins, known as FTT tokens, are down 1.3% over the past seven days, trading at $0.859904, according to data provider CoinGecko.

Biggest Winners Price 7 Day % Return BitDAO $0.336735 17.5 Terra Luna Classic $0.00014736 14.5 Computer Internet $4.03 8.8 OKB $24.14 6.6 Quant $110.76 5.8 Source: CoinGecko as of Dec 29 Aptos $3.24 -14.3 Trust Wallet $1.34 -12.2 Toncoin $2.21 -12.1 Crypto companies, funds

Shares of Coinbase Global Inc. COIN, +6.92% slipped 1.1% for the week to around $34.76. MicroStrategy Inc. MSTR -1.06% is down nearly 18% to $137.84 so far on the week.

Crypto mining company Riot Blockchain Inc. RIOT, +3.95%, fell 8.4% to $3.40 on Thursday. Shares of rival Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. MARA, +8.43%, were down 4.3% to $3.38 over the past week. Ebang International Holdings Inc. EBON, -0.77% lost around 11% over the past week and was trading at $2.62.

Overstock.com Inc. shares OSTK, +4.95%, fell 1% to $19.34 during the week.

Shares of Block Inc. SQ, +6.50%, formerly known as Square, rose 2.5%, to $62.70 for the week so far. Tesla Inc. shares TSLA +8.08% fell nearly 12% to $119.59.

Read: Teslas stock breaks record losing streak with best daily gain in nearly a month

See also:Tesla stock is the most oversold it’s ever been

PayPal Holdings Inc. PYPL, +4.46% rose 1.9% on the week, to trade at around $69.90. Nvidia Corp. NVDA +4.04% fell nearly 9% to $146.13 in the past week.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. shares AMD, +3.60% down 2% to $64.87 for the week, Thursday.

Among crypto funds, ProShares Bitcoin Strategy BITO fell 1% to $10.36 on Thursday, while its ETF Short Bitcoin Strategy BITI +0.20% rose 0.9% to $40.11. Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF BTF, fell 0.8% to $6.54, while VanEck Bitcoin Strategy ETF XBTF, +0.25% slipped 0.7% to $16.68.

Grayscale Bitcoin Trust GBTC, +2.31% fell 2.3% to $7.95.

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