Cryptos
Elon Musk’s rocket ride
SpaceX is soaring. Tesla is roaring. How the world’s most creative and controversial CEO is transforming one industry after another—and why he’s Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year.
BYANDREW NUSCA AND MICHAL LEV-RAM
December 2, 2020 12:30 PM GMT+1
FUTURE MAN: Musk introducing Tesla’s all-electric Cybertruck on Nov. 21, 2019. The design is partly inspired by the sci-fi film Blade Runner.
FREDERIC J. BROWN—AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Things get serious inside the 45-minute mark. That is a relative term, of course, because there is nothing unserious about placing a $62 million, 208-foot-tall rocket on a launchpad with plans to send it beyond Earth’s atmosphere. It is a balmy Sunday in November. NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida teems with technicians nervously running through checklists. Nightfall has come and gone, and the disappearance of the sun’s warm hues lend the proceedings a clinical cast. Four astronauts—three from NASA; one from JAXA, the Japanese space agency—serenely sit in a row inside a Dragon spacecraft, which is in turn perched atop a Falcon 9 rocket that will carry it. Both are manufactured by Space Exploration Technologies Corp., otherwise known as SpaceX, the L.A.-area aerospace company led by Elon Musk.
SpaceX and NASA have partnered on this launch, which is not unusual—over the past decade SpaceX has completed more than 100 launches with its Falcon rockets, and SpaceX regularly transports government payloads. What is unusual, however, is that SpaceX, a private company, would be allowed to ferry American astronauts to and from orbit. NASA certification for that capability came less than a week before the planned mission. Launchpad 39A, where this SpaceX launch will take place, is the same spot where Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins left Earth on the Apollo 11 spaceflight. A successful mission today will take the astronauts to the International Space Station for six months of science experiments. It will also offer further evidence demonstrating that commercial spaceflight is viable.
At T-minus 44:55, a male voice breaks the silence. “The team is ready for crew access, arm retract, propellant loading, and launch,” the launch director says.
Data retrieved from Btc Blockbot revealed the wealthy entity moved 7,970 BTC worth $440 million in block 681,99.
Wealthy investors have increased their transactional volume just as a Bitcoin whale moved about $440 million some hours ago. The world’s most popular crypto asset hovers around $54,500.
Data retrieved from Btc Blockbot revealed the wealthy entity moved 7,970 BTC worth $440 million in block 681,99.
Whale alert! 🐋 Someone moved 7,970 BTC ($440M) in block 681,990 https://t.co/7i5oUdrpic
— Bitcoin Block Bot (@BtcBlockBot) May 5, 2021
In the past few weeks, the flagship crypto has relatively experienced a significant amount of selling pressure after touching $58, 0000 and plummeting as low as $47,000, suggesting that institutional inflow on the world’s most popular crypto asset seems to be faltering.
Adding credence to the weakening buying spree is data retrieved from Glassnode postulating that the Bitcoin number of Addresses holding 10+ Coins just reached a 4-year low of 147,046
The previous 4-year low of 147,094 was observed on 03 May 2021.
At the time of writing Bitcoin traded at $54,465.57 on the FTX exchange with a daily trading volume of about $70 billion. For the week, the flagship crypto asset is up by just 0.35% and it remains by far the most valuable crypto by market value with a valuation of $1.018 trillion.
Recent data reveal Bitcoins older than 6-months have not seen a meaningful increase in spending since the correction back in February, meaning long-term holders have paused their buying actions momentarily.
Previous instances of similar spending behaviour were observed during the December 2020 consolidation, just before breaking to a new all-time high, and during the first bull market correction in January.
What you must know
At the flagship crypto market, traders or investors who hold large amounts of bitcoins are typically referred to as whales.
This means that a BTC whale would be an individual or business entity (with a single Bitcoin address) owning around 1000 Bitcoins or more.
Usually, as these whales accumulate the flagship crypto assets, Bitcoin’s circulating supply reduces, and this can weaken any bearish trend the crypto asset finds itself in.
Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by value after bitcoin, has broken away from the bitcoin price and surged higher in recent days.
The ethereum price has rocketed 30% over the last week, smashing through the closely-watched $3,000 level and taking its year-on-year gains to almost 1,500%—though it can’t compete with dogecoin’s rally.
As ethereum notches fresh price highs, investors have warned bitcoin is at risk of falling behind.
“The cryptocurrency space today looks very similar to the internet space in 1997,” Fahad Kamal, the chief investment officer at Société Générale’s U.K. private bank Kleinwort Hambros, told Business Insider.
“In 1997, we thought Netscape Navigator was by far the most advanced sophisticated browser and there would never be anything to compete with that. And, obviously, here we are, Netscape is long [gone]. In 10 years, I have no doubt that blockchain technology is going to be a very serious force in our lives. I have much, much less conviction or faith in whether bitcoin will be around that long.
“There are other cryptocurrencies… which are arguably much better in their construction and in their underpinnings. Ethereum, for example.”
The cryptocurrency community has long been divided over bitcoin and ethereum with so-called bitcoin maxis arguing ethereum is not a good store of value while ethereum investors criticize bitcoin for its clunky and out-dated blockchain technology.
Some, including the cofounder and executive chairman of cryptocurrency company Ripple, have proposed bitcoin follow ethereum in transitioning to a more eco-friendly blockchain model.
With the ethereum price outperforming the bitcoin price by three-to-one over the last year, ethereum bulls have ramped up their expectations and predictions that a future decentralized internet will be built on ethereum’s blockchain.
“Ethereum can be expected to significantly dent bitcoin’s market dominance over the next year and beyond,” Nigel Green, chief executive of deVere Group, said in emailed comments.
Green expects the ethereum price to hit $5,000 per ether token in the coming week, pointing to “soaring interest from major institutional investors” and the growth of decentralized finance (DeFi) and the sudden popularity of NFTs that are largely built on top of ethereum’s blockchain.
“Compared to [bitcoin], ethereum is more scalable, offers more uses and solutions, such as smart contracts which are already used across many sectors, and is backed with superior blockchain technology. Ethereum is already years ahead of bitcoin in everything but price and fame. There’s a real sense that 2021 is the year for ethereum. Its time has come.”
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