Crypto Long & Short: Bitcoin’s Potential as a Collateral Class

Crypto Long & Short: Bitcoin’s Potential as a Collateral Class

Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) – Warren Buffett delivered a clear verdict Saturday on the state of the U.S. economy as it emerges from the pandemic: red hot.“It’s almost a buying frenzy,” the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. chief executive officer said during the conglomerate’s annual meeting, which was held virtually from Los Angeles. “People have money in their pocket and they’re paying higher prices,” he said.Buffett attributed the faster-than-expected recovery to swift and decisive rescue measures by the Federal Reserve and U.S. government, which helped kick 85% of the economy into “super high gear,” he said. But as growth roars back and interest rates remain low, many – including Berkshire – are raising prices and there is more inflation “than people would have anticipated six months ago,” he said.Buffett reunited with his long-time friend and business partner Charlie Munger for this year’s meeting. Munger didn’t make it to last year’s meeting in Omaha, Nebraska – Buffett’s hometown – due to the shutdowns across the country. Some shareholders were relieved to see the duo fielding questions together again.“I really feel that both Charlie and Warren displayed their usual and amazing level of acuity and intellectual energy,” said James Armstrong, who manages assets including Berkshire shares as president of Henry H. Armstrong Associates.Buffett and Munger spent hours fielding questions, from the economy, to climate and diversity, the SPAC boom, taxes and succession. Here’s the lowdown:Climate Pressure:Berkshire faced pressure from two shareholders proposals, one to improve transparency related to its efforts on climate change. The topic was bound to be a feature at the meeting – and it was.When asked about the proposals, Buffett stuck to his previous stance. Measures to produce big reports on diversity and climate for his business lines spanning energy to railroads were, he said, “asinine.” The proposals were later voted down.Buffett was also asked about Berkshire’s stake in oil and gas producer Chevron Corp., which it disclosed earlier this year. Buffett said he felt “no compunction” in the least about its ownership in the company, which he said had benefited society in many ways. While he acknowledged the world is shifting away from hydrocarbons, people on the extreme sides of either argument are “a little nuts,” he said.Greg Abel, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, called climate change a “material risk.” He added that they’re setting targets and spending $18 billion over 10 years on transmission infrastructure.Killer SPACs:Buffett warned investors that Berkshire might not have much luck striking deals amid the boom in special purpose acquisition companies that gripped the market over the past year.“It’s a killer,” Buffett said about the influence of SPAC companies on Berkshire’s ability to find businesses to buy. “That won’t go on forever, but it’s where the money is now, and Wall Street goes where the money is.”Buffett, 90, also spent part of Berkshire’s annual meeting Saturday addressing the recent boom in retail and day trading. A lot of people have entered the stock market “casino” over the past year, he said.Tax:Buffett said President Joe Biden’s proposals for a corporate tax hike would hurt Berkshire shareholders. He added that antitrust laws and tax policy could change things for the company but new tax laws wouldn’t alter its no-dividend policy.Succession:Buffett and Munger, 97, fielded the majority of questions at Saturday’s meeting, but their two top deputies Abel and Ajit Jain, who runs the insurers, also shared the stage. Investors were able to get a closer look at the pair who are considered the top candidates for the job.Munger dropped a little mention of the post-Buffett years that drew speculation on social media about the most likely candidate to succeed Buffett. The CEO was pointing out that decentralization doesn’t work everywhere because it requires a certain type of culture that businesses need to have.“Yeah, but we do,” Munger insisted. “And Greg will keep the culture.”Abel has long been considered the top candidate to replace Buffett, especially when he was promoted to a vice chairman role overseeing all non-insurance operations, which gives him a wide array of responsibilities, including oversight of the railroad BNSF and the energy business.Errors:Buffett offered a few mea culpas during Saturday’s meeting. He noted that selling some Apple Inc. stock last year was a mistake and even said that Haven, the health care venture with JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Amazon.com Inc., thought it could fight the “tape worm” of American health care costs but the worm won.“That was probably a mistake,” Buffett said of those Apple stock sales last year. Berkshire still owned a roughly $110 billion stake in the iPhone maker at the end of March. “In fact, Charlie, in his usual low-key way, let me know that you thought it was a mistake too,” he said to Munger, who shared the stage with him.Cash Pile:Before the annual meeting started, the company released its first-quarter earnings, giving investors a dive into the 19.5% operating profit gain during the period.Berkshire ended the quarter with a near-record $145.4 billion of cash on hand as it continued to generate funds faster than Buffett could deploy them. But Buffett also ended pulling back on some capital deployment levers during the period. He bought back just $6.6 billion of Berkshire’s own stock, short of the record $9 billion set in prior quarters, and ended up with the second-highest level of net stock sales in the first quarter in almost five years.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

Crypto Pioneers Deserve to Be Celebrated, Says Hall of Fame Founder

The connection between art and crypto has deepened since the arrival of NFTs. While these tokens have multiple uses, artists have found incredible ways to assign ownership and value to the realm of digital art.

BeinCrypto spoke to crypto artist Max Cryptohead about his latest project, the Crypto Hall of Fame. This exhibition space was recently inaugurated at the Miami Crypto Experience. It aims to be a permanent space celebrating legends in crypto.

Painting crypto legends

BeinCrypto (BIC): Why did you create the Crypto Hall of Fame?

Max Cryptohead (MC): Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology are some of the most important innovations of our time, and their inventors and pioneers deserve to be celebrated. If rock musicians have their “Hall of Fame,” why not the rock stars of crypto?

BIC: How did it all start?

MC: I began to paint crypto pioneers in early 2020, beginning with Satoshi Nakamoto. I then contacted Aaron Koenig to help me market the paintings, as he is well connected in the crypto world. He is handling the business side for me so that I can focus on my art. I don’t like to speak in public, so he also does that for me.

Aaron then showed me the 3D gallery of the Crypto Art Museum, which was opened in April 2021, and we both liked it a lot. It presents the paintings in a really cool way, which everyone can easily access. So we decided to create this permanent exhibition in a similar way.

Expanding the online art space

BIC: So the Hall of Fame is not a physical place?

MC: Currently, it is online-only, but that fits well, as crypto is mainly an online phenomenon. The paintings are sometimes shown at real-life events, though. We already had exhibitions at the UNCHAIN conference in Frankfurt, at the Bitcoin Embassy in Mexico City, and Blockchain Week Miami.

Recently we have been invited to the re-opening of the Bitcoin Centre in New York City and to the Crypto Art Fair, which will take place in Tulum, Mexico. In the future, we might cooperate with a Bitcoin Embassy somewhere to host a permanent exhibition, but most people will visit it online anyway.

Story continues

BIC: Which platform do you use for the 3D exhibition?

MC: We are using a 3D gallery by the German company Kunstmatrix. Its big advantage is that you don’t need to download any software or visit some metaverse like Decentraland or CryptoVoxels, which only works with a Web 3.0 Wallet. All you need is a normal web browser to visit the exhibition. It even works on a cellphone.

BIC: Who is your target audience?

MC: The idea behind the Hall of Fame is to focus not on my paintings but on the crypto pioneers portrayed in them. We want to reach people who are not so interested in art but rather in technology and entrepreneurship, which is probably the case for many in the crypto industry.

BIC: Why is the Hall of Fame also called 21 Heads?

MC: Just like Bitcoin is limited to 21 million units, the Crypto Hall of Fame is limited to 21 members who can ever be inducted into it, which makes it an even bigger honor to be selected.

A panel of crypto specialists

BIC: Who selects the pioneers who are inducted into the Hall of Fame?

MC: The first eleven were obvious choices, people like Satoshi Nakamoto and his right hand Hal Finney, as well as the creators of Bitcoin’s predecessors, such as David Chaum, Wei Dai, Adam Back, and Nick Szabo.

I think everyone who knows a bit of crypto history will agree on them. So far, I have made the decisions together with my manager Aaron.

But from now on, we will have a structured and transparent selection process. Everyone can make a suggestion through our website. Then a selection committee of neutral but well-informed crypto experts decides who will be inducted next.

BIC: Who are the members of this committee?

MC: The first members are Olga Filatova, the director of the Crypto Art Museum and a long-term crypto activist from Russia, Eryka Gemma, the co-founder of Miami Crypto Experience, and Ana Alexandre, editor at BeinCrypto.

The other members will be announced soon. The challenge is to find people who know the crypto scene well but would not qualify for being selected themselves, so the committee will rather consist of educators and communicators, not developers or builders.

Joining in on NFTs

BIC: Can the portraits only be seen in the Hall of Fame?

MC: No, they are available as NFTs connected to high-resolution JPEGs, which can be printed out on canvas in a format of 21 by 21 inches.

Each portrait is, of course, limited to 21 copies. Some collectors have already bought the whole series. One has even prepaid and ordered all 21, even the ones which have not been created yet.

Securely Store Your BTC, ETH, and More with This Hardware Crypto Wallet

May 2, 2021 2 min read

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(especially BTC) has completely changed the investing world. Digital currencies may exist in a wildly volatile market, but that volatility has offered many ordinary people the opportunity of a lifetime to earn significant gains on their investments. (Just ask Dogecoin investors.) Crypto has become more mainstream, which also has made it more vulnerable to crime.

If you’re investing in crypto, you need a hardware wallet that will protect your coins and ensure you always have ready access to them. Look no further than the D’CENT Biometric Crypto Hardware Wallet.

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Normally $119, you can get the D’CENT Biometric Crypto Hardware Wallet for $105 when you use promo code WALLET14 at checkout.

Prices subject to change.