Bank Of America Calls Bitcoin 'Impractical,' And Crypto Community Has A Lot To Say About That

Bank Of America Calls Bitcoin ‘Impractical,’ And Crypto Community Has A Lot To Say About That

Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC) faced some backlash from the crypto community earlier today, after its criticism of Bitcoin from its latest research note made headlines.

What Happened: The bank’s research note titled “Bitcoin’s Dirty Little Secrets” stated that there is “no good reason to own Bitcoin unless you see prices going up”. According to the bank, Bitcoin’s volatility makes it impractical as a store of value or a payments mechanism.

Why It Matters: The research note was not well received by the crypto community who took to Twitter to share their thoughts about it.

Samson Mow, CSO of blockchain technology company Blockstream, shared a graph of Bank of America’s stock price over the years and said, “If your stonk chart looks like this, you don’t get to call Bitcoin volatile.”

If your stonk chart looks like this, you don’t get to call #Bitcoin volatile. @BankofAmerica pic.twitter.com/nVpqlFhejY — Samson Mow (@Excellion) March 19, 2021

The research note also claimed that central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) would be “kryptonite for cryptocurrency”, which most users described as the “worst take” on cryptocurrency they have heard.

Popular Bitcoin proponent Anthony Pompliano stated on Twitter that the Bank of America has a higher chance of failing than Bitcoin, and was quickly backed by most of his 650k followers on the platform. CZ, CEO of the largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume Binance, suggested that it wouldn’t be just Bank of America, but rather, all banks that would fail before Bitcoin did.

Bank of America has a higher chance of failing than Bitcoin. — Pomp (@APompliano) March 17, 2021

The bank’s criticism, however, was appreciated by known Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff – According to him, the research report “concluded the obvious” and he went on to reiterate his belief that Bitcoin is the ultimate bubble.

Story continues

Bank of America’s stance on Bitcoin comes at a time where large institutions and public companies are buying and holding the digital asset on their balance sheets. Earlier this week, Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) said it would offer Bitcoin to its wealthy clients.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $58,500, up 5% in the past 24-hours. With over $1 trillion in market cap, Bitcoin is larger than JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM), Citigroup Inc (NYSE: C) ,and Bank of America combined.

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© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

Crypto Mining Stocks Could Keep Beating Bitcoin in ‘Modern-Age Digital Gold Rush’

Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) – The founders of medical testing company uBiome Inc. were criminally charged with a $60 million fraud in an alleged scheme that reads like a smaller-scale, lower-profile version of the spectacular collapse of Theranos Inc.Offering products that allowed consumers and patients to analyze the DNA of their own microbiomes from fecal samples, uBiome filed for bankruptcy in September 2019, about four months after the FBI began investing its billing practices. Among its creditors were high-profile venture capital firms 8VC and Andreessen Horowitz.Now, its former chief executives, Jessica Richman, 46, and Zachary Apte, 36, face charges of securities fraud and health-care fraud that could send them to prison for 20 years, along with a suit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.The cases echo the criminal charges pending against Theranos Inc. founder Elizabeth Holmes and her onetime boyfriend and former Theranos President Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani.There’s one important difference: While Holmes and Balwani are heading to trial to defend themselves, prosecutors say Richman and Apte are fugitives.“The defendants’ initial federal court appearances have not yet been scheduled,” the U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco said in a statement Thursday.Like Holmes and Balwani, Richman and Apte worked closely together and were romantically involved – leading them to marry in 2019, according to the SEC.In another parallel, both sets of defendants are charged with telling investors their companies could perform reliable medical tests when, according to prosecutors, they couldn’t.Ultimately, though, the alleged fraud at Theranos was on a much grander scale: Richman and Apte’s startup was valued at $600 million in one series of fundraising, compared with $9 billion for Theranos at its height.The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Elizabeth Holmes and TheranosRichman and Apte “painted a false picture of uBiome as a rapidly growing company with a strong track record of reliable revenue through health insurance reimbursements for its tests,” the SEC said in its complaint. “uBiome’s purported success in generating revenue, however, was a sham.”Initially, uBiome’s “Gut Explorer” test was offered to perform genetic sequencing from fecal samples and marketed as a way to get a better understanding of what was going on in one’s gut, according to the indictment. By 2014, Richman and Apte concluded the company couldn’t generate enough revenue to attract venture capital investors, so turned to marketing clinical tests used to make medical decisions, according to the government.Ubiome submitted health insurance claims for its tests, ultimately marketed as “SmartGut,” to private insurers providing coverage to Medicare beneficiaries as well as private-sector employer-sponsored health plans, according to the indictment.Among other practices, Richman and Apte deceived health care providers and insurers by submitting fraudulent reimbursement claims for re-tests, relying on a “captive network” of health care providers to whom they gave partial and misleading information, and manipulating dates of service to conceal uBiome’s real testing and marketing practices, prosecutors said.The company founders relied on the scheme from 2015 to 2019 to sell uBiome stock and debt to pay for operations and enrich themselves, prosecutors said. The indictment describes a series of investment rounds by various funds not identified by name.Read More: uBiome Estate Donating 40k Covid-19 Testing Kits to HospitalSan Francisco-based 8VC and Menlo Park, California-based Andreessen Horowitz hold a 22% and 10% stake in uBiome, respectively, court documents show.8VC led an early, $17 million fundraising round and participated with 10 other investment firms in an $83 million, later-stage round, while Andreessen Horowitz took part in another early-stage, $4.5 million round, according to market data provider PitchBook. Y Combinator, based in Mountain View, California, and Tokyo-based Dentsu Ventures are among other uBiome investors listed by PitchBook.”We are grateful to the authorities and will continue to fully cooperate with them,” 8VC said in a statement. “We cannot comment any further on an ongoing case.”Y Combinator declined to comment while Andreessen Horowitz and Dentsu Ventures didn’t respond to requests for comment.Richman and Apte didn’t tell investors tell that insurer questions about uBiome’s billing practices called the company’s “entire business model into question,” but that the founders “had to falsify documents and lie to insurance providers in order to attempt to keep them at bay,” according to the indictment.Richman and Apte couldn’t be located for comment. Spokespersons for the U.S. attorney’s office and the San Francisco office of the FBI didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.The criminal case is U.S. v. Apte, 21-cr-0116, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).(An earlier version of this story corrected the participation by 8VC and Andreessen Horowitz in fundraising)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.

Nascent but growing crypto-universe under threat from proposed crypto ban

Offering little foresight, the government is working on a cryptocurrency legislation that may or may not allow cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to flourish here. There is, however, some confidence that the Centre will allow, rather, promote, innovations around blockchain, the underlying technology for Bitcoin. “We are very clear that we are not shutting off all options,” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in a virtual conference on March 15. “My view on this is that of course the Supreme Court had …

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