Czech Central Bank boss wants to spend BILLIONS on BITCOIN! | Bitcoin News by CoinCorner

Transcript

The Czech Central Bank are looking to allocate 5% of their assets to Bitcoin. The SEC and the US have repealed SAB 121, providing a green light for Wall Street firms to own Bitcoin, and a major European Sports Federation has announced plans to heavily integrate Bitcoin within their operations.

Welcome back to Bitcoin News, brought to you by Coin Corner. I'm your host, Alex Glass. Now, let's get straight into this week's top stories.

Kicking things off by looking at Bitcoin's price. It's been another volatile week as Bitcoin, the wider crypto market, and the US stock market all took a dive. This was in response to a new Chinese AI company called Deep Seek, which made huge advancements within the tech sector, potentially putting pressure on US-based AI companies.

On Sunday, Bitcoin dropped by around 7.5%, although it has since recovered and is now trading back above $15,000 per coin. The stock market, on the other hand, does not appear to be as resilient, with Nvidia still trading around 177% down, NASDAQ 100 down around 2.5%, and the S&P 500 down around 1.5%.

So what exactly is Deep Seek, and why is it affecting markets so much? Well, Deep Seek is perceived as a highly competitive alternative to OpenAI's ChatGPT. It can operate at lower costs with much lower power overheads, and the Deep Seek app for iPhone has unseated ChatGPT as the top free app on the App Store.

They claim the computational power required for its AI calculations is only a fraction of their rivals and that it doesn't require as demanding hardware. This energy saving allows them to charge a fraction of the price, with OpenAI charging approximately $10 for 1 million output tokens compared to Deep Seek's non-promotional price of $2.20, which is around 1/5 of the cost to consumers.

For all these reasons, it's understandable that the US stock market is in a state of uncertainty, and it's not abnormal to see Bitcoin and crypto be the first markets to react, as they do trade 24/7. But it's positive to see that Bitcoin has rebounded in the way it has.

Now, moving on to some very bullish news this week: the Czech Central Bank eyes up a 5% allocation of the bank's reserves into Bitcoin. Al Mckl, the new head of the Czech National Bank, has said that he wants to buy billions of euros worth of Bitcoin for the nation's reserves.

Under his plan, the bank could hold as much as 5% of its 140 billion euro holding in Bitcoin, which equates to around 7 billion euros. Mckl views it as an opportunity for diversifying the bank's assets as Bitcoin gains more widespread adoption, following the footsteps of Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy, who turned the firm into a major Bitcoin holder, and the new US president, Donald Trump, who assigned an executive order to consider a national digital assets stockpile for the country.

Mckl has no illusions about the risks of Bitcoin. He understands the value could plummet, and yet he figures the possible rewards are worth the risk.

Now, staying in Europe, this week the European Squash Federation has adopted Bitcoin into their operations. The ESF has made the decision to hold Bitcoin as an asset on its balance sheet and additionally will facilitate the use of Bitcoin for both incoming payments and outgoing transactions wherever it's deemed appropriate.

This will include pure Bitcoin donations so that fans, companies, and brands can support the federation's work. But it will also enable fans to support players directly with a payment integration on their new media platform, European Squash TV.

They hope this announcement will help the federation and squash as a whole attract sponsorships and partnerships from within the Bitcoin industry, and it's incredibly exciting to see the first major sports federation in Europe adopt Bitcoin in this way.

Now, moving across to the US. Under Trump's new leadership, the SEC has revoked the accounting rule SAB 121, which made it a liability for banks to hold Bitcoin on their balance sheets.

This rule, introduced in 2022, significantly raised the financial and regulatory risk to institutions offering crypto custody services. It also boosted operational costs and ultimately discouraged broader Wall Street participation in crypto markets.

The repeal of this rule could have a huge knock-on effect on the adoption of Bitcoin and crypto across the US, and it's a major step forward from the SEC in their commitment to establishing a comprehensive and clear regulatory framework for crypto assets.

More news coming from within the new US government is that Trump's pro-crypto pick for Treasury Secretary has been confirmed by the Senate. Scott Bessent, billionaire hedge fund manager, will now have sway over fiscal policy, financial regulations, international sanctions, and oversee investments.

The 62-year-old strongly supports Trump's economic agenda and has been quoted as saying that government spending was out of control.

Bessent has publicly said that he's against CBDCs, saying that he sees no reason for the US to have a central bank digital currency. And in the summer last year, he declared that he was excited about the president's embrace of crypto: "Crypto is about freedom, and the crypto economy is here to stay."

Now for our final story. Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, have announced that they may be buying Bitcoin. Their plan is to expand into the financial services sector by launching a new fintech brand called Truth.Fi.

This will introduce investment vehicles that will focus on American growth, manufacturing, energy, and the patriot economy. And excitingly, the board of directors has already approved plans to diversify their cash holdings into ETFs, Bitcoin, and crypto.

It's expected that Truth.Fi will get rolled out later this year after any necessary approvals by financial regulators are secured.

But unfortunately, that is all we have for you today. So as always, make sure to hit that subscribe button down below, and I'll see you next week with more Bitcoin news.