Corporate adoption continues as video-sharing platform Rumble announces plans to buy $20 million worth of Bitcoin. Nation-state adoption also appears to be on the rise, as Brazil and the City of Vancouver in Canada announce plans to utilise Bitcoin as a reserve asset. MicroStrategy continues to make headlines, overtaking Nvidia and Tesla in daily trading volume, while also becoming a desirable vehicle for corporate Bitcoin exposure.
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.
After two consecutive weeks of huge price rises, reaching new all-time highs of $999,000 per coin, this week we've seen a slight correction, with the price retracing by around 9%. The huge milestone of $100,000 appears to be creating a psychological barrier among traders, proving more challenging to cross than some analysts had anticipated.
That said, we're still trading at around $96,000, which is up over 40% since the start of November. We'll have to wait and see if it breaks through this huge milestone and continues into price discovery mode.
Now, for our first story this week: it's been officially announced that video-sharing platform Rumble plans to purchase $20 million worth of Bitcoin to use as a treasury asset. This announcement comes just a week after CEO Chris Pavlovski got the internet excited about the idea by posting a poll on Twitter asking his followers if Rumble should put Bitcoin on their balance sheet. The result was a resounding yes.
Pavlovski said, "We believe that the world is still in the early stages of Bitcoin adoption, which has recently been accelerated by the election of a crypto-friendly US presidential administration and increased institutional adoption. Unlike any government-issued currency, Bitcoin is not subject to dilution through endless money printing, enabling it to be a valuable inflation hedge and an excellent addition to our treasury."
Following the announcement, Rumble's share price surged by over 12%, showing strong investor confidence in the move. This is another huge step forward for corporate Bitcoin adoption, following in the footsteps of companies like MicroStrategy, Similar Scientific, MetaPlanet, and many more.
Speaking of MicroStrategy, the company, which now holds over 1.8% of the entire Bitcoin supply, this week flipped both Nvidia and Tesla in trading volume. The world's first Bitcoin development company has solidified its position among the top 100 publicly listed companies in the US after achieving remarkable returns over the last year.
Following the most recent price rise of the stock, Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas noted on X that MSTR has become the most traded stock, eclipsing trading activity in Tesla and Nvidia. It has been years since a stock has traded more than one of those two.
Looking beyond MicroStrategy's enormous $32 billion trading volume, the wider Bitcoin industrial complex has also hit record highs of $50 billion. This figure is comparable to the entire UK stock market, underscoring the growing interest in Bitcoin as both an investment and trading opportunity.
Another company taking an interest in MSTR is Germany's largest insurance company, Allianz. It has been revealed that Allianz bought 24% of MicroStrategy's $600 million convertible note offering earlier this year. Despite conflicting data, the insurance giant's investment was in MicroStrategy's $600 million offering from March, not the latest $2.6 billion note sale, which closed on 21st November.
This move from one of the world's largest insurance companies signals growing institutional demand for Bitcoin exposure. It seems that MicroStrategy's convertible debt offering is a desirable investment vehicle. This week, the company also announced another huge Bitcoin purchase, spending $5.6 billion at an average price of $97,000 per coin.
Now, moving on to nation-state adoption: this week, the Brazilian government announced plans to introduce a bill to establish a national Bitcoin reserve. The bill, proposed by Congressman Eros Bondini, is called the Bitcoin Sovereign Strategic Reserve and aims to have the central bank slowly build up its Bitcoin holdings, eventually making up 5% of the country's total reserves. The central bank would be in charge of buying and managing the Bitcoin, which would be securely stored in cold wallets to protect it from online threats.
If the bill passes, Brazil could hold up to $3 billion worth of Bitcoin. However, the proposal is not without its challenges. The bill will need to pass through Brazil's legislative process, where it may face opposition from critics wary of Bitcoin's volatility and risks.
Moving north to Canada, the Mayor of Vancouver has unveiled a plan to introduce a Bitcoin-friendly approach for the city. Ken Sim, who has served as the Mayor of Vancouver since 2022, announced plans for the Canadian city to add Bitcoin to its balance sheet as an effort to diversify investments.
In a city council meeting on 26th November, Mayor Sim submitted a notice of motion titled Preserving the City's Purchasing Power Through Diversification of Financial Resources: Becoming a Bitcoin-Friendly City. This motion, set to be introduced on 11th December, is unclear in terms of its support within Vancouver's city council. However, during his campaign, Sim accepted crypto donations, and a copy of The Bitcoin Standard has been spotted in his office, suggesting his long-standing interest in cryptocurrency.
Finally, one country looking to ease its stance on Bitcoin is Morocco, whose central bank is seeking to legalise all cryptocurrencies. This comes after the country imposed a somewhat unsuccessful nationwide ban on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency transactions in November 2017.
According to Reuters, Morocco's central bank has prepared a draft law for cryptocurrency regulation, which is currently under review. The move reflects Morocco's growing interest in cryptocurrencies amid a global rise in developing digital asset regulations.
The UK's Financial Conduct Authority recently shared its roadmap to regulate cryptocurrencies by 2026, while the EU is preparing for the implementation of the world's first comprehensive regulatory framework, the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), expected to go live at the end of 2024.
While Morocco's move toward legalisation is positive, the central bank is also exploring the possibility of introducing a central bank digital currency (CBDC), which may not align with the principles of censorship-resistant money like Bitcoin.