BTC Bitcoin Cryptocurrency Betting
Bitcoin is the cryptocurrency that started it all. There are dozens of other cryptocurrencies you can use to deposit at BookMaker and hundreds more on the periphery, but Bitcoin is the most well-known of the bunch, and the only one your aunt Ethel and uncle Fred know. The coin that dominates the crypto space surged past $60,000 in March 2021 and might be poised for an even bigger run ahead of the holidays.
Monday, February 17, 2025 News Update
Bitcoin continues to attract investors, as now individual states are putting money into the top cryptocurrency. With a staggering $330 million dollar investment in Strategy, previously MicroStrategy, twelve American states are investing in Bitcoin. An important turning point in the incorporation of cryptocurrency into institutional portfolios has been reached with this movement. Bitcoin has never been so close to American pension funds. Twelve states recently revealed a $330 million dollar investment in Strategy, the former MicroStrategy, an economic monitoring firm that was converted into a gigantic Bitcoin vault.
With more than $150 million dispersed across many public pension accounts, California is at the front of the pack. The California Public Employees' Retirement System owns 264,713 shares of Strategy, for a total of over 76 million dollars, while the California State Teachers Retirement System alone owns 285,785 shares, worth almost 83 million. California is the institutional stronghold of this drive for digital gold because of this double bet.
Other states have done the same, including North Carolina (22 million), Wisconsin (29 million), and Florida (46 million). The adoption of bitcoin in state financial strategy has been gradual but considerable. These investments demonstrate the increasing trust that institutions have in the Strategy model, which, it should be noted, presently holds 478,740 BTC, or almost 46 billion dollars at current exchange rates. Over the course of the year, Strategy's stock has increased by 383%, outpacing the 62% growth of the cryptocurrency market.
By placing bets on strategy, these pension funds can have indirect exposure to bitcoin without having to handle the asset's holdings directly. An ingenious tactic, but one that is hazardous considering bitcoin's infamous volatility. The latest by Strategy was a 7,633 BTC purchase between February 3 and February 9 at an average price of 97,255 USD per unit. A daring wager that exemplifies Michael Saylor's assertive outlook, who is certain that bitcoin will be the future of value stores. Whether the market will eventually support this concept is still up in the air.
With these significant investments, the US appears to be making a strategic change: certain government agencies would rather use bitcoin than ignore it or oppose it. An adoption that might encourage similar actions in other nations. If we've learned anything from recent history, it's that Wall Street and the US never pass up an investing opportunity.
There are other large companies with significant Bitcoin investments besides Strategy. According to reports, the massive financial services company Goldman Sachs owns shares in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) valued at about $2 billion. Goldman Sachs presently owns $1.63 billion worth of Bitcoin ETFs and $196.3 million worth of Ethereum ETFs, with the majority of the shares originating from BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), according to a recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
According to the data, the banking company has 49,183 shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) valued at over $3.7 million, 24,077,861 shares of IBIT valued at over $1.33 billion, and 3,530,486 shares of Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin (FBTC) valued at over $300 million.
According to the data, Goldman Sachs has 200,000 shares of the Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust ETF, which is valued at over $5.1 million, and 7,024,747 shares of the Fidelity Ethereum Fund (FETH), which is valued at over $191.1 million. In 2024, the SEC approved ETFs based on Bitcoin and Ethereum, which let investors invest in the top two digital assets by market capitalization without having to buy them directly.
Bitcoin Weekly Price Per CoinMarketCap
| WEEK |
BITCOIN PRICE IN USD |
| February 17, 2025 |
96,701.18 |
| February 10, 2025 |
97,403.56 |
| February 3, 2025 |
96,864.15 |
| January 27, 2025 |
101,643.23 |
| January 20, 2025 |
106,822.51 |
| January 13, 2025 |
92,117.84 |
| January 6, 2025 |
101,692.99 |
Monday, February 10, 2025 News Update
Where is the price of Bitcoin headed? The world’s leading cryptocurrency dipped under $100,000 recently and has been hovering just under that mark in recent weeks. Could it be time for a Bitcoin run that takes it well beyond the $100,000 mark? The BITCOIN Act of 2024 allows the United States to buy up to one million Bitcoins over a five-year period. That amounts to five percent of the entire amount of Bitcoin in circulation. That would essentially turn the United States into a Bitcoin powerhouse. Estimates of how much Bitcoin the US might purchase are even more ambitious. Then-candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (now slated to be the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services) suggested during the 2024 presidential election that the United States should purchase 550 Bitcoins per day until it had accumulated 4 million Bitcoins. Naturally, the volume of Bitcoin purchases is entirely unprecedented.
However, bear in mind that there is no clear model for the United States to follow, and no one is certain that this strategic Bitcoin reserve will ever be established. Other digital currencies may be added to the mix, as the Trump administration already seems to be moving away from calling this a "Bitcoin reserve" and instead referring to it as a "national digital asset stockpile."
The fascinating part comes when you think about how other countries can be affected by the establishment of this strategic Bitcoin reserve. It may be necessary for other countries to purchase Bitcoin if the United States, the world's largest economic power, does. If not, they may be abandoned. Although Fidelity calls this "political and economic game theory," seasoned cryptocurrency investors understand that it's actually FOMO, or the fear of missing out.
El Salvador is now the greatest example of a country that has carefully purchased substantial quantities of Bitcoin. Since 2021, when it formally recognized Bitcoin as legal cash, it has been actively purchasing the cryptocurrency. It presently has 6,000 Bitcoins valued at an estimated $600 million, according to Fidelity.
Although it may seem like a lot of Bitcoin, MicroStrategy, a single American company, actually owns a lot more. MicroStrategy owned 471,170 Bitcoins as of January 2025. Additionally, 198,000 Bitcoins are held by the U.S. government due to asset forfeitures and seizures. The United States might purchase 200,000 Bitcoins in a year if it proceeds with its ambitions to establish a strategic reserve.
Additionally, keep an eye on events in Europe. The chairman of the central bank of the Czech Republic hinted that the country would begin purchasing Bitcoin at the beginning of February. The current plan is to purchase $7 billion worth of Bitcoin, or around 5% of the worldwide reserves held by the Czech National Bank. Other European countries may purchase Bitcoin if that strategy proceeds.
Given all of this fresh purchasing by central banks and sovereign governments, it may seem unrealistic to predict that the value of Bitcoin could quadruple. Alright. But think about what transpired with the new spot Bitcoin ETFs and how they affected the price of the cryptocurrency. These spot Bitcoin ETFs amassed assets under management of about $100 billion in a single year. Assuming that the price of Bitcoin is $100,000, that amounts to around one million Bitcoins. The quantity of one million Bitcoin should seem familiar because that is precisely how much the US government may purchase for its strategic Bitcoin reserve.
And we all witnessed what transpired when there was a massive Bitcoin purchase. The price of Bitcoin surged by 122% as soon as the new spot Bitcoin ETFs were introduced. From $44,000 in January 2024 to over $100,000 by December, the price of bitcoin literally doubled. Central banks and sovereign nations purchasing Bitcoin may be a far larger trend than most people realize. It actually has the potential to revolutionize the cryptocurrency industry. The global financial order's rules would shift, resulting in a whole new game. Naturally, the country with the largest Bitcoin holdings will emerge victorious.
Monday, February 3, 2025 News Update
Monday saw a selloff in global markets as investors were alarmed by the prospect of a trade war, sending cryptocurrency values plummeting, with bitcoin hitting a three-week low. The largest cryptocurrency in the world, Bitcoin, fell 6.2% to a three-week low of $91,441.89 overnight before rallying back to $96,000. The value of the smaller cryptocurrency ether has dropped by almost 25% since Friday, the largest three-day decline since November 2022. The most recent price was $2,592.14.
President Donald Trump of the United States levied 25% tariffs on Mexican and most Canadian imports over the weekend, and 10% on Chinese goods beginning on Tuesday. China said it would contest Trump's tariffs at the World Trade Organization, while the United States' two largest trading partners, Canada and Mexico, swiftly pledged punitive actions.
According to CoinGecko data, about 25% of the top 100 cryptocurrencies have had a 20% or more decline in value in the past day. In pre-market trading, shares of Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange based in the United States, fell 5.5%. CoinGecko reports that Trump's cryptocurrency, $TRUMP, fell below $20. The cryptocurrency was first introduced just before Trump was sworn in, and on January 19, it hit highs of almost $73.
Cryptocurrencies have recently been responsive to the general mood of the markets and trade all day, including on weekends. Investors are concerned that tariffs may be inflationary and negatively impact company earnings and growth. "Crypto is really the only way to express risk over the weekend, and on news like this crypto resorts to a risk proxy," Pepperstone’s head of research, Chris Weston to the media.
Because it is simpler to sell ether rapidly during times of market stress and because some buyers view it as a "risk-off asset" similar to gold, Bitcoin has declined less precipitously than ether.
"What we've been seeing isn't so much that ether is being uniquely hard-hit (most of the market is down similarly or worse) but rather that bitcoin is holding up uniquely well," Joseph Edwards, head of research at Enigma Securities said to the media.
Following a robust surge following Trump's election, cryptocurrency is now facing additional negative pressure as some investors are dissatisfied with the lack of prompt action to support the industry or relax rules since he took office.
In anticipation of crypto-friendly rules from the Trump administration, Bitcoin has risen 40% since the election in early November and reached a record high of $107,071.86 on January 20, the day Trump was sworn in as the 47th President of the United States.
During his campaign, Trump, who had called cryptocurrency a hoax, welcomed digital assets and pledged to turn the US into the "crypto capital of the planet."
Trump established a working group on cryptocurrencies a few days after taking office, with the goal of establishing a national cryptocurrency stockpile and suggesting new rules for digital assets.
Paul Howard who is a senior director at crypto market-maker Wincent, said that people were expecting big things from Trump with crypto and that they have been disappointed. He said that "the organic growth we anticipate over the coming years in part due to the friendlier U.S. administration will likely outweigh the short term volatility and macro economic (tariff) news the next few weeks."
Monday, January 27, 2025 News Update
Prices for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies started the week off with a sell-off, coinciding with a sell-off in the stock market brought on by the growing popularity of the Chinese artificial intelligence program DeepSeek. From an all-time high of about $110,000, the price of bitcoin briefly fell below $100,000 on Monday before rallying back over $101,000. Now, as Larry Fink of BlackRock discloses that he has discussed purchasing bitcoin with sovereign wealth funds, prominent cryptocurrency trader Arthur Hayes has issued a warning about an impending "financial crisis" that he believes would trigger new stimulus measures from the Federal Reserve. "I am calling for a $70,000 to $75,000 correction in bitcoin [and] a mini financial crisis," Hayes, cofounder of BitMex, posted to X.
U.S. President Donald Trump last week ordered the formation of a working group dedicated to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to propose new regulations and investigate the establishment of a national cryptocurrency stockpile, fulfilling his campaign pledges to make reworking crypto policy a top priority for his administration. Since 2022, the rush into artificial intelligence has caused high-growth tech stocks to soar, but as DeepSeek achieves performance comparable to OpenAI's models with fewer chip requirements, the price of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies continues to be closely linked to the U.S. stock market.
"Risk-off is the theme as DeepSeek scares investors," market analyst Adam Kobeissi posted to X. "Nasdaq 100 futures are now down -330 points since the market opened just hours ago as DeepSeek takes #1 on the App Store. This is how you know DeepSeek has become a major threat to U.S. large cap tech," Kobeissi's market advisory service account posted to X.
When the Federal Reserve holds its first policy meeting since Trump took office on Wednesday, it is generally expected to keep interest rates unchanged. However, Trump has stated that he wants the Fed to lower interest rates. "With oil prices going down, I'll demand that interest rates drop immediately, and likewise they should be dropping all over the world," Trump told World Economic Forum attendees last week.
Because of COVID and lockdown stimulus measures, which led to tremendous government spending and helped propel inflation out of control in 2022, the U.S. debt has skyrocketed in recent years, reaching $34 trillion at the start of 2024. The Federal Reserve was compelled to raise interest rates at a record rate due to inflation of more than 10%, which increased debt interest payments and stoked concerns of a "death spiral."
Monday, January 20, 2025 News Update
After a brief decline that saw it fall below $90,000, Bitcoin recently surged beyond the $105,000 mark on Friday and then on Monday it went past $110,000 before coming back down slightly. Hopes that President-elect Donald Trump will change the course of American cryptocurrency after taking office on Monday are driving the recovery. In stark contrast to the crackdowns of Biden's government, Trump made a campaign pledge to make America a global leader in cryptocurrency, complete with a national bitcoin stockpile. According to reports, he is drafting an executive order to establish an advisory council with industry insiders and make digital assets a national priority. With contributions from Circle, Ripple, and other major corporations for his inauguration committee, Trump has swiftly emerged as the new best friend of the cryptocurrency community. The industry's influence on Capitol Hill has never been greater.
Not only is Bitcoin rising, but the third-largest cryptocurrency and token associated with Ripple Labs, XRP, surged almost 40% this past week to a record $3.4, outperforming all other significant digital assets this month. Its current market valuation of over $190 billion is fueled by hope that the Trump administration will enact more lenient crypto regulations. Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of Ripple, recently told the New York Times that he had dinner with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and that he urged the establishment of a federal cryptocurrency stockpile, which would include XRP. Recently, Ripple introduced RLUSD, a new stablecoin on Ethereum and the XRP Ledger. The SEC filed a lawsuit against San Francisco-based Ripple Labs in 2020, alleging that the business was selling unregistered securities. The crypto industry saw a partial victory when a U.S. district judge ruled that XRP is a security when sold to institutional investors but not to ordinary investors. The SEC is contesting the ruling, although the appeal's prospects may be uncertain given the anticipated appointment of a more crypto-friendly SEC chair.
MicroStrategy is in the Bitcoin news again, as MicroStrategy is indicating that it will buy Bitcoin for the eleventh week in a row. "Things will be different tomorrow," co-founder Michael Saylor wrote on a Bitcoin chart he shared on January 19, coinciding with President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20. The corporation now has 450,000 Bitcoin holdings after purchasing 2,530 BTC earlier this month for $243 million. At their current worth of $47.3 billion, these assets represent a 69% return on the company's investment. This is in line with MicroStrategy's goal to raise $42 billion for additional Bitcoin purchases through stock and fixed-income securities.
Saylor presented a regulatory framework for the United States in December 2024, with targets to increase the market value of Bitcoin to $10 trillion and the size of the digital asset market to $280 trillion. This sentiment has been mirrored by asset manager Anthony Pompliano, who has urged the federal, state, and local governments to swiftly purchase Bitcoin in order to gain a competitive edge. An optimistic market prognosis and MicroStrategy's methodical approach to Bitcoin acquisitions highlight the growing institutional faith in the cryptocurrency's potential. Saylor's approach and calls for state adoption, as Bitcoin approaches record highs, are part of a larger movement to make digital assets more widely accepted. As significant events take place in the cryptocurrency world, Bitcoin's institutional support and market performance continue to garner attention.
Monday, January 13, 2025 News Update
The rollercoaster that is Bitcoin is in full motion in 2025, as the cryptocurrency has fallen from a high of more than $100,000 to start the year to below $90,000 in less than two weeks. The price bounced back over $92,000 on Monday. The sharp decline in the price of bitcoin has raised concerns that the Federal Reserve may be preparing to cause a price collapse. Despite Trump's confirmation that he is planning a bitcoin price game-changer, the price of bitcoin has fallen precipitously from its peak of about $110,000 per bitcoin following his election victory. Now that the Fed has been alerted to an impending crisis, dealers of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are anxiously awaiting word on whether the combined market will go below the crucial $3.2 trillion line.
"The start of the new year has not been easy for the crypto market," Alex Kuptsikevich, the FxPro chief market analyst, said in an emailed note. "The next target for the bears looks to be the $88,000 area. And in a negative scenario, bitcoin will face a quick pullback to $74,000."
A series of encouraging economic reports that indicate the Federal Reserve is less likely to lower interest rates this year have slowed the bitcoin and cryptocurrency market's ability to maintain its post-Trump election gains.
"Losing over 2% in 24 hours to $3.22 trillion, the market was back at the bottom of the consolidation range since the end of November," Kuptsikevich wrote. "The promising start to the year failed to materialize. It is with some trepidation that we now watch the eighth or so attempt to break below $3.20 trillion. Adding to the unease is the fact that last week's upside momentum failed to develop, only attracting sellers."
In other news, MicroStrategy Inc., a business software company that has become a big buyer of Bitcoin, purchased $243 million worth of Bitcoin recently As co-founder and chairman Michael Saylor increases purchases as part of a buy and hold strategy he started in 2020, the Tysons Corner, Virginia-based company currently holds more than 2% of all the Bitcoin that will ever exist. About $41 billion worth of the initial cryptocurrency is owned by MicroStrategy. MicroStrategy filed a report with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, stating that it bought 2,530 Bitcoin tokens between January 6 and January 12 at an average price of about $95,972.
In order to buy more Bitcoin, the so-called Bitcoin treasury firm intends to generate $42 billion through convertible debt offers and at-the-market stock sales through 2027. Within three months of revealing its ambitions, MicroStrategy has already exceeded two-thirds of its equity targets. With a shareholder vote set for January 21 to determine whether to raise the authorized number of shares of its Class A common stock from 330 million to 10.3 billion, the company intends to accelerate its equity offerings. Offering perpetual preferred stock, which would be senior to its Class A common stock, is another way MicroStrategy intends to fund $2 billion. Even while MicroStrategy's stock closed at $327.91 on Friday, up 13% so far this year, it is still far behind its peak of almost $474 in November. After rising 120% in 2024, Bitcoin has fallen roughly 3% this year.
Monday, January 6, 2025 News Update
The beginning of 2025 saw a surge in the price of Bitcoin, as the cryptocurrency soared past the $100,000 mark yet again. More and more companies are getting on board and buying Bitcoin, including Metaplanet, a publicly listed Japanese company. Simon Gerovich, Metaplanet CEO, said the company is looking to expand its Bitcoin holdings to 10,000 coins. In a January 5th message to shareholders, Gerovich said that this past year was “transformational.” He said Metaplanet is Asia’s leading Bitcoin treasury company. It has been reported that Metaplanet already holds 1,762 BTC but that number will seem small to what is coming soon.
Many people believe that Metaplanet's Bitcoin approach is comparable to Microstrategy's, which has more than 447,000 coins of the leading cryptocurrency. In the second half of 2024, the Japanese corporation, like Microstrategy, boosted the frequency of its Bitcoin acquisitions as hope that the cryptocurrency market would do better in the coming year grew. In addition to using cryptocurrencies to make money, Gerovich stated that Metaplanet hopes to contribute to initiatives that promote bitcoin in Japan. “In 2025, we aim to leverage our partnerships to advance Bitcoin adoption in Japan and globally [as well as] explore innovative opportunities to grow Metaplanet’s impact in Japan and the Bitcoin ecosystem,” Gerovich said. Metaplanet made its first BTC purchase in April of last year and the price of its stock which was just under $1.90 surged by more than 10 times and closed 2024 at $22.05.
The largest corporate Bitcoin holder, MicroStrategy, said that it had recently bought 1,070 BTC in the final two days of 2024. On January 6, the business announced the acquisition, claiming to have paid roughly $101 million in cash on December 30–31, 2024. At an average price of about $94,004 per Bitcoin, the purchase was made. MicroStrategy now holds 447,470 BTC, accounting for 2.1% of all Bitcoin that will ever be mined. The most recent purchase was funded by the revenues from the issuing and sale of shares via a convertible notes sales arrangement, same as earlier MicroStrategy Bitcoin purchases.
The transaction was made soon after Michael Saylor, a co-founder of MicroStrategy, posted the Bitcoin chart from the SaylorTracker website on January 5th, hinting at the impending BTC purchase. According to some estimates, MicroStrategy might go into a blackout period in January 2025, which would prevent the company from issuing convertible bonds and shares in order to buy more Bitcoin. Shortly after announcing plans to acquire $2 billion through a permanent preferred stock offering to purchase more Bitcoin, MicroStrategy made its most recent Bitcoin purchase.
History
In January 2009, Bitcoin was created by Satoshi Nakamoto. The identity of Nakamoto remains hotly debated to this day, but that person or group changed the world with this invention. Like many major breakthroughs, it took a while for people to grasp why Bitcoin was special. Bitcoin was created in the midst of the banking crisis, and one of its major goals was to give people another option to buy and sell products outside of a heavily regulated and centralized banking system.
The first entities to fully embrace Bitcoin were black market enterprises like Silk Road. For a while, Bitcoin became synonymous with the notorious website, but its use became more and more widespread starting in 2013.
That led to the price of Bitcoin skyrocketing and reaching incredible heights in 2017. On January 1, 2017 a single Bitcoin was worth $998, but that price rose by nearly 20-fold near the end of the year, hitting an all-time high of $19,666 on December 17, 2017. Bitcoin has left those prices in the dust in 2021, as the price of Bitcoin is approaching $50,000.
Stability
One of the major criticisms of Bitcoin is that the currency wildly fluctuates and that has proven to be true in 2021. As Bitcoin has become more accepted and understood, investors are getting a better understanding of what leads to price changes, and that has led to the Bitcoin market looking a lot like the stock market.
Security
There have been fears over how secure Bitcoin is over the years, but transactions are even more secure as they are in the traditional marketplace thanks to blockchain technology.
Whereas we are constantly hearing stories of companies having their databases hacked and identities being stolen, the nature of blockchain presents this from happening with Bitcoin.
For a transaction to occur, the sender must know their private key and digitally sign the transaction, and the signature must be verified by the network using the public key. The number of private keys makes it nearly impossible to hack into another person’s account, but there is one thing to keep in mind. You MUST keep your private key backed up somewhere or else you will lose access to your Bitcoin. Don’t make the mistake of not backing up your private key and risk losing your hard earned money.
How do I buy Bitcoin?
You can buy Bitcoin by using one of the major currency exchanges such as Coinbase or Gemini. These exchanges allow you to use a credit or debit card or bank transfer to buy Bitcoin. You can then send Bitcoin to your sportsbook account and you can withdraw Bitcoin from your sportsbook account to your digital wallet.
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