Tweets have effects

Over the weekend, a series of tweets from the mercurial mega-billionaire Elon Musk put much more fuel on the fire of what looks progressively like his own witch-burning ceremony. The SpaceX and Tesla CEO have blown cold and hot on cryptocurrencies in recent months, helping to generate a booming market in Bitcoin and Dogecoin. Still, his recent comments and actions are now being blamed for high price falls.

As the price of Bitcoin dropped Sunday night, British poker pro-Patrick Leonard pondered how much the high stakes poker community might have lost, framing it versus the backdrop of the buy-in of the tournament they were all likely playing.

The reaction from the poker community all across social media can only be described as incandescent, as a fiddle-fingered one-word Twitter response from the world’s most affluent individual provoked a worried sell-off, wiping $75 billion off the marketplace cap of Bitcoin in about nine hours.

Cryptocurrency: A quick history

In 1983, David Chaum developed a cryptographic system called eCash. In 1995, he formed another system called DigiCash, utilizing cryptography to make financial deals private. In 1998, Wei Dei took the crypto-movement an action further when he released his paper “b-money, an anonymous, dispersed electronic cash system,” in which he outlined “… a scheme for a group of untraceable digital pseudonyms to pay each other with money and to enforce agreements among themselves without outside assistance.” Decentralization was the crucial function of this proposed “cryptocurrency.”.

In 2008, the financial crash produced the perfect economic situation for developers to show the requirement for cryptocurrency. Go into Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency created by Satoshi Nakamoto. Nakomoto was heavily influenced by Dai and described “b-money” in his white paper for Bitcoin. He likewise dealt with Adam Back, now CEO of the blockchain technology business Blockstream and the developer of the proof of work system “HashCash,” which is now used in the Bitcoin mining procedure. The currency began to operate on January 3, 2009, when its application was released as an open-source software application.

The total market value of cryptocurrencies pressed past $2 trillion for the very first time.”.

Since then, countless contenders have entered the area as the use and investment in various cryptocurrencies have taken off. In July 2015, Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood managed Ethereum, a cryptocurrency boasting brilliant agreement performance. It quickly emerged as the only genuine competitor to Bitcoin, settling into its second-largest cryptocurrency. Over the past years, according to Bloomberg: “the total market value of cryptocurrencies pressed past $2 trillion for the very first time [in April 2021], doubling in about two months in the middle of surging institutional need. Bitcoin, the biggest of the more than 6,600 coins tracked by CoinGecko, is worth more than $1 trillion.”.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s market cap is $843bn, while Ethereum’s is $406bn.

Poker and cryptocurrency

Leading the charge as early adopters to cryptocurrency has been the poker world. The integrated privacy, deal speed, and general benefit made it an attractive payment processing option, especially for grey market websites seeking to get around the UIGEA and other monetary policies. The Winning Poker Network (WPN), for instance, started accepting cryptocurrency deposits in 2014 and presently enables users to withdraw in Bitcoin when squandering. These days, WPN supposedly purchases upwards of $100m in bitcoin per month to fulfill needs from gamers.

Another poker platform that has accepted the crypto crossover is Virtue Poker. This Ethereum-based poker service provider is the very first blockchain-based entity to lawfully run in several markets after getting a video gaming license from the Malta Video gaming Authority previously this year. Virtue Poker stakeholder and brand ambassador Phil Ivey is thrilled for the company’s future, as is CEO Ryan Gittleson.

” Blockchain technology offers protected and modern-day payment facilities that supply worldwide availability to customers, unlike our rivals,” discussed Gittleson. “By dealing with regulators to become a certified online betting business, Virtue Poker now has the legitimacy to contend and crossover for consumers from legacy companies to bring blockchain-based betting mainstream.”

Backed by Consensys, the blockchain software technology business founded by Ethereum contributor Joseph Lubin, Virtue Poker is plainly on a mission to make blockchain-based wagering mainstream.

NFTs

While cryptocurrency has become a mainstay of the payment processing side of the poker ecosystem, lots of other uses of blockchain technology have emerged in the poker realm, among them digitizing antiques and occasions.

The decentralized video delivery platform Theta Network is making moves in this regard, partnering with World Poker Tour (WPT) to stream particular events and feature real-time non-fungible token (NFT) drops and auctions via its “Thetadrop NFT market.”

NFTs are generally constructed using the same kind of shows as cryptocurrency, but unlike cryptocurrency, they are distinct and can’t be changed with something else. NFTs can be anything digital. However, a great deal of the current interest is around using the innovation to offer digital art as in Cryptopunks and Meebits, or videos, as in WPT/Theta Network.
During the live WPT broadcasts, they will trigger users to go to the marketplace to buy unique collectibles and join a live auction for an NFT, which will catch a special minute during the event. The market assures quick transaction speeds, low charges, and high interoperability with other blockchains, making it possible for NFT-holders to move between supported networks effortlessly.

No question about it, blockchain technology will penetrate ever-growing aspects of our lives in the future, comparable to how the internet changed our world. For numerous, cryptocurrency is believed to be the future of cash. Still, it’s fair to say that so far, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other coins have acted more like extremely speculative products than stable currencies. Their value has been highly vulnerable to bull runs and price crashes. Of late, their matter has also been sensitive to the tweets of the wealthiest guy worldwide.

Elon Musk giveth, Elon Musk taketh away.

Fortunes can alter rapidly in poker. However, they happen when you are there at the table. For cryptocurrency “HODLers,” the rollercoaster never ends, even when they are asleep.

On February 8, Tesla revealed in an SEC filing Monday that it has purchased $1.5 bn worth of Bitcoin and said that it would start accepting Bitcoin as a payment approach for its products. In the weeks before this announcement, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk had been credited for raising the rates of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, using his messages on Twitter. Last Thursday, he pulled the sharpest of U-turns:

As a result, the cost of Bitcoin fell sharply, losing 8% of its worth in the following three days. The other day, a careless tweet from Musk sent the marketplace toppling further:

Because of this most current volatility, Chris Weston of the brokerage Pepperstone reported that some Bitcoin traders were required to liquidate their positions. They could not meet margin calls on either long or short bets.

” Elon Musk, it appears, has been taking on all comers on Twitter over the weekend and triggered some chunky gyrations throughout the coins,” Weston said, including: “our weekend trading has kicked up, and we’re taking a look at some serious liquidations through the exchanges, where the last 24 hours we’ve seen over to $1.5 bn liquidated.”

Musk clarified his position first thing this morning:

Did a one-word tweet trigger all that carnage? Did his nine-word clarification cause a rise?

The poker neighborhood reacts.
We can discover proof that Musk’s words can move markets in this chart which shows how bitcoin rallied back from three-month lows right after his cornflakes information:

On the flip side, could it simply be the case that the cryptocurrency markets are highly over-extended and Musk is a convenient scapegoat?

Musk has unquestionably improved the crypto markets with his enthusiasm for the possession class. Still, he has recently gone cold on Bitcoin, mentioning its energy usage concerns, preferring the one-time parody, Dogecoin. All these capricious moves have led to a massive loss of faith that the billionaire engineer even understands what he’s doing. Doug Polk, whose crypto-YouTube channel was, at one time, the biggest in the area, echoed this sentiment on Twitter:

PokerStars owner Mike “Timex” McDonald also weighed in on Musk’s latest tweet:

Musk’s ability– and desire– to shift cryptocurrency prices with a single tweet will likely have had a negative result, preventing other businesses from following Tesla’s lead and putting Bitcoin on their balance sheet.

Patrick Leonard’s tweet was on the pulse of the poker world, which is still in the anger phase of grief.

While some in the poker neighborhood were out for blood, others have reacted with gallows humor.

Bottom line, it was clear that Bitcoin costs went too far, and a correction was due. This correction appears to be taking place now, and while it may rally once again, we will likely see Bitcoin’s price decreased even more. Experts recommend the near-term assistance for Bitcoin is near the $38,000 price level. At least the neighborhood has itself a boogeyman if the price does fall further.