Megan Thee Stallion has BTC in her bag 💁‍♀️

Hello FlipGang!

The Weekly Flip Thru — the newsletter that breaks down everything you need to know about crypto each week. We make the complex simple and the simple insightful!

This week: Rap’s love affair with crypto, regulatory rumors become reality, CoinFlip’s merch store goes live, and more!

CoinFlip Merch

Want a hoodie, FlipGang? Our CoinFlip merch store is live! We’ve got everything you need to rep CoinFlip while you stack sats this winter.

Everyone needs a cozy go-to hoodie to curl up in, so go for one that’s soft, smooth, and stylish. It’s the perfect choice for cooler evenings! Shop now.

Combine practicality, comfort, and fashion in one. Keep the sun out of your eyes with this 100% cotton twill bucket hat to stay cool during any activity. Shop now.

Last call for Accion!

Friday, 12/25, is the last day to use code “ACCION20” and to donate 100% of your transaction fees to Accion and help out small businesses in this time of need.

Learn more about Accion here.

Find your closest ATM and help us give back today!

Bitcoin’s Value

Bitcoin reached yet another All-Time-High over the weekend, surpassing $24,000. Many are seeing this bull run as evidence of sustained growth. However, some analysts say that Bitcoin could hit a wall around the New Year because it is in an “overbought state.” This means that it has too much liquidity in its markets, which could trigger investors’ selloff.

But, big names continue to buy into Bitcoin. The global head of equity at Jefferies, a global financial services company, announced the firm will reduce its exposure to gold in favor of Bitcoin. Skybridge Capital, a wealth management fund, submitted a filing with the SEC on Monday to launch a Bitcoin fund for accredited investors to purchase $50k or more.

According to CNBC, investors who bought at least 1,000 BTC with wallets less than a year old are the main drivers of demand since September. The total buy-in from these new big investors? 500k BTC, or $11.5 billion, in just three months.

Where do we go from here? All the way up.

The regulation rumors become reality

The U.S. Treasury has finally released the regulatory proposal around self-hosted wallets. The proposed rules will require money service businesses like crypto exchanges to report transactions to self-hosted wallets greater than $10,000 over 24 hours. Additionally, money service businesses will have to verify a customer’s identity if they send more than $3,000 in a single transaction to self-hosted wallets.

For some, the proposal as it currently stands is not as extreme as was feared. The proposed regulation essentially takes existing monetary reporting regulations required of cash transactions and extends them to cryptocurrency. However, others disagree with this outlook.

Author and Bitcoin advocate Andreas Antonopoulos has said, “It hurts exchanges and hosted wallets because they have to do more compliance work and make users jump through more hoops.”

U.S. based crypto exchange Kraken published a blog post on Monday detailing how the new rules further marginalize the poor by making it more difficult for them to participate in the financial system.

CoinFlip COO Ben Weiss spoke up in an article published by CoinTelegraph, stating that these regulations are a step toward financial exclusion.

“Without proper crypto regulation, the U.S. government might create a massive roadblock to financial inclusivity,” wrote Weiss.

The Salvation Army now accepts crypto donations in the U.S.

Salvation Army, the charitable organization, associated with a red kettle and bell ringers, has announced that it is now accepting donations in the form of Bitcoin and Ether. According to the announcement, one of the driving factors behind this decision is the economic fallout of the COVID-19 crisis. Commission Douglas Rider, leader of the USA Western territory, said,

Are you interested in tossing some coins into the crypto kettle? You can do so here. If you provide your zip code, the donations will fund your local Salvation Army initiatives.

Coinbase going public?

Last week, the US-based crypto exchange platform Coinbase announced that it submitted its draft registration for an initial public offering to the Securities and Exchange Commission. While the draft contents remain confidential, we know that Coinbase has been eying an IPO for a while. According to Business Insider, the significant investment bank Goldman Sachs is leading Coinbases’s upcoming IPO.

An IPO is a process of offering shares of a private corporation to the public by issuing stock to raise capital from public investors.

Will Tesla be the next big corporation to add Bitcoin to its balance sheet?

Over the weekend, Tesla CEO Elon Musk shared a Bitcoin meme with his 40 million Twitter followers. Michael Saylor, Bitcoin enthusiast and CEO of Microstrategy, responded to the meme by saying,

“If you want to do your shareholders a $100 billion favor, convert the $TSLA balance sheet from USD to #BTC. Other firms on the S&P 500 would follow your lead & in time it would grow to become a $1 trillion favor.”

Musk tweeted back by asking if such large transactions are even possible. On Sunday, he kept up with the Bitcoin bit by posting this. Despite these cheeky tweets, Musk has mentioned in the past that he is a believer in crypto markets, but as far as we know, he is not an avid investor.

So, will Tesla be the next big name in Bitcoin? At this point, it doesn’t seem so. But, as Bitcoin’s value continues to surge, we will never say never.

Rappers love affair with crypto

Famous rapper Megan Thee Stallion is the latest celebrity to hop on the Bitcoin bandwagon. Last week on Twitter, she announced her partnership with Square’s CashApp and a giveaway of $1 million in Bitcoin to “as many hotties” as possible. She encouraged followers to post #BITCOINMEG to be a part of the giveaway.

The post was not clear on how much each recipient could expect to receive. After clicking through the hashtag on Twitter, it seems that most recipients received around 50,000 satoshis each — or about $10.

This news comes alongside Lil Pump’s announcement of PumpCoin, a social coin designed to give fans exclusive access to the rapper. Lil Yachty did something similar earlier this month with YachtyCoin, another social coin that provides fans with exclusive access to the rapper.

However, 50 Cent was the first rapper making headlines in the crypto-sphere. In 2014, he accepted BTC as payment for his album’ Animal Ambition’, allegedly racking up around 700 bitcoins. Unfortunately for him, those BTC were transferred into USD and only worth about $660 at the time.

…If only someone told him about hodling. Today, those 700 BTC would be worth more than $16.3 million.

CoinFlip in the News

• Coinbase’s Crypto Conundrum — The New York Times
• Should you seize on Diem? Newly-rebranded cryptocurrency from Facebook may launch next month after replacing its libra vision — This is Money
• Rumored US crypto wallet restrictions: A step toward financial exclusion — CoinTelegraph

Like what you see? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the Weekly Flip Thru sent straight to your inbox.