Crypto Weekly Roundup: Elon Doesn’t Dump, He Pumps

Jeremy Koven
4 min readJul 23, 2021

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This week was defined by two important events:

  • The B Word
  • The ETHCC Conference.

Let’s see what happened in both of them.

The B Word

Firstly, let’s look at The B Word talk, which was headlined by a discussion between Tesla technoking Elon Musk, Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood, and Twitter & Square Founder Jack Dorsey — who was making his best Scott Ian impression.

Here are some interesting talking points from the conference:

  • If bitcoin mining completely embraces renewable energy, Tesla will accept bitcoin for transactions once again.
  • The only publicly-traded stock Musk owns is Tesla’s. He owns a significant amount of BTC and some DOGE and ETH.
  • Given his holdings, Musk is financially incentivized to act in favor of BTC. He said that he might pump, but he doesn’t dump.
  • Musk also confirmed that both Tesla and SpaceX own Bitcoin in their balance sheet.
  • Many Bitcoin Maxis argue that you shouldn’t make any changes to the original Bitcoin protocol since “it’s perfect.” This is why they are anti-SegWit and anti-Lightning Network. However, Musk argues that this stance is a bit asinine since Bitcoin was a software made back in 2008. It needs to keep up with the times.
  • Cathie Wood said that Bitcoin is the first implementation of a financial system defined by immutable code.
  • Jack Dorsey believes that Bitcoin will lead to world peace since it’s the money of the internet and allows the unbanked to take complete control of their finances.

Best Quote

Elon Musk: “If the price of bitcoin goes down I lose money. I might pump but I don’t dump. I definitely do not believe in getting the price high and selling or anything like that. I would like to see bitcoin succeed.”

The ETHCC Conference

Along with The B Word, the ETHCC conference was also going on with Lord Vitalik Buterin himself headlining the event.

Let’s skim through the main things that he said:

  • Etheruem’s overlord urged the community to innovate and think beyond the world of decentralized finance (DeFi).
  • Buterin lamented that FinApps currently “dominate the Ethereum space.” He believes that non-financial utilities are “the most interesting part of the vision of general-purpose blockchains.”
  • Buterin believes that there are two main reasons why DeFi apps are so popular. Firstly, centralized finance “sucks” in its implementation. Secondly, the high gas fees are pushing the sector towards financial apps
  • “The Ethereum ecosystem has to expand beyond just making tokens that help with trading other tokens,” stated Buterin.
  • Buterin insisted that him urging the community to “move beyond DeFi” is not him being anti-DeFi. He just wants a harmonious balance between financial and non-financial applications.
  • Interesting non-financial implementations include decentralized social media, identity verification, and attestation, and retroactive public goods funding.

Best Quote

Vitalik Buterin: “Maybe a few years from now we’ll have a lot of really exciting things […] that are just providing all kinds of very diverse and real value to all kinds of people, not just within the Ethereum ecosystem but also going far beyond it as well.”

In Closing

So there you go!

If you haven’t watched these talks, then I suggest you go on Youtube and do it at once.

Oh, and before I go, do you like Bitcoin? Do you like free Bitcoin? I sure do.

Why don’t you take our GetSmart Quizzes? Successfully answer the questions and win some SATs (satoshis)! After that, spread the love and send the quizzes to your friends and family. Let’s all earn some free SATs!

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Jeremy Koven
Jeremy Koven

Written by Jeremy Koven

Jeremy Koven, co-founder and COO of CoinSmart, has spent the last 12 years running successful internet companies from the ground up.