As the perceived legitimacy of blockchain technology increases, politicians in the United States have shown a growing interest in turning this non-partisan technology into a topic of political divisiveness.

Speaking via video to an audience of the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore on Friday, former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said while cryptocurrencies were an “interesting” technology, they also had the power to undermine the U.S. dollar and destabilize nations — “perhaps starting with small ones but going much larger.” While no longer the leader of the Democratic Party, Clinton’s sentiment on crypto resembles that of top Democrat and senator Elizabeth Warren, who has often criticized the crypto market during committee hearings.

Clinton’s comments came while discussing Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom she accused of being behind a disinformation and cyberwarfare campaign — seemingly also referring to ransomware attacks and some of the crypto payments associated with them. While the former presidential candidate’s intentions are unknown, a prominent Democratic voice like Clinton’s further connecting Russia to a seemingly apolitical financial tool like crypto may have the potential to do damage among U.S. lawmakers trying to enact policy on both sides of the aisle…read more.

Australian baseball club Perth Heat has announced a partnership with Bitcoin payment processor OpenNode to accept and make payments in Bitcoin (BTC). The partnership allows Perth Heat to pay professional players and staff in Bitcoin.

According to the announcement, the professional sports club will send and receive payments in Bitcoin over the Lightning Network. In addition, the partnership with OpenNode allows the Perth Heat organization to accept Bitcoin payments for sponsorships, merchandise and other revenue streams.

Taking things a step further, Perth Heat has also rebranded itself as “the Bitcoin baseball team.”…read more.

New York Mayor-elect Eric Adams appears to be doubling down on his pro-crypto stance, asserting that schools should incorporate cryptocurrency studies into their curricula.

Speaking during a Sunday interview with CNN’s State of the Union, Adams described cryptocurrency as “a new way of paying for goods and services throughout the entire globe,” urging local schools to equip students for “the new way of thinking” brought about by blockchain technology and digital assets.

Adams also anecdotally noted surprisingly low awareness of crypto among his young constituents. “When I talked about blockchain and Bitcoins, young people on the street stopped and asked me, ‘What is that?’” said the 61-year-old.

He also indicated plans to encourage New York businesses to accept Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies as a form of payment, saying he would “tread carefully” and “get it right.” The mayor-elect added that New York must remain a “center of innovation, no matter what that innovation is.”

Adams’ comments have been met with mixed reactions from the crypto community on social media…read more.

Bitcoin (BTC) marking a new high of $67,000 last week has opened the possibility of hitting $100,000 by the end of this year.

PlanB, creator of the popular Bitcoin Stock-to-Flow (S2F) model, called Bitcoin’s price retracement from the $60,000-level the “2nd leg” of what appeared like a long-term bull market.

In doing so, the pseudonymous analyst cited S2F, which anticipates Bitcoin to continue its leg higher and reach $100,000 to $135,000 by the end of the year.

The price projection model insists that Bitcoin’s value will keep on growing until at least $288,000 per token due to the “halving,” an event that takes place every four years and reduces BTC’s issuance rate by half against its 21 million supply cap.

Notably, Bitcoin has undergone three halvings so far: in 2012, 2016 and 2020.

Each event decreased the cryptocurrency’s new supply rate by 50%, which was followed by notable increases in BTC price. For instance, the first two halvings prompted BTC price to rise by over 10,000% and 2,960%, respectively.

The third halving caused the price to jump from $8,787 to as high as $66,999, a 667.50% increase. So far, S2F has been largely accurate in predicting Bitcoin’s price trajectory, as shown in the chart below, leaving bulls with higher hopes that Bitcoin’s post-halving rally will have its price cross the $100,000 mark…read more.

The US political system is not sustainable and the skyrocketing price of the decentralized cryptocurrency bitcoin underscores that point, says tech billionaire Peter Thiel, according to a report from The Information.

“I don’t know that you should put all your money into bitcoin at $60,000 a bitcoin right now,” Thiel said at a Monday night gathering of the Federalist Society, a conservative law group. “But surely the fact that it is at $60,000 is an extremely hopeful sign. It’s the canary in the coal mine. It’s the most honest market we have in the country, and it’s telling us that this decrepit… regime is just about to blow up,” he said.

The venture capitalist made his comments before bitcoin blasted higher Wednesday to a new all-time record high of $66,812.68 on the back of Tuesday’s trading debut of ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF, the first bitcoin-futures exchange-traded fund. The price of the world’s most-traded digital coin overtook the previous all-time high of $64,804.72 logged in April, around the time when crypto exchange Coinbase went public.

Thiel has made crypto-industry investments through VC firms he’s helped establish, including the Founders Fund. He is a backer of 1confirmation, along with Marc Andreessen and Mark Cuban…read more.