Bitcoin News Roundup for Jan. 27, 2021

With BTC breaking below $30K and the tether (USDT) saga gaining fresh attention, CoinDesk’s Market’s Daily is back with the latest news roundup.

Listen or watch all the new CoinDesk podcast episodes wherever you want.

ABOUT

With BTC breaking below $30K and the tether (USDT) saga gaining fresh attention, CoinDesk’s Market’s Daily is back with the latest news roundup.

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This episode is sponsored by Nexo.io.

Today's stories:

First Mover: Risks Nobody’s Ever Seen, From the Fed to Tether (and GameStop)

Risks surrounding the stablecoin tether (USDT) have been known for years, but they're commanding fresh attention as the amount outstanding swells to $25B.

Silver Lake’s Glenn Hutchins (until recently a New York Fed board member) says it’s “fundamentally wrong to say that bitcoin is most used for crime.” (Finextra)

Social networks turn to blockchain technology amid concerns over power wielded by centralized tech giants like Facebook, Google and Twitter. (NYT)

Bitcoin is an incredibly dirty business, with a carbon footprint comparable to New Zealand’s. (Bloomberg Opinion)

ARK’s Cathie Wood says bitcoin ETF approval unlikely until market cap rises to about $2T. (CoinDesk)

Former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein says in interview re: bitcoin: “If I were a regulator I would be kind of hyperventilating at the success of it at the moment, and I’d be arming myself to deal with it.” (CNBC via Twitter)

Colombia, Estonia upload Bitcoin white paper to their governmental websites. (CoinDesk)

“Price bubbles accelerate the growth of the bitcoin user base, the expectation of which then fuels the price bubble,” writes University of Southern California marketing professor in op-ed. (CoinDesk Opinion)

Retail traders are piling into viral options calls at all-time high levels, with massive buying of bullish contracts helping to fuel GameStop price pump. (Bloomberg)

China’s asset-bubble warning – and $12B drained from financial system on Tuesday via open-market operations – threatens stock frenzy in Hong Kong. (Bloomberg)

Blank-check companies are the talk of Reddit and TikTok as retail investors pour money into SPACs. (Bloomberg Businessweek)

Amid aviation-industry crisis, world’s biggest jet-leasing companies have issued $15B in bonds this month at yields from 2% to 3%, versus about 5% last summer. (WSJ)

Consumer confidence in U.S. improves more than expected on outlook for economy. (Bloomberg)

IMF estimates that close to 90M people are likely to fall below the extreme poverty threshold during 2020-21, with the pandemic wiping out some $22T in projected output through 2025. (Reuters)

HOST

Adam B. Levine

Adam B. Levine joined CoinDesk in 2019 as the editor of its new audio and podcasts division. Previously, Adam founded the long-running Let's Talk Bitcoin! talk show with co-hosts Stephanie Murphy and Andreas M. Antonopoulos.

Finding early success with the show, Adam transformed the podcast's homepage into a full newsdesk and publishing platform, founding the LTB Network in January of 2014 to help broaden the conversation with new and different perspectives. In the Spring of that year, he would go on to launch the first and largest tokenized rewards program for creators and their audience. In what many have called an early influential version of "Steemit"; LTBCOIN, which was awarded to both content creators and members of the audience for participation was distributed until the LTBN was acquired by BTC, Inc. in January of 2017.

With the network launched and growing, in late 2014 Adam turned his attention to the practical challenges of administering the tokenized program and founded Tokenly, Inc. There, he led the development of early tokenized vending machines with Swapbot, tokenized identity solution Tokenpass, e-commerce with TokenMarkets.com and media with Token.fm. Adam owns some BTC, ETH and small positions in a number of other tokens.