The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) should be “looking to people” like Tesla CEO Elon Musk for market manipulation following the electric car maker’s recent decision to put bitcoin on its balance sheet, the economist and prominent bitcoin critic Nouriel Roubini said. Tesla’s CEO has been tweeting about bitcoin and dogecoin in recent weeks, at one point updating the bio of his popular Twitter profile to “#bitcoin.” Institutional interest in bitcoin has boosted the price of the leading cryptocurrency to new all-time highs.
Tesla purchased $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin.
Elon Musk’s Tesla filed its annual 10-K report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Monday, saying it purchased about $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin in January. The New York University economics professor similarly criticized MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor’s “irresponsible behavior” for converting a significant portion of the business intelligence firm’s cash reserves to bitcoin, considering the cryptocurrency’s volatility. MicroStrategy currently holds 71,079 BTC worth over $3 billion, according to an SEC filing last week.
Bitcoin could “collapse” if Tether and Bitfinex are indicted: Roubini.
In an interview on CoinDesk TV’s First Mover, bitcoin cynic Nouriel Roubini warned about how bitcoin could “collapse” if Tether, the issuer of the Tether (USDT) stablecoin, and crypto exchange Bitfinex are indicted this year. Stablecoin USDT has a $31 billion market capitalization and is subject to multiple ongoing investigations, including from the U.S. Department of Justice and the New York Attorney General’s office. At the center of the DOJ’s criminal investigation into Tether as an organization is whether or not USDT is used to inflate the cryptocurrency markets. Roubini further predicted that the world would eventually “phase out cash,” and the U.S. will create an “e-dollar.”
