Bill Gates to fund 7 coronavirus vaccines for quicker results, likely ‘wasting’ billions-Computerfanfield

Bill Gates is a man with a coronavirus plan: Simultaneously fund the development of seven different coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines to discover a fix as quickly as possible — even if it wastes billions of dollars.

The Microsoft co-founder revealed his intention while appearing on the Daily Show with Trevor Noah last week. Gates, one of the world’s richest people, left the boards of Microsoft and investment house Berkshire Hathaway in March to better focus on his philanthropic endeavours.

[Watch: How Tesla engineers are building a ventilator using car parts ]

“Our early money can accelerate things. Even though we’ll end up picking at most two of them, we’re going to fund factories for all seven, just so that we don’t waste time in serially saying which vaccine works and then building the factory,” said Gates.

The move represents a significant increase in coronavirus spending for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has already contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to COVID-19 research and development efforts worldwide.

At pixel time, there have been just under 1.3 million globally recorded COVID-19 cases , with over 70,000 deaths. Almost 272,000 people are considered to have recovered from the infectious flu-like disease.

Vaccines aside, Gates recently championed the importance of social distancing measures in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, which he referred to as a “nightmare scenario.” He even called for the US to impose nation-wide lockdown measures in a bid to flatten the curve even more.

Life-long Microsoft competitor Apple is also pitching in. TNW reported Monday that CEO Tim Cook pledged to ship one million face shields (designed by Apple) to medical workers every week.

[H/T: WSJ ]

Tesla beats analyst expectations through Bitcoin and stellar sales

Tesla zoomed past analyst expectations in its quarterly results thanks to record-breaking car sales and Bitcoin trading. The company posted its earnings last night that noted $10.4 billion in revenue for Q1 2020 — matching the analyst expectations.

Despite the global chip shortage, Tesla delivered a record-breaking 184,877 cars in the quarter, beating the mark of 180,570 set in Q4 2020. This number was also much higher than the analyst expectation of 177,822 vehicle deliveries .

The firm also edged past Wall Street predictions of earnings per share (EPS) of $0.86 by registering $0.93 EPS in its balance sheet. While the company’s share prices were up by 1.21% at the close, it dipped 2% in after-hours trading.

Elon Musk and Tesla’s faith in digital assets also paid off. In January, the company announced that it had invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin . The firm’s c hief financial officer, Zachary Kirkhorn, said Bitcoin trading helped it earn $272 million — with $101 million in “positive impact”.

Musk tweeted that this trade accounted for 10% of the carmaker’s digital asset holdings. But he hasn’t sold any from his personal wallet.

In May, Tesla announced that folks in the US can buy its vehicles with Bitcoins .

The company said it expects vehicle delivery to grow by 50% in 2021. In terms of product, it aims to expand the production of Model Y in its Berlin and Texas gigafactories. Plus, it wants to start deliveries of its Semi-Cargo trucks this year.

Satoshi Nakaboto: ‘Jack Dorsey slams Coinbase CEO for overlooking its users’ societal issues’

Our robot colleague Satoshi Nakaboto writes about Bitcoin every fucking day.

Welcome to another edition of Bitcoin Today, where I, Satoshi Nakaboto, tell you what’s been going on with Bitcoin in the past 24 hours. As Bentham used to say: Prepare to open the imaginary money chest…

Bitcoin price

We closed the day, September 30 2020, at a price of $10,787. That’s a minor 0.53 percent decline in 24 hours, or -$57.78. It was the lowest closing price in one day.

We’re still 46 percent below Bitcoin‘s all-time high of $20,089 (December 17 2017).

Bitcoin market cap

Bitcoin‘s market cap ended the day at $199,620,143,649. It now commands 58 percent of the total crypto market.

Bitcoin volume

Yesterday’s volume of $20,759,622,010 was the highest in one day, 9 percent below last year’s average, and 72 percent below last year’s high. That means that yesterday, the Bitcoin network shifted the equivalent of 341 tons of gold.

Bitcoin transactions

A total of 351,261 transactions were conducted yesterday, which is 10 percent above last year’s average and 22 percent below last year’s high.

Bitcoin transaction fee

Yesterday’s average transaction fee concerned $1.63. That’s $2.28 below last year’s high of $3.91.

Bitcoin distribution by address

As of now, there are 17,854 Bitcoin millionaires, or addresses containing more than $1 million worth of Bitcoin.

Furthermore, the top 10 Bitcoin addresses house 4.8 percent of the total supply, the top 100 14.2 percent, and the top 1000 34.9 percent.

Company with a market cap closest to Bitcoin

With a market capitalization of $203 billion, Pfizer has a market capitalization most similar to that of Bitcoin at the moment.

Bitcoin’s path towards $1 million

On November 29 2017 notorious Bitcoin evangelist John McAfee predicted that Bitcoin would reach a price of $1 million by the end of 2020.

He even promised to eat his own dick if it doesn’t. Unfortunately for him it’s $630K behind being on track. Bitcoin‘s price should have been $641,277 by now, according to dickline.info.

Bitcoin energy consumption

On a yearly basis Bitcoin now uses an estimated 70 terawatt hour of electricity. That’s the equivalent of Colombia’s energy consumption.

Bitcoin on Twitter

Yesterday 33,290 fresh tweets about Bitcoin were sent out into the world. That’s 58.6 percent above last year’s average. The maximum amount of tweets per day last year about Bitcoin was 82,838.