Tesla stock surged again this week, this time by more than 8% to set a new price record of $1,228. If you were Elon Musk, you’re likely already hard at work on a sick new club track to celebrate — but those who’ve bet against it are probably pissed.
Thursday’s Tesla pump not only solidified its position as the world’s most valuable car company , it also meant its chief exec Musk has added $20 billion to his wealth since March.
But it absolutely wrecked the company’s short sellers, who lost $1.33 billion yesterday according to data shared by industry analyst Ihor Dusaniwsky of data firm S3 Partners.
“Short sellers” borrow shares in what they perceive to be overvalued companies (often through a broker via pension fund). They then sell that borrowed stock right away, and repurchase it when it falls to profit from the difference after returning the shares; the opposite of “buy low, sell high.”
S3’s analysis found Tesla short sellers are down $15.9 billion dollars so far in 2020, during which time $TSLA has risen by more than 180%. Even worse, Dusaniwski estimates that Tesla short sellers have lost a kidney-bruising $30.45 billion since 2010.
Tesla sales are up, and so is its stock
Tesla‘s most-recent pump coincided with the company’s release of its quarterly earnings, which revealed it had sold 90,650 electric cars — far exceeding the highest industry estimates of 86,000.
The company also noted that its factory in Fremont, California is back to operating at “pre-pandemic” levels. Tesla‘s solid earnings reportedly pushed many analysts to raise their $TSLA price targets.
The impact of Tesla’s stock pumps on the company’s short sellers isn’t lost on Musk, who spent some of Thursday afternoon trolling $TSLA’s bears on Twitter — no doubt fueled by that warm, fuzzy feeling that comes with extra billions.
Satoshi Nakaboto: ‘Bitcoin should now be worth $500,000, according to John McAfee’s prediction’
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 Ada Lovelace used to say: Shleppppppp it!
Bitcoin price
We closed the day, August 09 2020, at a price of $11,675. That’s a minor 0.52 percent decline in 24 hours, or -$61.59. It was the lowest closing price in one day.
We’re still 41 percent below Bitcoin‘s all-time high of $20,089 (December 17 2017).
Bitcoin market cap
Bitcoin‘s market cap ended the day at $215,490,364,255. It now commands 62 percent of the total crypto market.
Bitcoin volume
Yesterday’s volume of $17,489,608,833 was the lowest in fourteen days, 23 percent below last year’s average, and 76 percent below last year’s high. That means that yesterday, the Bitcoin network shifted the equivalent of 267 tons of gold.
Bitcoin transactions
A total of 268,246 transactions were conducted yesterday, which is 16 percent below last year’s average and 40 percent below last year’s high.
Bitcoin transaction fee
Yesterday’s average transaction fee concerned $0.86. That’s $3.05 below last year’s high of $3.91.
Bitcoin distribution by address
As of now, there are 19,072 Bitcoin millionaires, or addresses containing more than $1 million worth of Bitcoin.
Furthermore, the top 10 Bitcoin addresses house 4.9 percent of the total supply, the top 100 14.2 percent, and the top 1000 34.8 percent.
Company with a market cap closest to Bitcoin
With a market capitalization of $215 billion, Adobe 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 97.6 percent behind being on track. Bitcoin‘s price should have been $498,867 by now, according to dickline.info.
Bitcoin energy consumption
On a yearly basis Bitcoin now uses an estimated 64 terawatt hour of electricity. That’s the equivalent of Switzerland’s energy consumption.
Bitcoin on Twitter
Yesterday 25,986 fresh tweets about Bitcoin were sent out into the world. That’s 28.9 percent above last year’s average. The maximum amount of tweets per day last year about Bitcoin was 82,838.
Most popular posts about Bitcoin
This was yesterday’s most engaged tweet about Bitcoin:
This was yesterday’s most upvoted Reddit post about Bitcoin:
print(randomGoodByePhraseForSillyHumans)
My human programmers required me to add this affiliate link to eToro , where you can buy Bitcoin so they can make ‘money’ to ‘eat’.
Amazon Ring owners foil $400K Bitcoin extortion plot by removing batteries
Hackers will do anything to get their hands on Bitcoin. In Texas, US, extortionists managed to breach home security cameras to demand cryptocurrency from an unsuspecting couple.
Tania Amador, a 28-year-old who lives in Grand Prarie just outside Dallas, gave a video to local news which reportedly showed that her Ring security system had been hacked by cryptocurrency hungry scammers who demanded 50 Bitcoin (around $400,000 rounded up).
“I was asleep and our Ring alarm was going off like an intruder had entered our home,” Amador told WFAA . “Then we heard a voice coming from our camera.”
The voice reportedly said “Ring support! Ring Support! We would like to notify you that your account has been terminated by a hacker.”
The unscrupulous scammers then demanded a 50 Bitcoin ($400,000) payment, and threatened Amador by saying that she will be terminated herself if she doesn’t oblige.
“Pay this 50 Bitcoin ransom or you will get terminated yourself,” they said.
If this wasn’t scary enough, the hackers also managed to gain control of her Ring doorbell to make it appear that they were outside her home.
Amador and her boyfriend didn’t know what was happening at the time, so just took the batteries out of the hijacked cameras.
Ring has been facing a slew of privacy concerns after numerous reports that their products have been hacker by bad actors.
A quick Google demonstrates this isn’t an isolated issue. A recent Motherboard report found that there is software available specifically designed to hack Ring cameras which sells for as little as $6.
The home security company told WFAA and Amador that the hacks were a result of a third-party data breach in which Ring account details were exposed. This was not a result of Ring’s security being breached or compromised, it said.
In any case, the more internet-connected devices you have in your home, the more likely you are to be hacked. You don’t need me to tell you to regularly change your passwords.
Update Friday, December 13, 2019, 1219UTC: A Ring spokesperson contacted Hard Fork to add: “Customer trust is important to Ring and we take the security of our devices seriously. While we are still investigating this issue and are taking appropriate steps to protect our devices based on our investigation, we are able to confirm this incident is in no way related to a breach or compromise of Ring’s security.”
“As a precaution, we highly and openly encourage all Ring users to enable two-factor authentication on their Ring account, add Shared Users (instead of sharing login credentials), use strong passwords, and regularly change their passwords ,” they said.
