The CoinGeek Pulse Episode 84: Elon Musk buys 9.2% stake in Twitter, latest blockchain industry updates and BSV hits 10M transactions in 24 hours

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Elon Musk shakes the Twitter world again! This time, the Tesla CEO has taken a 9.2% stake in the company, which makes him now the social media giant’s biggest shareholder. Does this signal a new wave of innovation involving digital currencies for the social media platform? 

A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing revealed Musk’s purchase of shares in a passive stake of the social media giant Monday. The move came after he polled his followers weeks earlier on whether Twitter adheres rigorously to how essential free speech is to a functional democracy. 70% of over 2 million Twitter users voted no in the poll, and Musk later tweeted that “the consequences of this poll will be important.” Days later, Musk asked on Twitter if there was a need for a new platform—which was met with user comments telling him to buy the social media platform.

Jack Dorsey, Twitter founder and former CEO, has since tweeted how he is partially to blame for the damage caused by “centralizing discovery and identity into corporations” to the internet. 

It is still unclear what Musk plans to do with Twitter. Early this year, he criticized the social media platform for introducing NFT profile pictures instead of using engineering resources against digital currency scammers spamming the social media network threads. 

The same day the news broke about Musk purchasing the social media giant, the BSV blockchain hit a record-breaking 10 million transactions in 24 hours—a feat that no other public blockchain, including BTC and Ethereum, has achieved.  

Ethereum, which is a popular hobby blockchain for applications and smart contracts, only managed a little over one million transactions in the same 24-hour period. Meanwhile, BTC processed more than 200,000 transactions over the same period due to its artificially limited block capacity. 

Big block alert: A new big block just mined by @MineLikeAnApe , mainly produced by: @CryptoFights
size: 3.56GB (the second largest block)
tx: ~2.5 millions (the most tx in a single block)
fee: ~10 bsvhttps://t.co/gdAKr0yzlC pic.twitter.com/3HHrwdULFD

— BSVData (@bsvdata) April 4, 2022

The 10 million daily transactions on BSV were followed by another record of 2.5 million transactions in a single block early this week with nearly 10 BSV in transaction fees alone, on top of the regular 6.25 block subsidy. Bitcoin miner GorillaPool earned 16 bitcoins for the record-breaking block. 

BSV is now responsible for over 50% of all daily blockchain-based transactions in the world. 

https://twitter.com/bullish_art/status/1511167844083331075?s=20&t=U5-KCJjsk1qNn-peiswrsg

This record-breaking news has inspired some Twitter users like Bullish Art to respond to Elon Musk on how integrating BSV on Twitter would allow proof of work micropayments. 

Here are the latest industry updates from the East and the West. 

In Asia, Indonesia is set to impose a value-added tax and income tax on digital assets starting May 1. Indonesians are allowed to trade digital currency assets as a commodity but not to use them for payments. 

In other news, Indonesia’s Gojek sold Philippines-based fintech firm Coins.ph to the former CFO of Binance. According to media reports, the deal was worth nearly $200 million.  

Coins.ph was established in 2014 as a digital wallet, which later turned into a financial services virtual platform. 

Across Europe, Britain revealed plans to create and issue its own NFT through Royal Mint. City Minister John Glen announced how the U.K. would bring digital assets under more regulatory scrutiny—adding the government wants Britain to “lead the way” in digital currency. 

In the U.S., global hip hop icon and rapper Snoop Dogg released a music video created entirely on the metaverse—a first in the space. D-O-double-G’s latest video, House I Built, features the rapper’s digital twin vibing and dancing in Snoopverse, Snoopdogg’s virtual world built on the Sandbox metaverse platform. 

From one artist to the next, check out the highlights of the recent AIBC in Dubai featuring Akon and other blockchain projects. Plus, be sure to sign up to get access to CoinGeek’s Bitcade Miami—the first pop-up Bitcoin Arcade happening on April 9 at The Broken Shaker on South Beach. 

Join us on April 9, 7-10 pm for the first pop-up #Bitcoin Arcade!

Come in and enjoy a special themed punch and tacos!

Play and earn bitcoin on some of the most innovative #BSVBlockchain based games.

Register: https://t.co/qw3aC3t4LB pic.twitter.com/VOvJJzHIqt

— CoinGeek (@RealCoinGeek) April 4, 2022

To watch the coverage of these events, visit the CoinGeek YouTube Channel.

Watch: AIBC Dubai 2022 highlights: Akon, play to earn games & using blockchain tech to do