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Bloomberg Opinion

8 Feb, 8 tweets, 4 min read

Elon Musk’s endorsement of Dogecoin as “the people’s crypto” — cheered by Gene Simmons and Snoop Dogg — sent Reddit traders stampeding into the Shiba Inu-themed coin.

As a result, its price is up around 1,000% year-to-date, eclipsing Bitcoin’s rise trib.al/V3V0dwY

Musk, reveling in the social-media excitement and speculation, tweeted: “I am become meme, destroyer of shorts.”

Yet Bitcoiners have chided Musk for inciting a doomed punt: “You’ve actually become a destroyer of lives,” one tweeted trib.al/V3V0dwY

The wagging fingers have a point. Billy Markus developed three hours of code to build Dogecoin in 2013. He’s in disbelief:

“The idea of dogecoin being worth 8 cents is the same as GameStop being worth $325,” said Mr. Markus, 38 years old trib.al/ZeMbWbd

The serious arguments for Bitcoin—its algorithmically enforced scarcity, its sophistication, its adoption—are conveniently missing.

Dogecoin is just “if we buy this thing it will go up, so let’s buy it; also it will be fun and Elon Musk tweeted about it.” trib.al/ZeMbWbd

Some are afraid that Musk’s past social-media praise of Bitcoin might not be as sincere as they had thought.

Another fear is that if Dogecoin ends up just another YOLO trade in the crypto timeline, it will reflect badly on all tokens, even Bitcoin trib.al/ZeMbWbd

In one scenario, there’s a crowd-driven rally in Dogecoin.

This spoils the Bitcoin purists’ story somewhat. Thrill-seeking Bitcoin believers will wonder whether they’re missing out on easier money if Doge is still alive and hitting record highs trib.al/V3V0dwY

In the other scenario, there’s a blowup of the Dogecoin trade.

This leaves Bitcoin potentially tainted by association. Unlike with GameStop, there aren’t obvious fundamentals to explain why Dogecoin is overvalued while Bitcoin would be undervalued trib.al/V3V0dwY

When the ICO bubble burst in 2017, Bitcoin wasn’t spared: Its price sank almost 90% over the course of a year and didn’t recover until last December.

Another crypto crash might see hedge funds go back to putting Bitcoin in the same bucket as Dogecoin trib.al/V3V0dwY

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With the Covid-19 crisis still raging in the U.S., some big advertisers have chosen to sit out Super Bowl LV:

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For Budweiser, it’s the first time in almost four decades that it won’t sponsor the NFL’s championship game.

Traditionally, it’s the advertising event of the year, with commercials just as much a part of the festivities as the game and halftime show trib.al/wwxFeCR

But the mood is different this year, and the excitement is lacking, even if M&M’s, Pringles and some of the other usual suspects will be there.

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This won’t come as a surprise: New research shows that the pandemic is disproportionately impacting children and young people’s mental health.

This might come as a surprise: Their smartphones might be able to help bloom.bg/2N26dOg

The nuances bear thinking about:

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Most aren’t getting any help bloom.bg/2N26dOg

The virus has left many young people facing significant distress in the form of:

➡️Anxiety
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There are more top female leaders than ever before:

♀️In the U.S., about 25% of the legislature is female
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♀️Half of the Biden-Harris cabinet is female trib.al/CoFV1qv

Women leaders are making gains in business as well.

For the first time in history, all S&P 500 firms have at least one female board member. The number of women CEOs in the S&P 500 hit an all-time high (though still only 7.8%) at the end of 2020 trib.al/CoFV1qv

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Bloomberg Opinion

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Israel should be celebrating:

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💉Another 15% have been given the first of two jabs
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The pandemic accomplished in 10 months what the internet has promised for decades: a shift away from expensive cities as the dominant centers of business activity.

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