Be[In]Crypto Video News Show: Bullish Crypto Companies

In this episode of Be[In]Crypto’s Video News Show, host Juliet Lima takes a look at some of the companies most bullish on cryptocurrencies.

While Block Inc., Tesla, and MicroStrategy have most prominently demonstrated their crypto cred, other companies are steadily catching up.

Block Inc.

Formerly known as Square Inc., the financial payments company recently rebranded to Block Inc. According to the firm’s website the new name “has many associated meanings for the company — building blocks, neighborhood blocks and their local businesses, communities coming together at block parties full of music, a blockchain, a section of code, and obstacles to overcome.” 

Block is led by perennial cryptocurrency advocate Jack Dorsey, who recently stepped down from his role as CEO of Twitter to focus on Block because he considered it to be more important. Currently, among cryptocurrencies, Dorsey is an advocate for Bitcoin specifically, of which the company holds 8,027. Notably vocal in his support for the original cryptocurrency, Dorsey has said he believes it will be the native currency of the internet. 

The company is an overarching ecosystem of many businesses united by their purpose of economic empowerment, including Square, Cash App, Tidal, Spiral, and TBD. Spiral was launched to improve the Bitcoin ecosystem by contributing to open-source projects, while TBD is an open developer platform built to make it easy to create decentralized finance applications. 

Block’s foray into crypto with the Cash app has led other competitors to follow suit, with PayPal and Robinhood also enabling cryptocurrency within their businesses. As most of their efforts revolve around the open network on top of Bitcoin known as the Lightning Network, each company’s work will be compounded as they all contribute to the same underlying payment network.

Tesla

Another billionaire tech guru notable for his penchant for cryptocurrencies, but likely more infamous, is the inimitable Elon Musk. While also known for building rockets with his company SpaceX, he actually first made his money in payments as one of the founders of what would become PayPal. 

Today he is best known for leading electric car company Tesla, which made headlines last year by investing $1.5 billion in Bitcoin, of which the company currently holds 43,200. Soon after, Musk said the company would accept Bitcoin as payment for its vehicles, but later balked at the prospect citing environmental concerns. However, he said that once Bitcoin mining reduced its ecological impact, the company would reconsider accepting the crypto as payment. 

As part of these efforts, Tesla recently announced plans to partner with Block, and blockchain technology company Blockstream to mine Bitcoin using more sustainable solar power in Texas. Tesla will be providing a 3.8-megawatt solar array powering the mine, as well as 12-megawatt hour Tesla batteries to store any excess energy. The system will power 30 petahashes per second with 100% solar power, and will regularly release reports detailing the specifics of the mine’s energy usage to showcase Bitcoin’s ability to be a driver of future green energy developments.

MicroStrategy

Despite being a previously unknown American company providing business intelligence, mobile software, and cloud-based services, MicroStrategy burst onto the crypto scene in August 2020 when CEO Michael Saylor first announced putting Bitcoin on the firm’s balance sheet.  

Besides developing software to analyze internal and external data in order to make business decisions and to develop mobile apps, the company now holds the most Bitcoin of any company in the world, holding some 129,218. 

Saylor has become one of the most prolific proponents of Bitcoin, regularly appearing on podcasts, performing interviews, or speaking at any sort of crypto conference. He also frequently leverages his 2.3 million followers on Twitter to spread his Bitcoin gospel.

He believes that holding corporate reserves in cash is unwise and that Bitcoin will eventually replace gold, giving it a $6 million valuation estimate. While Saylor may seem somewhat delusional for having this perspective, the billionaire actually graduated from MIT with a double major in aeronautics and astronautics and science technology, and society.

Other crypto companies of note

While we believe these three companies to be the most bullish on crypto, there are others gaining traction by either purchasing large amounts of crypto or promoting it through advertising or other channels. These also include many exchanges and crypto mining companies. 

Companies like Coinbase, Marathon Digital Holdings, and Bitfarms Limited are trending towards the top of the Bitcoin leaderboard. Other companies are taking the route of sponsorship deals, such as Crypto.com. In addition to its logo being prominently emblazoned across UFC fighting rings and merchandise, the arena where the Los Angeles Lakers play is known as the Crypto.com Arena. Rival crypto platform FTX has also taken this route, buying the naming rights to the home arena for the Miami Heat.