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Bitcoin The Almighty Buck Apple

Apple Should Create Crypto Exchange and Buy Bitcoin, Says RBC (bloomberg.com) 103

Posted by BeauHD from the now's-the-time dept.
RBC Capital Markets says Apple should follow in Tesla's footsteps by getting into cryptocurrencies. Bloomberg reports: The iPhone maker could create a sizable new market for growth if it were to develop its Apple Wallet into a crypto exchange, said analyst Mitch Steves. "The wallet initiative appears to be a clear multi-billion dollar opportunity for the firm (potential for well over $40 billion in annual revenue with limited R&D)," Steves wrote in a note to clients. Companies like Square and PayPal, along with closely held exchanges like Coinbase, have all validated the exchange model as a real business, he said, and Apple would immediately gain market share if it were to enter the industry. In addition, Apple's ecosystem would offer improved security relative to the companies that would be its competitors.

While Apple's biggest cryptocurrency opportunity would be in building an exchange, it could also consider adding Bitcoin or another digital currency to its balance sheet, RBC wrote. "This would send even more users to 'Apple Exchange,'" Steves said, and would likely further boost Bitcoin prices. Yesterday, Elon Musk announced that Tesla invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin and said it may accept the cryptocurrency as a form of payment in the future. As a result, Bitcoin prices climbed as much as 16%, cresting $44,000 and hitting a record.
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Apple Should Create Crypto Exchange and Buy Bitcoin, Says RBC More

Apple Should Create Crypto Exchange and Buy Bitcoin, Says RBC

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  • Hi Apple! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09, 2021 @09:32PM (#61046176)
    Hi there Apple, it's your friends at RBC Capital. We, a company that had ~$8BB in revenue last year, have some business advice for you guys who made $275BB. We really think you are missing out on a really huge market here, and we know you don't see it and haven't thought about it so we wanted to give you a heads up.

    Your profit margins are triple ours? Well sure, but if we could have just a few minutes of your time to go over our proposal we know you'll be excited to....

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Indeed. Nicely sums it up. But, you know, my take is not that they actually want to influence Apple, but they are interested in strengthening the myth that BTC is "legitimate" and a "good investment". All part of the still running "pump" cycle of the scam.

      What I do not get is what Musk wants in there. One possibility is he can simply afford to gamble this high. Another is that he is more interested in promoting a fantasy of his own than actually making money there. That the guy has a huge ego and only a ten

      • Re: Hi Apple! (Score:5, Funny)

        by Type44Q ( 1233630 ) on Tuesday February 09, 2021 @11:41PM (#61046494)

        What I do not get is what Musk wants in there.

        He was wondering the same thing, once the weed wore off.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          What I do not get is what Musk wants in there.

          He was wondering the same thing, once the weed wore off.

          Indeed.

        • A financial firm making money off trading and selling financial products wants Apple to legitimize another financial product so quants around the world can trade more financial products

          About as newsworthy as "Opposition party X criticizes the president"
        • publicity ... changing the world and all that - getting more money from money thats llying around. I m a bit more concerned what happens to BTC liquidity once the zillionnaire club starts hodling it, its not like MegaCorp is known for its vast pools of money it uses to invest in anything but money so those coins would be lying around mostly "accumulating" instead of flowing, so since BTC is limited in number the carbon footprint will fix itself over time but if its no longer traded because six billionnaires

  • This is actually starting to distrub me (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday February 09, 2021 @09:34PM (#61046182)
    I could see the big mega corporations using crypto currency to bypass government fiat currencies. This sounds great to the libertarian types because they don't think of private companies like governments. And they very much should [engadget.com]

    Think of it this way, imagine if you're paid in bitcoin but your boss controls the value of bitcoin (by virtue of the fact that it's a finite currency with deflation built in and they own a large amount of it). That is not going to end well. At least with a Government fiat currency I have some limited control vis-a-vis my voting and political activity. If stuff like this goes unchecked the mega corps will create their own fiefdoms and we'll become serfs. A few of us get to be knights (read: police & PMCs) and an even smaller number will occasionally get admitted to the nobility.

    I don't really want to regress back to the middle ages in terms of government.

    • Re: This is actually starting to distrub me (Score:5, Insightful)

      by shanen ( 462549 ) on Tuesday February 09, 2021 @09:56PM (#61046224) Homepage Journal

      Care to bet that this RBC company owns a lot of Bitcoin? You have to give me high odds to take the other side.

      There is no value in Bitcoin, just the opinion of speculators that it has some value. If the opinions change, then the intrinsic value goes back to zero. I still think the natural threat is from someone with a better cryptocurrency that has more favorable opinion, but it could also be a successful gamester or government action that crashes it. The only good thing you can say is that no actual value will disappear when that happens.

      Any shareholder in a company that pretends to have real value should be totally opposed to the company getting involved in Bitcoin speculations. Then again, I'm not sure there are any publicly traded companies that can still make that claim. Market cap itself is illusionary.

      Reductio ad absurdum time? If Bitcoin is the most profitable investment, then every company should sell off every part of itself that is not involved in speculating on Bitcoins.

      Usual disclaimer for posting mobile and possibly missing mistakes from the dictation.

      • and by extension everything related to purchases and the economy then yes, there's a lot of value to be had. Right now they at least have to listen to the Fed if only just a little. But they want that power for themselves. Pure and unfiltered, without folks like Elizabeth Warren or Katy Porter calling them out and reigning in the worst of their excesses.

        Combine this with a few other odds and ends initiatives they have and you'd get us back to the robber barons of the 1900s. I mean sure, Musk, Gates, Bez

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          That is bullshit. You already have to declare ownership on cryptcurrencies and pay taxes on earnings in many countries. As soon as this gets large enough, it gets fully regulated and that is it. Then having it is about as valuable as money from some crashing economy.

          • that the 1% control. Yes, taxes will still be paid to governments (they 1% still want their bail out money, and somebody's gotta front that cash) but like my post says, imagine if everything is paid in their dollars?

            And if you think companies the size of Apple with values in the Trillions can't control Bitcoin you need to think again.
        • They are much smaller than Carnegie in total wealth as well as percent of the pie. Inflation adjusted, Carnegie was worth over 1.2 trillion at his peak. Which means Musk et al at only 15% of the way there.

        • I think you are mapping "value" to "power", but even that is a subjective call. But the power focus leads you to different harms than the ones that concern me from a more purely mathematical perspective.

          I guess one way to pose the question is "Are they more motivated by greed for money or lust for power?" I'm interpreting your comments to indicate that you think it's power while I think it's pure love of money for its own sake. But they are insane sociopaths in either case.

          However I don't see much hope for

      • There is no value in Bitcoin, just the opinion of speculators that it has some value.

        This is not true.

        • It's got all the value of a stack of Sudoku books, minus the actual paper. 300 GB of arbitrary math, and growing each day!

          • Multiple people are, every second as I type, valuing it at approximately $46,500 USD / BTC.

            Other than the usual "they are just stupid and I know better", why you believe you should be able to unilaterally determine its value?

            • And 6 months ago it was 13,000. Nothing triples in value that fast that is based on anything useful.

              You will never go to a store and pay in bitcoin. Have that store hold bitcoin and then pay employee and suppliers. It is far volatile for that. No. A company accepts bitcoin immediately turns it to a giant useful currency that is stable holds it for bills and then pays it's bills in in the local fiat currency.

              No bitcoin is just the top 10% of earners trying to grow money because interest rates suck. And they

            • Its value is intrinsic, not something I determine.

              As far as the believers, I would describe them as "deluded" rather than the words you (unilaterally!) put in my mouth. In the history of mass delusions, this one holds sway over comparatively few.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            Sudoku books have a real use, even if they are only stored as data. Bitcoin does not.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Care to bet that this RBC company owns a lot of Bitcoin?

        They or somebody with influence over them. We are getting closer to the next "dump" cycle. A bit surprising it has not already happened, but clearly the influx of moron makes waiting a bit longer worthwhile. Do not forget that everybody can see everything that happens in the blockchain. It is just harder to identify the individuals, but that is not really necessary. Hence the big player(s) behind this have all the data they need to stay in control.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by shanen ( 462549 )

          Good point. Reminds me to wonder what happened to all the billions of dollars the shorters lost in the GameStop debacle. Safe to wager the money (if it ever existed?) didn't wind up in the pockets of people who actually need some money for such junk as food for their children.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      I could see the big mega corporations using crypto currency to bypass government fiat currencies.

      That is a good thing. Because if that ever happens, it will get regulated really fast. It already is in part (for example, I would have to declare any cryptocurrency I own in my taxes here), but as soon as it gets regulated it essentially becomes worthless for bypassing anything.

    • I could see the big mega corporations using crypto currency to bypass government fiat currencies.

      Why would they? Think about it for a second. A corporation is heavily beholden to the laws of the land in which they actively operate. What benefit would they gain from bypassing the fiat currency? Remember that governments typically manipulate fiat currencies to ensure their economies stay as stable as possible (to the extreme benefit of the companies operating in it).

      I could see corporations using crypto currency to bypass hostile governments in countries in which they do not operate... all the while wish

    • Well, your boss is paying you in dollars (replace here with pretty much any fiat currency) and your government is printing them pretty much when they feel like. How's this going to end well ? How can you influence the value of your fiat currency if someone is printing them at will ? At least with BTC, no one can control it's creation rate.
      • Actually this isnt true, the main reason america is a super power is because they can print $USD with minimal risk of inflation while other countries dont have that privilege. Most other countries cant print USD they actually have to trade for them.
        • Please take the time to listen to this interview, might change your opinion about fiat printing https://www.microstrategy.com/... [microstrategy.com]
          • Is my statement effectively true over the past 50 years ?
            • Pretty much. But can we extrapolate that for the next 50 ?
              • I think its a real concern for America. I think enough big people in America realise that they need to stop the chinese machine, while America still has some economic superiority if it has not already lost that. America is dying, i think everybody can see that. The same thing happened to Britain last century, when the pound lost its supremacy and the USD became the prime international currency, the empire was lost.

    • I could see the big mega corporations using crypto currency to bypass government fiat currencies.

      I can't.

      These cryptocurrencies are highly traceable. And they are treated like any other assets when transferred, and taxed at their current value.

  • Why? No, seriously... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Tuesday February 09, 2021 @09:37PM (#61046190)
    Im asking seriously. Why? What does crypto do that regular money doesnt? I get it, its useful if youre a money launderer, drug dealer, a part of a rogue government thats frozen out of the global financial system, or some other sort of criminal. I also get why doom preppers like it. Also, if youre in the mood to invest in one of the riskiest asset classes in existence and russian roulette isnt Xtreme enough for you, crypto is great. Someone will point out the rise in value. Sure, its made a few hundred people wealthy and spawned a small industry catering to the computing needs.

    Apple is in none of these classes. Why?

    • Re:Why? No, seriously... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Tuesday February 09, 2021 @09:59PM (#61046228) Journal

      I also get why doom preppers like it.

      Now that I totally do not understand. Bitcoin are just numbers, and those numbers are worthless without a significant network of computing hardware that gives value to those numbers by performing computationally expensive algorithms against them. In the event of a collapse of society, bitcoin would be the most worthless asset you could possibly own. Why would anyone trade or barter with you for goods in exchange for a number that no one can even prove is valid? Even paper cash would have far more value in a post apocalyptic world.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        In the event of a crash it becomes completely unusable, because transferring BTC requires the blockchain to be up and running and new "coins" being "mined".

      • In the event of a collapse of society, bitcoin would be the most worthless asset you could possibly own. [...] Even paper cash would have far more value in a post apocalyptic world.

        No, it would have slightly more value. And that value would be limited to its utility as fairly terrible toilet paper.

      • Hm. Yeah. You're right "Doomsday pepper" was the wrong group. I'm thinking of the people who are constantly predicting that the USD will collapse tomorrow because it's a fiat currency and why don't we all go back to the gold standard because it was so great in the late 1800s when 40% of the population couldn't afford shoes or medicine and working in the coal mines was soo good for the health.

      • Doom preppers like it because they are dumb, and lack the critical skills to actually choose good preparations.

    • What does crypto do that regular money doesnt?

      It has scarcity.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        What does crypto do that regular money doesnt?

        It has scarcity.

        As it has no relation to any real value, it does not. It has the _illusion_ of scarcity.

        • It has the _illusion_ of scarcity.

          No, it has actual scarcity.

          https://medium.com/@100trillio... [medium.com]

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            It has the _illusion_ of scarcity.

            No, it has actual scarcity.

            https://medium.com/@100trillio... [medium.com]

            Nope. In order to be "scarce", it needs to be real. It is not. Anybody can easily make their own "bitcoin" in any amount desired, by simply forking the blockchain. Of course, they create a new fantasy bubble that way and have to stay in it for any "trades".

            What has some level of real scarcity is morons believing all that crap and fantasizing that this stuff is somehow "money".

            • You don't believe bitcoin is real?

              If it isn't real, how could someone make their own copy of it?

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by gweihir ( 88907 )

                You don't believe bitcoin is real? If it isn't real, how could someone make their own copy of it?

                You can copy descriptions of fantasies. The fantasies themselves are still not real.

          • Numbers are not scarce.
            • It makes me sad that Slashdot has turned into this, since it was once a place where I could be confident most of the posters had some actual technical capability when it comes to computer science.

              I really should stop reading Bitcoin stories as they highlight the degradation.
      • Gold has scarcity, why don't we divvy up all the gold in a certain reserve and keep track of it with a computationally cheap distributed blockchain that is able to charge low fees because its most active node spends $12 a year on electricity?
      • Holy shit, are you an idiot.

      • And yet anyone can fork Bitcoin and create their own cryptcurrency. That's why we have Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin SV amongst the myriad of shitcoins. It's like anyone can make their own US Mint. Hardly scarce.

      • No, crypto-currency does not have scarcity. There may be a fix amount of any particular crypto-currency, but new crypto-currencies are constantly being created.

        • Good thinking.

          Likewise the fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is not scarce because painted ceilings are put up every day of the year.

    • What does crypto do that regular money doesnt?

      The killer feature is you aren't under some central authority's thumb. Ask anyone who's had their PayPal account locked for dubious reasons, or who can't make a purchase because the people in charge have blacklisted a legal, but controversial, business.

      Pornhub got screwed because the credit card companies make the rules. Numerous artists have had their PayPal locked out for selling intangible goods. People routinely face fees and hassles transferring money across borders. Countries make bad monetary pol

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        The killer feature is you aren't under some central authority's thumb. Ask anyone who's had their PayPal account locked for dubious reasons, or who can't make a purchase because the people in charge have blacklisted a legal, but controversial, business.

        So instead of being under the thumb of one dubious organization, these eCoins are under the thumb of multiple dubious orgs. Same problem, just split up.

        And governments will stick their fingers into the private eCoin pies if they really want to anyhow, perhap

      • The killer feature is you aren't under some central authority's thumb.

        Is that a problem for anyone who isn't dodgy AF? I know anarchists like sticking it to the man, but the reality for most people is that modern democracies are a net benefit.
        The killer feature for real money is that if someone takes it, there are entire police forces and armies ready to support restoring it. I think that killer feature out kills whatever killer feature crypto offers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Im asking seriously. Why? What does crypto do that regular money doesnt?

      1. It inspires the fantasy of a host of not very smart people that have money that can be taken from them
      2. It allows some large players to run a legal pyramid-scheme

      Hence it is a very nice scam, which regular money is not.

    • Because the other alternatives suck, especially in countries with negative interest rates. This makes speculation cheap, and a cartel of buyers can use futures or barbell coverage's to make it risk free, nearly. However this also threatens US Fed and other central banks if this became trendy. Eventually the fed will need to reform taxes and tax havens to ensure currency devaluations do not take hold, and keep the USD king. Yes taxation on those invisible clouds of money. Just remember keys are easily extrac

      • Because the other alternatives suck, especially in countries with negative interest rates.

        There are already mechanisms to deal with this, such as not keeping your currency in a country with negative interest rates. No need to adopt some fancy crypto bullshit that offers no upsides and a hell of a lot of downsides.

    • now imagine they spend that bitcoin at a store you own for prices you set. Now imagine you own so much Bitcoin that you can manipulate the price at will (doable, because there is a finite amount of bitcoin in the world).

      I suspect that's the train of thought that's drawing in the big boys.
  • The idea of a company like Apple controlling the exchange of money itself, plus getting in bed with all the criminal elements that inherently come with crypto, are we TRYING to make Cyberpunk into real life?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      No risk of that. Bitcoin is far, far too sluggish and slow and transactions are too expensive for it to be ever usable as "money". Add high volatility and absolutely no backing (i.e. can crash to zero) and nobody sane will ever accept it in trade.

  • Philip Elmer-DeWitt ranks Wall St analyst predictions after each of Apple's quarterly results. As a group, they do TERRIBLY at predicting how Apple will do. See https://www.ped30.com/tag/earn... [ped30.com] There are a few who do well. But most of them do very poorly understanding Apple's core business. The 'unaffiliated' (mostly amateur) analysts have much better track records predicting Apple results, so as Muldar would say, "The Truth is Out There." Page through a couple quarters of results, and you'll see th

  • laughable (Score:3)

    by Ritz_Just_Ritz ( 883997 ) on Tuesday February 09, 2021 @10:22PM (#61046282)

    It's laughable that anyone continues to take a contrived "virtual currency" seriously. It is one of the most horrific consumers of electricity (and by extension fossil fuel consumption) Do the research. Most of it is mined in China and other countries addicted to fossil fuel electricity generation.

    Can you hipsters at least take a stab at being consistent?

    https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/0... [cnbc.com]

    You are being used.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Indeed. But those in there are either not very smart (the small ones) or are large ones that finally have found an instrument useful for squeezing money out of all the small ones that does not have oversight or laws limiting what they can do to the morons.

      • You'll know the end is nigh when the handful of whales holding most of the supply of BTC start unloading it to the lemmings and laugh all the way to the place where they store their real "fiat currency" wealth while looking for their next con.

    • But so many hipster heroes are pimping it. Even Musk, lauded eco-savior and part-time market manipulator. (Join the alt-finance revolution! Stick it to the man!)

      There are plenty of individuals who never lost 1 paycheck due to Coronavirus, but are itching to spend that sweet, sweet stimulus. Why not throw it on the roulette wheel under "GME" or "AMC" or "BTC" and take a spin? (Hell, I can afford to lose it! It was free money!)

      But what I find interesting about this particular chapter in the Bitcoin saga, is t

    • Most of it is mined in China and other countries addicted to fossil fuel electricity generation.

      Not entirely correct. Most of it isn't mined by fossil fuel addiction. In fact even in China's case your own reference points out that it is mostly mined in a region of china with heavy use of hydropower.

      Mind you that doesn't change the fact that a "green electron" whizzing around a bitcoin asic means a "coal electron" is whizzing around someone's house, but the point is that bitcoin isn't mined in places favouring fossil fuels, but rather places where governments manipulate energy prices to remain artifici

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday February 09, 2021 @10:32PM (#61046308)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • I need to know.

      People have been predicting peak retard now for hundreds of years. However thus far humans have been able to rise the challenge!

  • and Charge an 30% commission on trades!

  • But I can see lots of people now hope to profit from the pyramid scheme.

  • *Furiously buys Bitcoin in the background*

    Am I an investment bank analyst now? Or a pump-n-dumper? (Is there a difference?)

  • Due to US monetary and fiscal policy, corporations are sitting on a ton of cash. Previously instead of investing in productive ways, such as R&D or increasing production, corporations found it better to simply buy back their stock or release dividends. Now that's not even being recommended anymore, instead it's to buy into cryptocurrency.

    • Simple solution: Raise the minimum wage & increase top bracket tax rates to fund the transition to renewable energy sources & make energy use more cost-effective & efficient. That should get rid of some of monetary choke points, e.g. corporations sitting on huge piles of cash, that are constipating the economy. Now, more than ever we need economic stimuli if we're to recover from the pandemic financial crisis. Stuff like this would be a no-brainer if governments answered to the people more than

  • Round 1 (pump): Hey investors, here's another opportunity to make big ROIs, just buy what we tell you to. Don't ask too many questions or do any due diligence. You gotta shoot from the hip like John Wayne to make it big in this world!

    Round 2 (dump): Now you've inflated the price of the blockchain we bought, we're gonna bet against it (AKA 'hedge') & sell like there's no tomorrow. Say bye bye to you money - we've got it now LOLZ, ROTFL =)))

    Meanwhile, blockchain is burning up a medium-sized country's wor

  • I used to think only Hollywood pumped out the bullshit. It seems every sitcom, theres a very high likelihood that one character will be a multi billionaire or kid of a massive ceo and so on. Watch Maverick, and every show, it may be a 1 pub town but theres always a train baron, or multi millionaire. Now in real life we have pathetic people like Kanye and Kim and now Bitcoin.
  • RBC Capital Markets, who are they ? Hope Apple doest'y fall for the Bitcoin scam.

  • The best way to get the big tech companies split up is for them to start dealing with bitcoin in this way. This would surely spark concern and investigation from the Securities and Exchange Commission. I can only suggest this is a misguided recommendation and a trap that would hurt Apple.

  • Yes, Apple could probably make another fortune by making it easy to buy Bitcoin, maybe even on their phones. Why though? Your local convenience store could as well. Proof of usefulness is when you can actually spend the damn stuff rather than just buy it!

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