Musk gives BTC a jolt

Just a couple of days after dropping below $30,000, Bitcoin remained upwardly mobile early Thursday, bolstered by comments from Tesla CEO Elon Musk who told an online gathering it appears that sustainability concerns over BTC mining are abating.

"Most likely the answer is that Tesla would resume accepting Bitcoin," Musk said during yesterday's “The B Word” conference, a virtual showcase of bullish opinions from big-time BTC proponents.

Ark Invests founder Cathie Wood and Twitter/Square CEO Jack Dorsey were among the featured speakers, but, not surprisingly, Musk stole the show. The electric vehicle/space exploration mogul, citing concerns over environmental impact, in May declared that Tesla would no longer accept BTC for purchases.

Tesla holds about $1.4 billion of Bitcoin. Musk's other company, SpaceX, also, it was revealed, holds some BTC.

Yesterday's apparent course correction quashed some short sellers and helped send BTC higher. The largest crypto climbed by as much as 8% on Wednesday. At last check this morning at about 8 a.m. (EST), BTC was trading just under $32,000, having increased about 1% in the past 24 hours.

Looking at the largest 100 digital assets ranked by total market capitalization, there is one very noticeable loser: LEO Token (LEO).

LEO, the utility token of the Bitfinex exchange, and the 39th-largest crypto, lost 12% over the past 24 hours.

Bitfinex's sister company, Tether, meanwhile, has drawn renewed scrutiny over the ambiguity surrounding the reserve assets said to back its USDT stablecoin.

The number of open positions in BTC futures has reached their highest level in two months in what appears to be a proliferation of short sellers, an indication that the market has soured on the largest crypto, according to data from analytics provider Glassnode.

"Open interest" refers to the number of futures contracts traded but not squared off with an offsetting position, and the growth in the number of such contracts could be a harbinger of increased volatility (CoinDesk).

The rise of stablecoins – cryptos that seek to peg their values to traditional currencies such as the U.S. dollar – has led to intense scrutiny from regulators and the financial media, a trend which has put the largest stablecoin issuers in a race against time and one another.

On Monday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen declared the U.S. government must move quickly to establish a regulatory framework for stablecoins (Reuters).

One day later, Circle released more data about the assets behind its USDC, the second-largest stablecoin. And then yesterday, a Tether attorney, Stuart Hoegner, told CNBC's online viewers that an audit of Tether, issuer of the largest stablecoin, USDT, which like USDC is pegged to the dollar, could be mere “months away."

Tether has been promising such a formal kimono throw-open going back to 2017.

Among those who have repeatedly criticized Tether for its relative opaqueness is CNBC's Jim Cramer (CoinDesk).

Tying together economic parity, geopolitical instability and a sense of idealism that only a child or perhaps a beauty pageant contestant could understand, Jack Dorsey raised the bar on Bitcoin’s potential to the loftiest of heights: create world peace.

Or at least help it along.

Dorsey made the comments at the "The B Word" virtual conference that he helped stage to foster more institutional awareness of BTC's possibilities.

"You fix that foundational level and everything above it improves," the Twitter/Square CEO said. "It is in the long-term but my hope is definitely peace.”

Dorsey was quick to acknowledge his ambition "may sound a bit ridiculous."