Elon Musk Continues to be Curious About Cryptocurrencies
Elon Musk is inarguably one of the world’s greatest minds. He’s been part of Zip2, X.com, SpaceX, Tesla, SolarCity, Hyperloop, OpenAi, Neuralink and now The Boring Company (with flamethrowers ).
Throughout these projects one theme is apparent. His aim is to help the human race deal with a variety of issues that are currently being experienced or will be a major issue in the future. This includes dealing with the fossil fuel consumption levels in the car industry by developing an electric car company called Tesla, as well as looking towards space exploration through his SpaceX company.
Therefore, when Elon Musk speaks or does anything for that matter, people take notice. This is why when he was pictured with a book about cryptocurrency in his hand, the internet rumor mills went crazy.
The Book in Question
The book that Elon Musk was pictured holding is called Cryptocurrencies Simply Explained by Julian Hosp. This is a short book that provides a basic insight into the world of cryptocurrency, blockchain, bitcoin, decentralization and initial coin offerings.
The author, Dr. Julian Hosp is involved with a number of companies in the blockchain space, with the most prominent of those being a FinTech firm called TenX that specializes in the areas of bitcoin and blockchain. On his website , he makes clear his vision as helping at least 1 billion people to understand blockchain by 2025.
A lot of people in the crypto community are excited after seeing Musk pictured with a book related to the digital currency space. There are many theories as to why he has this book in his hands, with some speculating that he was simply handed it by someone.
Others, however, are a lot more optimistic and believe that Musk may be considering making some sort of headway in this space, perhaps by creating his own digital token that can be used in his Tesla and SpaceX businesses.
He is of course well versed in online payment systems, having the email payment and online financial services company he co-founded called X.com acquired by PayPal in the year 2000.
He subsequently went on to become the CEO of PayPal before being ousted in October 2000 due to issues with other leaders in the company. When the company was sold to eBay in 2002, Musk was the largest shareholder, with 11.7% of the company’s shares and he received approximately $165 million through this sale.
With this background in payment services, it wouldn’t be a far stretch to imagine Musk incorporating some form of blockchain technology or digital token into how his current businesses operate or even as a separate entity.
He does have somewhat of a small track record in the cryptocurrency space as an investor. He revealed that he has only owned 0.25 bitcoin that a friend gave him years ago. At the time of writing, this was worth approximately $2,330 which is not exactly a significant investment for a person with Musk’s net worth.
However, this does not mean that he doesn’t believe in blockchain technology or cryptocurrencies as a whole, so it will be interesting to watch what related moves, if any, he makes in the future.
Featured image from Flickr/OnInnovation .
