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In a surprising turn, former President Donald Trump has shifted his stance on cryptocurrencies, now expressing support for Bitcoin as he campaigns for the 2024 presidential election. Speaking at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump criticized President Biden and SEC Chair Gary Gensler for their allegedly hostile approach to crypto, positioning himself as the pro-crypto candidate. According to Cointelegraph, during his presidency, Trump was a vocal critic of Bitcoin, labeling it as a tool for illegal activities. However, his recent remarks suggest a strategic pivot to attract the growing number of crypto enthusiasts. This change aligns with dissatisfaction in the crypto community over the Biden administration’s regulatory stance, which many see as stifling innovation. Key figures in the crypto world, such as Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson, have accused the Biden administration of actively undermining the industry. Trump’s new pro-Bitcoin stance aims to leverage this sentiment, presenting a stark contrast to his opponent. Despite skepticism about his genuine commitment to cryptocurrency, Trump's strategy might resonate with voters in swing states, where crypto holders could influence the election outcome. A recent poll indicated that nearly 20% of registered voters own crypto, with many willing to switch party allegiance based on candidates' crypto policies. As the election nears, Trump's position on Bitcoin could become a significant factor in a closely contested race. Whether this new pro-crypto stance is a sincere change of heart or a political maneuver remains to be seen, but it undoubtedly adds a new dimension to the 2024 presidential campaign.

El Salvador, a small, but fearless country in Central America, has mined a total of 474 Bitcoin worth $29 million using volcanic geothermal energy since 2021. According to Reuters, there is a pretty interesting math there. The country has allocated 1.5 megawatts (MW) to cryptocurrency mining out of the 102 MW produced by the state-owned power plant with the help of geothermal energy from the country’s Tecapa volcano. With that power, the Bitcoin was mined using 300 mining processors. In 2021, El Salvador made history by becoming the first country to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender alongside the United States dollar. Since then, the government has adopted several Bitcoin-focused policies, including Lightning BTC wallets for citizens and establishing a geothermal plant to mine BTC. El Salvador now holds a total of 5,750 BTC worth around $354 million.

Wisconsin has officially become the first state to buy bitcoin, according to a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The state’s authorities decided to risk with $161 million the state pension fund, Gizmodo notes. They didn’t buy Bitcoin directly. Instead the opted to go with ETFs. According to the SEC filing, the State of Wisconsin Investment Board bought 94,562 shares of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) worth about $98 million and $63 million of Grayscale’s spot Bitcoin ETF (GBTC). Bitcoin ETFs were only approved by the SEC this past January. They allow institutional investors to invest in bitcoin without actually holding the crypto directly. ETFs were widely speculated as the means of Bitcoin adoption by non-geeky investors. And it seems to be working out just perfectly, with many suggesting this could be just the start of other state pension funds investing in crypto. The most famous large institutional investment in bitcoin started in El Salvador in 2021 when President Nayib Bukele purchased the crypto for his country and declared the cryptocurrency to be legal tender. El Salvador currently holds about 5,748 BTC worth roughly $360 million. But bitcoin is an incredibly volatile asset. Those same holdings would have been worth about $155 million a year ago and there’s no guarantee bitcoin’s price will continue to climb steadily.

Bitcoin will stay in $55K to $75K zone for now, says Mike Novogratz, the founder and CEO of Galaxy Digital. He thinks crypto is in a “consolidation phase” and predicts that prices will bounce higher at the end of the current quarter. “Bitcoin, Ethereum, and everything else, Solana will consolidate. What does that mean? It means probably somewhere between 55 and 75 until the next set of circumstances, the next set of market events brings us higher,” Novogratz said during Galaxy Digital’s Q1 earnings call, Cointelegraph reports. Novogratz also mentioned he wasn’t too worried by the dwindling inflows for spot Bitcoin ETFs nor did he seem concerned by Bitcoin’s recent downward slide. According to Novogratz, there is a broader trend of adoption among traditional financial institutions. “We continue to see adoption growing [...] big players are just now starting to put it through their system,” he said. Novogratz’s take is pretty straightforward. Asset prices could begin to pick up when the United States Federal Reserve eventually begins cutting rates “because the economy finally slows” or alternatively we see a favorable outcome from the upcoming U.S. presidential election. As Yellow.com stated before, Novogratz is one of those high-profile Bitcoin optimists. As of now, Novogratz claims Bitcoin will reach $500,000 by the end of 2024.

CEO Elizabeth Stark said that Lightning Labs, the developer behind Bitcoin's Lightning Network, just tested a transaction with an asset created using its Taproot Assets protocol. It is clear now that a protocol designed to enable stablecoins to be issued on the Bitcoin blockchain is working, Stark said. "The idea is to have crypto dollars and stablecoins" on the Bitcoin blockchain, she explained speaking at the Financial Times Crypto and Digital Assets Summit this week. "I really care deeply about solving real problems for real people, as opposed to meme coins or gambling," Stark added. The ability to position stablecoins and other assets atop Bitcoin will facilitate new use cases and bring more people on to the internet of money and digital assets, she continued. Stark also highlighted a post-halving wave of developer interest in Bitcoin, with "many builders coming back" to the blockchain.  She pointed to developers building out decentralized finance (DeFi) on Bitcoin, as well as projects such as bitVM, which enables developers to build Turing-complete Bitcoin contracts. The Lightning Network is a second-layer protocol designed to facilitate fast, low-cost transactions on blockchain networks, particularly Bitcoin. The protocol allows users to create payment channels between each other, enabling them to conduct numerous transactions off the main blockchain. These transactions are only recorded on the blockchain once the channel is closed, significantly reducing the load and associated fees on the network. The concept of the Lightning Network was first introduced in a white paper by Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja in 2015. Development of the Lightning Network gained traction in the following years, with several teams and companies contributing to its progress. Notable organizations like Lightning Labs, Blockstream, and ACINQ played key roles in its development and implementation. The first implementations of the Lightning Network were launched on the Bitcoin mainnet in early 2018, allowing users to start experimenting with real transactions on the network.