Weekly Digest: Nike, Elon Musk and crypto as a national currency (13-Dec-2021 to 19-Dec-2021

By Imogen Smith

December 20, 2021 0

Last week Nike purchased NFT sneaker company RTKFT and Elon Musk continued to rally his support of Dogecoin in the future of Tesla. Cryptocurrency also continues to be embraced across global markets with Myanmar announcing new national currency and Indonesia taking steps towards a new currency exchange.

Elon Musk confirms Tesla will accept Dogecoin transactions for merch

Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk announced via Twitter that the car manufacturer would start accepting Dogecoin as payment for some merchandise. Following the comments, the digital coin surged in value by 20 per cent to $0.22 before falling back to $0.19, according to data by Coindesk.

Nike buys virtual shoe company and takes first steps in the Metaverse

Nike Inc announced this week its acquisition of RTFKT, a brand that describes themselves as the deliverers of “next generation collectables that merge collectables and gaming” across game engines, NFTs, blockchain authentication and augmented reality. In the announcement, Nike said that the terms of the deal will not be disclosed to the public.

Binance partners with Indonesian Telco to develop new crypto exchange

Leading crypto exchange Binance has partnered with Indonesia’s venture arm PT Telkom to create a new crypto exchange platform. The partnership aims to broaden blockchain adoption across Indonesia with the hopes that the country “could become of the leading centres of the blockchain and crypto ecosystem in Southeast Asia,” said Binance CEO and founder Changpeng Zhao.

Myanmar Shadow Government announced Tether as an official currency

The exiled government of Myanmar has recognised the stablecoin Tether as an official currency, according to Bloomberg. The National Unity Government’s Finance Minister, Tin Tun Naing, wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday that the adoption of the US dollar-pegged cryptocurrency was for “domestic use to make it easy and speed up the current trade, services, and payment systems.”