Trending Bitcoin News and Market Sentiment May 22nd, 2020: Bitcoin Pizza Day is 10 as Bitcointalk Holds Contest on Discord, Iran Kicks Off National Crypto Mining Strategy

• Bitcoin price retreating but staying bravely above USD 9,000
• Bitcoin Pizza Tenth Anniversary Contest ongoing at Bitcointalk’s Discord
• Iran plans national crypto mining strategy

Bitcoin price is slowly retreating but while the bears are showing their teeth, the bulls are so far refusing to give in, and it is still above USD 9,000 as buyers hope to hold out on the weekend at a level they have kept for weeks now.

Bitcoin Pizza Day is celebrated around the world today as is usual to mark the celebratory event where a Florida man paid BTC 10,000 to buy two pizzas. Back then it would have been worth a mere USD 41 for the pair of Papa John’s — the buyer actually only paid USD 25 too — and the plaque commemorating the event is still displayed there today. But today, those Bitcoins are now worth over USD 92 million!

And bitcointalk.org, the world-famous forum that is the home for millions of people discussing Bitcoin, blockchain and other cryptocurrencies, is also celebrating it properly for the first time, through an event on its Discord channel. The channel itself is quite new, opened to mark the Bitcoin halving event on 12 May just two weeks ago, but it does appear to be gaining quite a following and entries already.

Of course, the kind of attention that the original pizza buyer got ten years ago was hardly the same kind you see today. Whereas now people celebrate it the world over, in 2010 when Laszlo Hanyecz first advertised that he was willing to pay that much in Bitcoin for pizza for him and his kids, no one paid any attention or even responded to his ad on bitcointalk for four days! He even had to bump it and ask if people were interested in a higher offer before someone eventually accepted it.

Hanyecz would go on to fulfil the same offer at least two more times, and the offers were coming in so quickly he had to finally write:

“Well I didn’t expect this to be so popular but I can’t really afford to keep doing it since I can’t generate thousands of coins a day anymore. Thanks to everyone who bought me pizza already but I’m kind of holding off on doing any more of these for now.”

Today, a mere offer for even USD 10 in Bitcoin for a pizza would probably get tons of requests, or is that wishful thinking as well?

Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic of Iran makes yet another appearance in crypto headlines. This time, its president has asked central bank officials to work with its ministries of energy, communications and IT in drafting a national strategic plan for cryptocurrency mining.

According to ArzDigital today, President Hassan Rouhani briefed these officials at the 137th session of Iran’s economic coordination headquarters. The news comes on the heels of an earlier announcement which looked to redenominate the national rial to put an immediate solution on hyperinflation.

The country has had its tangles with Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, and has a love-hate relationship with the mining industry, at times accusing it of robbing the nation of resources by using state subsidized electricity in expensive mining operations. At the same time, this month, Iran approved for a Bitcoin mining company to operate with 6,000 rigs. Plus, it has already recognized digital assets by including crypto into its regulatory framework for foreign currency exchange regulations and anti-currency smuggling enforcement.

The Central Bank of Iran will not issue crypto exchange licenses, all falling under foreign exchange regulatory regimes, as the country looks to stem increasing capital outflows, particularly during the current COVID-19 global pandemic.

Banks and exchanges have already agreed to provide for use of digital currencies where necessary to facilitate currency exchanges and return export currency.

A general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps made populist calls during a public address earlier in 2020, calling on the nation to use crypto to circumvent crippling economic sanctions. President Rouhani has himself has flirted with the idea of an alternative digital currency, a suggestion that the then-prime minister of Malaysia said he would support.

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