Bitcoin News Roundup for Jan. 28, 2021

With digital-market traders taking GameStop’s stock gyrations as a moment for self-reflection, CoinDesk’s Market Daily is back with the latest news roundup.

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This episode is sponsored by Nexo.io.

Today's stories:

What does GameStop mean for cryptocurrencies?

Digital-market traders found amusement in the GameStop saga. They also saw an opportunity for self-reflection. Here's what Niall Ferguson, Caitlin Long, Mati Greenspan and Jonathan Mohan said. 

“Gotta admit it’s really something to see Wall Streeters with a long history of treating our economy as a casino complain about a message board of posters also treating the market as a casino. Anyways, Tax the Rich,” U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez writes. (Twitter)

Guggenheim CIO Minerd, who has predicted a bitcoin price of $400K, tells Bloomberg TV the base of institutional buyers is “just not there” to push bitcoin’s price above $35,000 (CoinDesk) 

Blockstream buys $25M of bitcoin mining machines from MicroBT (CoinDesk) 

Crypto’s young believers stoke craze for penny stocks in companies with exposure to bitcoin (Bloomberg) 

Riding on the coattails of crypto’s bull run, DeFi token UNI from Uniswap breaks $15 on Coinbase exchange, has nearly doubled in past seven days (CoinDesk)

GameStop backlash could lead to curbs on “memetic disturbances,” or even “the squeezening,” Preston Byrne writes in op-ed (CoinDesk Opinion) 

Market chaos fueled by bands of retail traders reportedly leads to counter-measures from Wall Street firms TD Ameritrade and Wells Fargo, as a spokeswoman for U.S. President Joe Biden says the new administration is “monitoring” the GameStop situation (CoinDesk)

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission “actively monitoring the ongoing market volatility in the options and equities markets” (SEC) 

“What seems to be unfolding here is a crypto-esque farce combining volatile trading and chatroom-driven tips reminiscent of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and penny stocks, all in a market juiced by pandemic stimulus,” Lionel Laurent writes in column (Bloomberg Opinion) 

Goldman Sachs strategist joins chorus saying “buy the dip” in stocks (Bloomberg) 

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