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Why Ethereum is Far From ‘Ultrasound Money’
9.5.2021
Memes are extremely important in the crypto market. Dogecoin (DOGE) may be the best recent illustration of the power of memes in a market powered by a combination of scarcity and user demand (note: some memes are more sustainable than others), but every cryptocurrency has their own memes that...
Our Future with High Public Debt
9.5.2021
Marcos Chamon is a Deputy Division Chief in the Debt Policy Division of the Strategy and Policy Review Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Jonathan D. Ostry is Deputy Director of the Asia and Pacific Department at the IMF and a Research Fellow at the Center for Economic Policy...
US Dollar Share of Global Foreign Exchange Reserves Drops to 25-Year Low
6.5.2021
Serkan Arslanalp is Deputy Division Chief in the Balance of Payments Division of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s Statistics Department. Chima Simpson-Bell is an Economist in the same department.
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The share of US dollar reserves held by central banks fell to 59%—its lowest level in...
The Ethereum Economy is a House of Cards
4.5.2021
In terms of the growth of various adoption metrics, such as active addresses and daily value transferred, the Ethereum (ETH) network has been killing it over the past year or so. Various applications in the area of decentralized finance (DeFi) have been the main drivers behind this growth, as those...
From Tulips and Scrips to Bitcoin and Meme Stocks – Speculating & Mania
2.5.2021
A satire of the Dutch tulip ‘mania,’ which didn’t get that label until many years later. Gayle Rogers, Professor and Chair of English, University of Pittsburgh.
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In the late 1990s, America experienced a dot-com mania. In the 2000s, the housing market went wild.
Today, there are manias...
NFTs Are Much Bigger Than An Art Fad
30.4.2021
Tomorrow Comes soon by daveed. The artwork updates four times a day to reflect sunrise, day, sunset, night cycles. James Bowden, Lecturer in Financial Technology, University of Strathclyde, and Edward Thomas Jones, Lecturer in Economics, Bangor University.
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Sotheby’s has become the latest...
3 Reasons Facebook Should Buy and Hold Bitcoin
28.4.2021
Yesterday, one of the top subjects of conversation on Bitcoin Twitter was initiated when investor Alistair Milne claimed there is a rumor that Facebook will announce they hold bitcoin (BTC) on their books on Wednesday. There is a long history of false rumors and reports when it comes to huge...
How Bitcoin and DeFi are Completely Different Phenomena
25.4.2021
Decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, specifically on Ethereum (ETH), have exploded in popularity over the past couple of years. While bitcoin appears to be here to stay as a global, apolitical store of value, the basic idea behind DeFi is to go beyond the creation of a new, base monetary...
UK Banks Getting Tough on Bitcoin, But AML Rules Are The Real Problem
25.4.2021
Matthew Shillito, Lecturer in Law, University of Liverpool.
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NatWest, the UK retail bank, has announced it will not engage with business customers who accept payment in bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. It follows recent announcements from HSBC that it won’t allow transfers from digital...
Understanding the Rise in Long-Term US Treasury Yields
23.4.2021
Tobias Adrian is the Financial Counsellor and Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department, Fabio M. Natalucci is a Deputy Director of the department, while Rohit Goel and Sheheryar Malik are experts in the same department.
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The rise in long-term...
The Case Of Mobile Money In Ghana
21.4.2021
Ghana is in the throes of a mobile money boom.
Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
PK Senyo, Senior Lecturer in Information Systems, University of Southampton.
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Mobile money — a technology that enables financial transactions through mobile phones without a bank account — is driving...
What’s Preventing Crypto Payments from Entering the Mainstream?
20.4.2021
Pavel Matveev is the Co-founder and CEO of Wirex, a blockchain-based payments platform.
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In the past few years, interest in crypto has increased dramatically as businesses and individuals begin to recognize the benefits that blockchain technology can offer. Meanwhile, with bitcoin (BTC)...
NFT Performance Art: Corporations Could Capitalize On Protest
19.4.2021
Petr Davydtchenko. _______
Lowell Gasoi, Instructor in communication studies, arts advocacy, Carleton University.
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Russian artist Petr Davydtchenko made what what he claims was the first performance art NFT in February. According to an article in The Art Newspaper, in a digital recording...
The Great Depression and Money Printers of Today
18.4.2021
The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington. Mary O'Sullivan, Professor of Economic History, Université de Genève.
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At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, US Federal Reserve System governor Jerome Powell made an extraordinary declaration: “We’re not going to run out...
Considering Coinbase's COIN? You Might Be Better Buying Bitcoin Instead
14.4.2021
Andrew Urquhart, Associate Professor of Finance, ICMA Centre, Henley Business School, University of Reading.
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Coinbase, the San Francisco-based crypto exchange, is going public on April 14. The company will trade under the ticker COIN and list 114,850,769 shares on the Nasdaq with an initial...
A Closer Look at the Environmental Impact of Bitcoin Mining
11.4.2021
Christopher Bendiksen, Head of Research at CoinShares, major European major digital asset manager.
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Bitcoin (BTC) is a settlement system like FedWire, not a payments aggregator like VisaIt uses energy to deliver that function independently of central authoritiesGlobal energy production...
Volatility Is Crypto’s Best Friend
9.4.2021
Stephen Ehrlich, Co-Founder and CEO at Voyager Digital, a crypto-asset broker.
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Volatility is good for crypto. It serves multiple purposes as the whole crypto ecosystem matures, which we have to remember is an industry and technology that is still only just over a decade old. New and emerging...
An Asynchronous and Divergent Recovery May Put Financial Stability at Risk
8.4.2021
Source: Adobe/adrian_ilie825
Tobias Adrian is the Financial Counsellor and Director of the International Monetary Fund’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department.
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After enduring a tumultuous 2020, the global economy is finally emerging from the worst phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, albeit...
5 Ways DeFi Can Revolutionize the Healthcare Industry
6.4.2021
Pradeep Goel, CEO of Solve.Care, a blockchain-powered platform for healthcare benefits administration and payments.
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Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, the recent growth of the decentralized finance (DeFi) market could change the game for the healthcare industry. Let’s explore...
The Dark Side Of Coinbase Listing
4.4.2021
Brian Armstrong, CEO and Founder of Coinbase. Source: A screenshot, Coinbase
Jerry Davis, Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford and Professor of Management and Sociology, University of Michigan.
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Coinbase’s plan to go public in April highlights...