Pablo Hernández de Cos (Bank of Spain’s Governor) | “With over 16,000 existing tokens, around ten new crypto-assets are estimated to be launched every day on average” “For the time being, however, our ability to take effective action is fairly limited as we have neither the tools nor sufficient legal powers to be able to protect crypto-asset users in the same way as we protect bank customers… In any case, …
On 7 September, El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, which means that companies and businesses in the country are obliged to accept it as a form of payment in day-to-day transactions. However, in this country there are only four Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency ATMs (machines where users can buy or sell cryptocurrencies). The US is the country with the most cryptocurrency…
Fernando Alberca | Germany has just passed legislation allowing institutional investment fund managers, known as Spezialfonds, to allocate 20% of their funds to cryptoassets. This law will come into force on 1 July this year. It was passed by Germany’s federal parliament, the Bundestag, on Thursday 22 April, and the German Federal Council must ratify it in the coming days for it to become effective.
Energy-intensive crypto mining is no different than coal or oil a century ago. According to Cambridge University analysis, Bitcoin uses around 120 TWh of energy per year, on par with countries like Norway and Argentina, and is estimated to reach as much at 184 TWh, nearly the same consumption as that of London. That comes out to more than 90 million metric annual tons of CO2. Should progressives be thinking twice about greenhouse gas emissions from Bitcoin?
Adam Vettese (eToro) | Bitcoin has extended its losses this morning, with the cryptoasset losing another 0.5% to add to yesterday’s 4.5% fall. The key resistance level of $10,000 is proving to be a difficult hurdle to overcome, with several failed attempts this month. It is now back trading close to the $9,000 mark. Bears could see this as a sign the momentum may be shifting following the two month price rally.
Iwa Salami via The Conversation | Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will probably not be killed off by the COVID-19 crisis or indeed any other market event. With the growing market in crypto lending, these services look pivotally positioned to replace traditional banking services in the coming years. If more countries make similar moves to the ones I’ve highlighted above, crypto-assets could even become entrenched in the financial mainstream very soon.
Funcas | The capitalisation of cryptocurrencies increased 159% in the first half of 2019 and went from 125 Bn$ at the end of 2018 to 325 Bn$ at the end of June, according to the Report on “Cryptomarkets and Blockchain” by the Observatory of Financial Digitalisation (OFD) of Funcas and Finnovating.
On 3 Jan 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto set in motion his plan to create a new form of money that is independent of any government or bank. The evolution of bitcoin and blockchain over the last decade has been so remarkable that even Satoshi himself could not have imagined the impact of his work. Year 2018 has been a marathon year for cryptoassets, and despite current crypto bear market, Mati Greenspan, Senior Market Analyst at eToro believes it disguises some positive news for 2019.
Ignacio de la Torre and Leopoldo Torralba (Arcano Partners) | Regarding Bitcoin, we are reaching a point where there is great confusion between the price and the value. If I buy a Bitcoin at $6,000 I would expect a higher value that justifies the greater risk that comes with it (it is extremely volatile, over 60%; while the volatility of currencies like the euro or dollar are less than 3%).
Neil Gandal and Tyler Moore via The Conversation | Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin have grown in popularity in large part because they can be bought and sold without a government or other third party overseeing everything. But there’s a flipside: Unlike in markets for other assets such as stocks or bonds, it makes it much harder to uncover price manipulation and fraud.