Author: The Financial Times
What does it take to bring about an online revolution? As 2022 looms, a new movement, under the banner of Web3, has become one of the most discussed — and least understood — forces in tech. But it’s not at all clear yet what practical problems it will solve to become part of everyday life. Each iteration of the web has rested on new technical capabilities. With the first version, it was the ability to browse between static web pages. With Web 2.0, the web became a more interactive, real-time medium and users themselves became the content. These developments, built…
In Nigeria, a project is underway to bring forth the first digital currency for the African country. The central bank digital currency (CBDC) features a centralized distributed ledger technology (DLT). This technology allows the central bank to issue and control the monetary supply in a manner like the current paper money regime. What is eNaira? The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) launched the official website of its digital currency, the eNaira, in September 2021. The currency is set to have an app (The Speed Wallet) which is downloadable on the Google Play Store and Apple Store. eNaira is a digital…
A Ponzi scheme is a zero-sum enterprise. But bitcoin is a negative-sum phenomenon that you can’t even pursue a claim against, argues Robert McCauley. Bitcoin is off its all-time high of $69,000 set on November 9, 2021. It suffered a wrenching $12,000 flash crash over the first weekend in December, amid accounts of leveraged positions being closed out. And yet, even at the current price of $49,000, guests on financial TV news continue to tout it as the best-performing asset of the last N years, where N can be just about any number from one to ten. They also increasingly judge…
People who want to buy a new Birkin bag from French luxury house Hermès often endure long waiting lists to be able to shell out €7,000 (or far more) for an item of such scarcity that has it become synonymous with exclusivity. The tech-savvy and impatient among them may have been tempted recently to buy a virtual version that they could collect or wear in cyber space: the so-called MetaBirkin now on sale in brightly coloured, fuzzy fur versions. Except no, actually. The MetaBirkin is a non-fungible token created by an artist named Mason Rothschild, who has already earned about…
US banking giant JPMorgan Chase has partnered with Siemens to develop a blockchain system for the German industrial group’s payments, in what the two companies said was a first-of-its-kind application. It highlights the applications that banks are trying to find for blockchain — digital ledger technology that records and verifies transactions and underpins cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, to further automate areas like payments. Siemens said the improved automation is needed to process the far greater number of payments it expects due to the growing popularity of payment models like pay per use. “If the business would stay the same as…
‘Tis truly the season of giving. Not content at repeatedly giving her husband the best face anyone ever has, former first lady Melania Trump is giving again: That’s right. Generous billionaire’s wife Melania is giving an (unspecified) portion of the proceeds from the sale of her “new NFT endeavor” to assisting “children in the foster care community”. Who said philanthropy was dead? The NFT, named “Melania’s Vision”, gives the buyer a string of code that supposedly represents “ownership” (this is literally all an NFT is) of “a breathtaking watercolor art” that celebrates Mrs Trump’s cobalt blue eyes. We, not owners…
South Korean politicians are calling on public officials to stop joining crypto companies for bigger pay cheques as exchanges race to bolster compliance divisions. Rising numbers of financial regulators and police officers are leaving the public service for crypto groups that are scrambling to comply with new regulations, according to legislators. A mid-level official at the Financial Services Commission, the nation’s financial watchdog, quit in recent weeks to join Bithumb, one of the country’s big crypto exchanges, according to Roh Woong-rae, a ruling party politician. “It is like leaving fish to a cat,” said Roh, who is a member of…
Gold is among the worst-performing major asset classes of 2021 despite accelerating inflation, as the precious metal’s lustre has faded next to what some see as its digital equivalent, bitcoin. The precious metal, often hailed as an inflation hedge, has dropped 5 per cent this year, even with investors looking for protection as consumer prices soar across the globe. Bitcoin, by contrast, has posted a big, if volatile, rally in 2021, with a 65 per cent appreciation in the year to date. Francisco Blanch, strategist at Bank of America, said that the Federal Reserve’s withdrawal from crisis-era stimulus measures and…
Financial regulators should agree a global framework for crypto next year after the rapid growth of decentralised finance gave them a “wake-up call”, one of the most senior figures in the debate told the Financial Times. Benoît Cœuré, chief of the Bank for International Settlements’ innovation hub, said conversations about high level global principles for cryptocurrency and decentralised finance had intensified in recent months. The former European Central Bank governing council member has headed the BIS innovation hub for the past two years, giving him a front-row seat to international deliberations on crypto policy as the world’s central banks use BIS to share…
Nick Clegg may be available in Berlin. He has a slot in Paris. He’ll make time for lunch in Brussels. Then Omicron hits, and the vice-president of global affairs at Meta, formerly known as Facebook, is not coming to Europe after all. Instead Clegg offers to meet . . . in the metaverse, the immersive digital world hyped as the successor to the internet. In the metaverse, no one can give you Covid. So I put on a bulky virtual reality headset, sign away my data and log into a simulated meeting room. There I find that the one-time deputy prime minister of the…