Author: Newsweek
Reese Witherspoon knows her audience. While Matt Damon growled “fortune favors the brave” in a hyper-masculine video for Crypto.com, Witherspoon, who has spun gold out of book clubs and other women-centered media, took to Twitter with her own message: “Avatars, crypto wallets, digital goods will be the norm. Are you planning for this?” She’s talking about cryptocurrency, or “Web3”: a broad vision for the internet where individuals own virtual goods and property, verified by energy-hungry algorithms or by randomly selected individuals. The label “girlboss” for Witherspoon’s don’t-get-left-behind-the-boys warning may have gone out of style, after leaders of empowerment-flavored startups like the Wing and Away publicly crashed and…
Crypto diehards will tell you that Bitcoin will destroy the banks. Banks will say that the crypto frenzy is the latest bubble ready to burst. Both are wrong. They should not be warring factions, but suitable allies. The rise of cryptocurrency signals a fundamental market desire for a different kind of frictionless finance. Instead of trying to fight the crypto-tide, banks should embrace the changing landscape to modernize and be future ready. Cryptocurrency, which is primarily based on blockchain engineers, is a unique, very innovative technology with massive potential for decentralization and creating trust in a whole new way. On the other…
If the Federal Reserve adopts a central bank digital dollar, the American government will be on a surefire path to authoritarianism. Central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, have caught the Fed’s attention in recent months as the agency explores developing a digital dollar based on the blockchain, fueled by the meteoric rise in popularity of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. While some compare CBDCs with Bitcoin as CBDCs can be based on the blockchain, similarities between the two end there. In fact, CBDCs are a wolf in sheep’s clothing, co-opting Bitcoin’s appeal while undermining every one of its underlying principles. A CBDC adopted by the…
As adult-use cannabis continues to get legalized in more states, the question of payment becomes an issue. Many obstacles remain when it comes to buying weed. The SAFE Banking Act recently fizzled in Congress—federal help is out of the question. Dispensaries encounter major complications when it comes to processing payments, and they don’t always want to handle cash. Enter crypto for weed, which had a huge year in 2021 and will ultimately become widely accepted in the cannabis industry. Cannabis is still highly regulated, and it’s illegal federally, despite growing legalization and acceptance of adult-use weed across the country. In many legal…