Crypto

I’d just written my two pieces last week about non fungible tokens (NFTs) … WTF is an NFT? NFTs show why banks must focus upon digital asset management … when I spotted a fellow blogger and colleague who I respect, Sebastien Meunier, had written about them too. In Sebastien’s case, he writes that they’re a…

Watching the mainstream news show the other day, it finished with an item about NFTs, non-fungible tokens. It’s not the sort of thing that I would have expected most pensioners sitting having their night-time cup of cocoa watching the news would expect to see or hear about, but hey, I’m not a news programmer. Then…

I haven’t commented much on bitcoin’s (BTC) recent surge, as I’ve been watching and waiting, but it is something. Just in case you didn’t notice, the value has moved from a low of under $5,000 per BTC in March 2020 to around $50,000 per BTC today. But it’s not just BTC: it’s Ether, Bitcoin Cash,…

A year ago, I invested $1,000 in bitcoin. Today, that’s worth $10,000. OK, I made those figures up. I actually invested and have invested and keep investing in bitcoin and, more importantly, ether – the currency of Ethereum – in which I have more confidence for the future. I don’t sell them – HODL guys,…

Andreesson Horowitz’s Chris Dixon shared a presentation about crypto and blockchain during the holiday break.  Interesting, but is it good? Not sure, but I’m not going to make big predictions about tokenisation, regulation and the price of bitcoin in January 2022. Instead, I asked Janis Legler  to do this. Janis is Chief Product Officer…

I guess that Facebook caused many central banks to realise that if they didn’t issue digital currencies then others would. Hence, why most central banks are issuing them. But it’s not an either-or scenario. “We will see in the not-too-distant future a sovereign digital currency coming out.” Michael Corbat, CEO of Citi “There is absolutely…

As bitcoin’s pricing goes up and down as usual – almost $18,000 today (who bought a few for a $1?) – it seems like the world is moving towards cryptocurrencies, as they are now respectable. They’re not respectable in the eyes of governments and banks … Bitcoin has no role in institutional or retail investors…

I’ve been talking quite a bit about CBDCs lately. CBDCs? Central Bank Digital Currencies. Central banks worldwide are looking at digital currencies as a great new future. Instead of letting citizens move to bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, have ours. Well, that’s the idea anyway. China was leading the way here, and has trialled a digital…

It’s been interesting to see two major firms – admittedly FinTech firms – commit to crypto in the past month: PayPal and Square. The fact that such big processors are committing is a sign of the times and a move towards many organisations embracing the cryptocurrency world. If you didn’t see it: PayPal steps into…

I wrote my blog the other day with the title Why I’m fed up with blockchain. It amused me to see how much backlash it created, particularly on LinkedIn where there are over sixty comments as of today. In fact one guy called Ajit even wrote a blog about my blog. It didn’t surprise me,…