Crypto

Everyone got very excited last week about the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission, USA) approved the use of bitcoin on ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds). Fantastic … but what does it all mean? Does it mean the SEC approves of bitcoin trading? Does it mean the Federal Reserve and USGov endorse cryptocurrencies? Some would say yes,…

According to most pundits, 2024 looks like a great year for cryptocurrency. Analytics Insight predicts a resurgence, with the crypto market expected to surpass the US$3 trillion mark. Why? The main driver seems to be another bitcoin halving, but also Ethereum and altcoins seem to be big movers, alongside rising crypto adoption amongst mainstream institutions. Gemini,…

I just had an interview with a journalist via email. It was quite interesting, and wanted to share it with you. The key point being made is that everything we have today – apps, online, cards and more – are going to disappear. Are they? Mobile payments, BNPL, open banking, artificial intelligence – these are…

The cryptocurrency industry is maturing and, as it does so, the government, statists and regulators are diving in to control it, as are the banks and financial institutions. In fact, it intrigued me when talking with a major institution the other day that they said they could have been Coinbase, if only their management team…

I’ve just been travelling Asia and went on a trip where the entrance to the first attraction – the batcave! – was two ringgits. That’s Malaysian currency and the equivalent of around half a dollar. As per usual these days, I have no cash and this was the first and only time in my one…

After Terra-LUNA, SBF and FTX, and the whole wild west of digital currencies, stablecoins are now in fashion as the Bank of England and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) outlined the UK plans for legitimising stablecoins yesterday. Bear in mind these are not CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies), but currencies backed by CBDCs, fiat currencies or…

How could I not make a blog about Sam Bankman-Fried who, yesterday, was found guilty of running a Ponzi scheme smash-and-grab using cryptocurrency? Well, I couldn’t, so here it is. Yesterday Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the tousle-haired mogul who founded the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, was convicted of all seven charges of fraud and conspiracy after a…

I hate stepping into controversy, and I know that this column is going to be really unpopular, but the latest reporting of terrorist funding using cryptocurrencies is seriously biased. This specifically relates to Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and Lebanon respectively. The latest violence taking place between Israel and Palestine is awful. No one can…

The trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and creator of what many call a Ponzi scheme called FTX, has started in New York. FTX was a cryptocurrency exchange that, like MtGox a decade before, lost millions/billions of dollars of investor’s money. C’est la vie. There’s lots of reportage out there about the trial, the background, the…

This is quite a complicated update, but it came to mind when I saw that JPMorgan analysts are predicting stablecoins could destabilise the traditional financial markets. This is because the Federal Reserve decided in April that money funds created for the sole purpose of accessing its overnight reverse repo facility, which is called ON RRP,…