Bitcoin slumps as cryptocurrency sheds record gains April 18, 2021 Bitcoin fell as much as 14 per cent today, shedding most of the volatile cryptocurrency’s gains over the last year. The digital asset has surged so far this year as it begins to gain mainstream acceptance as an investment and as a form of payment. But it dropped as much as 15 per cent to [...]
Crypto D-Day: Anticipation high for Coinbase IPO April 14, 2021 With the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies, attention is inevitably shifting towards the exchanges that they trade on. Today’s Coinbase IPO, a direct listing, is something that investors have been looking forward to for a while. With big things expected as the platform gets set for its IPO, what will the initial Coinbase share price be? City [...]
Will ESG turn Bitcoin into a digital ‘stranded asset’ or monetary MySpace? (Part II) April 13, 2021 | City Talk In this second instalment of a two-part piece, Ben Ashby, Derek Usher and Gerard Fox explain why environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors will undermine Bitcoin’s eye-catching rise, here focusing on the ‘S’ and ‘G’. We at Good Governance Capital (GGC) are enormously enthusiastic and supportive of innovation and competition in finance. As former mainstream [...]
Bitcoin hits record high ahead of Coinbase IPO tomorrow April 13, 2021 Bitcoin hit a record high of $62,839 this morning, marking yet another record this year for the world’s most popular cryptocurrency. Bitcoin topped $60,000 early last month, fueled by Tesla’s move to buy $1.5bn of the digital currency for its balance sheet. For the past two weeks, it had traded in a tight range. Major firms [...]
Will ESG turn Bitcoin into a digital ‘stranded asset’ or monetary MySpace? (Part I) April 6, 2021 | City Talk In this first instalment of a two-part piece, Ben Ashby, Derek Usher and Gerard Fox explain why environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors will undermine Bitcoin’s eye-catching rise, here focusing on the ‘E’. We have many economic reasons for believing that ‘first-generation’ crypto assets will fail to displace either ‘conventional’ money or traditional safe assets [...]
PayPal to allow US customers to use cryptocurrencies in online shopping March 30, 2021 PayPal is set to allow its US customers to use their cryptocurrency assets to pay online, a move that may signal a shift towards digital currencies for online shopping. Formally announcing the move later today, PayPal will allow customers to convert bitcoin, ether, bitcoin cash and litecoin into fiat currencies at checkouts, the company told [...]
Week in Sportbiz: Is crypto the next big player in sports sponsorship? Plus Extreme E’s Suez near miss and Amazon’s Six Nations interest March 25, 2021 Where US sports lead, others tend to follow, so it was with interest that industry insiders noted developments in Florida this week. Miami Heat’s home is set to be rebranded the FTX Arena after the NBA side struck a naming rights agreement with the cryptocurrency exchange. FTX will pay $135m for the 19-year deal, the [...]
ECB eases digital euro doubts and backs proposed currency to thrive March 25, 2021 The European Central Bank today eased doubts in Germany about the launch of a digital euro, insisting that the electronic cash would not be used to penalise savers or upend banks. The ECB is looking to launch a digital version of the euro within the next five years to see off competition from cryptocurrencies such [...]
Jack Dorsey’s first-ever tweet sells for $2.9m as a non-fungible token March 22, 2021 Twitter boss Jack Dorsey sold his first tweet as an NFT for just over $2.9m earlier today. The tweet is in the form of a non-fungible token (NFT) – a kind of unique digital asset that has exploded in popularity so far in 2021. Each NFT has its own blockchain-based digital signature, which serves as [...]
Panic reflation, oil plunge and Bitcoin-led chip shortage March 19, 2021 Market sentiment is mixed this Friday morning. The Powell boost did not last long on the US equities which returned to the reflation setup. Investors sold tech stocks aggressively, sending Nasdaq 3 per cent lower during Thursday’s trading session. The S&P500 shed 1.48 per cent, as Dow Jones (-0.46 per cent) remained somehow resilient to [...]