Blackrock moves in on Blockchain, Russia reconsiders its crypto ban and McDonalds takes a fun poke at Crypto investors. These stories and more this week in crypto.
Asset management giant, BlackRock, has filed for an exchange-traded fund that would focus on blockchain technology. The iShares Blockchain and Tech ETF would enable investment in a number of companies involved in the βdevelopment, innovation and utilisation of blockchain and crypto technologies.β BlackRock currently has more than $10 trillion dollars under management.
βCrypto is Happeningβ and regulators should be βhyperventilatingβ over its rise, says former Goldman Sachs CEO, Lloyd Blankfein. Speaking on CNBC this week, Blankfein explained his view of cryptocurrency has changed after watching large ecosystems form around cryptocurrency over the past few years. Regarding investment, Blankfein said that he would βcertainly want to have an oar in that water.β
Facebook founder and Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, seems to be abandoning plans for a digital currency in the face of growing regulatory pressure. The company will be selling its stablecoin technology to Silicon Valleyβs Silvergate Capital for $200m. The departure of David Marcus, Metaβs force behind both Diem and the Novi wallet was the most recent blow to the project.
After the Bank of Russia last week proposed a wide-ranging ban on crypto usage and mining, President Putin appeared to be keeping the nationβs options open. Speaking in a video conference, he spoke of βcompetitive advantagesβ in crypto mining, referring to Russiaβs surplus energy and what he called βwell-trainedβ mining professionals.
Visa revealed that its customers made $2.5 billion in payments with its crypto-linked cards in its fiscal first quarter of 2022. That number is equal to 70% of the companyβs crypto volume for all of fiscal 2021. The cards are typically linked to a userβs crypto exchange account and allows them to instantly spend those funds online and in-store.
The International Monetary Fund has urged El Salvador to reverse its decision to make bitcoin legal tender, by stressing the risk to financial stability associated with bitcoin. However, El Salvadorβs President Bukele shows no sign of a reversal, rebuffing the warning with a mocking tweet that portrayed the IMF as Homer Simpson desperately seeking attention while being ignored.
Concerns about quantum computing β an emerging technology considered so strong that it could threaten the security of the Bitcoin network, seem to be wildly exaggerated. In a recent study, the University of Sussex in the UK has found quantum computers would need to be about a million times larger than they are today in order to break the algorithm that secures Bitcoin.
McDonalds took to Twitter to playfully poke some fun by asking how crypto investors were handling the recent price dips, playing along with a long-running joke that when prices drop, investors resort to getting a job at a McDonalds. MicroStrategyβs Michael Saylor responded by posting a picture of himself in a McDonaldβs hat while Geminiβs CEO, Tyler Winklevoss, tweeted about buying βthe Big McDip.β
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Thatβs whatβs happened this week in crypto, see you next week.
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