If the stock market isn’t the economy — which it isn’t — then cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin really, really aren’t the economy. Still, crypto has become a pretty big asset class (and yielded huge capital gains to many buyers); by last fall the combined market value of cryptocurrencies had reached almost $3 trillion.

Since then, however, prices have crashed, wiping out around $1.3 trillion in market capitalization. As of Thursday morning, Bitcoin’s price was almost halfway down from its November peak. So who is being hurt by this crash, and what might it do to the economy?

Well, I’m seeing uncomfortable parallels with the subprime crisis of the 2000s. No, crypto doesn’t threaten the financial system — the numbers aren’t big enough to do that. But there’s growing evidence that the risks of crypto are falling disproportionately on people who don’t know what they are getting into and are poorly positioned to handle the downside.

What’s this crypto thing about? There are many ways to make digital payments, from Apple Pay and Google Pay to Venmo. Mainstream payment schemes, however, rely on a third party — usually your bank — to verify that you actually own the assets you’re transferring. Cryptocurrencies use complex coding to supposedly do away with the need for these third parties.

Skeptics wonder why this is necessary and argue that crypto ends up being an awkward, expensive way to do things you could have done more easily in other ways, which is why cryptocurrencies still have few legal applications 13 years after Bitcoin was introduced. The response, in my experience, tends to take the form of incomprehensible word salad.

Recent developments in El Salvador, which adopted Bitcoin as legal tender a few months ago, seem to bolster the skeptics: Residents attempting to use the currency find themselves facing huge transaction fees. Still, crypto has been effectively marketed: It manages both to seem futuristic and to appeal to old-style goldbug fears that the government will inflate away your savings, and huge past gains have drawn in investors worried about missing out. So crypto has become a large asset class even though nobody can clearly explain what legitimate purpose it’s for.

But now crypto has crashed. Maybe it will recover and soar to new heights, as it has in the past. For now, however, prices are way down. Who are the losers?

As I said, there are disturbing echoes of the subprime crash 15 years ago.

Crypto is unlikely to cause an overall economic crisis. It’s a big world out there, and even $1.3 trillion in losses is only about six percent of U.S. gross domestic product, a hit that’s an order of magnitude smaller than the effects of falling home prices when the housing bubble burst. And activities like Bitcoin mining, while environmentally destructive, are economically trivial compared with home-building, whose plunge played a large role in causing the Great Recession.

Still, some people are being hurt. Who are they?

Investors in crypto seem to be different from investors in other risky assets, like stocks, who consist disproportionately of affluent, college-educated whites. According to a survey by the research organization NORC, 44 percent of crypto investors are nonwhite, and 55 percent don’t have a college degree. This matches up with anecdotal evidence that crypto investing has become remarkably popular among minority groups and the working class.

NORC says that this is great, that “cryptocurrencies are opening up investing opportunities for more diverse investors.” But I remember the days when subprime mortgage lending was similarly celebrated — when it was hailed as a way to open up the benefits of homeownership to previously excluded groups.

It turned out, however, that many borrowers didn’t understand what they were getting into. Ned Gramlich, a Federal Reserve official who famously warned in vain about the growing financial dangers, asked, “Why are the most risky loan products sold to the least sophisticated borrowers?” He then declared, “The question answers itself.” Homeownership dropped sharply once the bubble burst.

And cryptocurrencies, with their huge price fluctuations seemingly unrelated to fundamentals, are about as risky as an asset class can get.

Now, maybe those of us who still can’t see what cryptocurrencies are good for other than money laundering and tax evasion are just missing the picture. Maybe the rising valuation (although not use) of Bitcoin and its rivals represents something more than a bubble, in which people buy an asset simply because other people have made money off that asset in the past. And it’s OK for investors to bet against the skeptics.

But these investors should be people who are both well equipped to make that judgment and financially secure enough to bear the losses if it turns out that the skeptics are right.

Unfortunately, that’s not what is happening. And if you ask me, regulators have made the same mistake they made on subprime: They failed to protect the public against financial products nobody understood, and many vulnerable families may end up paying the price.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/27/opinion/cryptocurrency-subprime-vulnerable.html

There is no denying that Tuivasa hits hard and can take a punch, and even tho that can be a big factor in the HW division, I can't help but wonder how it will play out when coupled with a grappler

Tai Tuivasa just blew my mind with his performance. He was a fun loving guy but after seeing him loose three fights in a row, i thought he will not reach a title shot but he was improving after that he took his career seriously and i know he was knocking out his opponents but Derrick Lewis is a step up in competition.

Derrick Lewis surprised with his take downs which i never thought he would try and in the second round they stood and banged as promised and Tai Tuivasa knocked out Derrick Lewis .

---

Derek Brunson and Jared Cannonier was a crazy fight. Derek Brunson dominated the first round with his takedowns but in the second round Jared Cannonier knocked the sense out of him and that elbow strikes on the ground were nasty even the corner threw the towel.

Now time for the main event. I am expecting another great fight.

• Regulations and bank policies designed to combat sex trafficking have made it harder for sex workers and adult entertainers to practice their trade, especially online.
• Many have increasingly turned to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a way to accept payment for products and services and protect their funds.
• CNBC spoke with half a dozen sex workers who explain the role cryptocurrency is playing in the industry.

Allie Eve Knox creates adult content.

She makes sexually provocative videos, sells subscription services on platforms like OnlyFans, performs live via webcam, and works as a findomme – short for financial dominatrix, a fetish involving dominance-submission dynamics and cash.

The Texas native is also a major advocate of cryptocurrency.

Knox describes herself as “one of the most outspoken sex workers, particularly for crypto.” Her interest kicked off in 2014, which is when she says several vendors, including PayPal, Square Cash, and Venmo, shut down her accounts because of red flags related to sex work.

So Knox started accepting cryptocurrencies instead. Her first exchange of bitcoin for content was pretty casual.

It started on a Skype call with a client. “I had a Coinbase account at the time, and he said, ‘Hold your QR code right to this camera here,’ and he sent it through the camera. And I got it,” she explained.

It took 15 minutes, and there were no chargebacks, no website commission fees, and no bank intermediaries to turn down the transaction – all major pluses in her industry. But the biggest attraction was having total and irreversible ownership over the money she had earned.

“I could cash it out. I could hold it. I could watch it go up and down,” said Knox.

“It was mine.”

Knox is one of many adult workers who say that cryptocurrencies like bitcoin give them a sense of security and independence as banks, credit card companies, and payment processors tighten regulations around adult content. With crypto, there is no middleman making a judgment call on which transactions are acceptable.

OnlyFans and the policy whiplash

Sex work is an umbrella term that includes anyone who engages in some form of erotic labor, whether virtual or in person.

“The majority of sex work in the U.S. is legal. It’s not dealt with fairly, but it’s still legal,” explained Kristen DiAngelo, an activist and Sacramento-based sex worker who has spent over four decades in the industry. “Stripping is legal…massage is legal…escorting is legal. The only thing that’s really illegal in the U.S. is the honest exchange of sexual activity for remuneration, for money.”

Some escorts – who charge anywhere from $1,700 an hour to $11,000 for a full 24 hours – now explicitly say in their ads that they prefer to be paid in bitcoin or ethereum.

The sex work industry also includes performers on the popular subscription video site OnlyFans, many of whom work exclusively online and have never seen their subscribers or fans in person.

Allie Rae is a 37-year-old mother of three boys who says she went from making about $84,000 a year as an ICU nurse in Boston to $1.3 million, thanks to her work on OnlyFans, which has more than 130 million users.

Last August, Rae didn’t know a lot about cryptocurrency, nor did she accept it for her work, but she was convinced that bitcoin and other altcoins were “100% the future,” because they seemed like a far more secure method of payment.

At the time, OnlyFans was navigating a publicity nightmare. After banks started flagging and rejecting transactions on the site, OnlyFans announced plans to ban sexually explicit content, its core product. The decision was met with such blowback that OnlyFans reversed course within days.

The whole episode gave whiplash to OnlyFans performers, some of whom realized that they were just one company policy change away from financial ruin.

Rae, a star of the OnlyFans ecosystem, was spooked, telling CNBC that she felt “kicked to the curb,” and never wanted to be put in that position again.

So she took action.

She started with the basics, teaching herself the fundamentals of crypto, then decided to put real skin in the game by assembling a team of developers to build WetSpace, a cryptocurrency-powered adult entertainment platform, into which she has vowed to invest $1 million of her own money. As Rae describes it, WetSpace will be a place where creators don’t have to worry about “big banking restrictions and payouts.”

By December, Rae had gone from bitcoin novice and OnlyFans ingénue to an adult content entrepreneur speaking fluent crypto, with terms like “smart contracts” and “ERC-20 tokens” rolling right off her tongue.

Adult content creators have also jumped on the non-fungible token, or NFT, bandwagon. Knox tells CNBC she’s sold photos of herself as NFTs on OpenSea and through SpankChain’s custom NFT marketplace. Thus far, the most she’s gotten from a single sale is $1,200 worth of ethereum.

The disenfranchised strike back

DiAngelo tells CNBC she will never forget the first time her bank account was closed without warning.

It happened when she was on a trip to Washington, D.C. over a decade ago.

“I had just gone into the bank, made a deposit, and I went to buy lunch in Dupont Circle,” said DiAngelo. “I gave him my card, and it was declined. I gave him my card, and it was declined again. And I gave my card again, and it was declined again. And I was like, ‘No, no, no, no, that can’t be right. There’s something wrong.’”

DiAngelo called Citibank and learned that her account had been frozen and she should tear up her credit card. DiAngelo says the customer service rep told her that they weren’t “at liberty” to tell her why it had happened, and she would have to write a formal letter to request additional details.

They did, however, say that she was still responsible for any money owed.

“That put fear in my heart, like I thought my world was collapsing. My bank account was frozen. I couldn’t access my money,” she said. (Citibank did not respond to a request for comment.)

There was particular irony in her situation, as DiAngelo did a stint as a stockbroker at Citibank in the 1980′s, always pays her taxes, and has a credit score over 800.

So DiAngelo did what other sex workers do: She “platform hopped,” meaning that she brought her money to another bank. When they also flagged and closed her account, she moved on to the next. After being shut out of a third bank, DiAngelo says she turned exclusively to bitcoin for her online banking needs.

Nearly every sex worker interviewed for this story mentioned platform hopping. The government has a set of anti-trafficking guidelines drawn up by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, and the banks and big payment apps keep an eye out for activity deemed suspicious by those guidelines. Those red flags include making cash deposits frequently – a hallmark of the sex work profession.

“We will change, we will pivot, we’ll go to other platforms,” Knox said. “This is just a constant like jumping through hoops cycle.”

In 2014, for example, PayPal booted her because of a payment for her used socks that was large enough to get red-flagged. Knox says neither she nor the buyer were refunded. (PayPal tells CNBC that her account was “closed due to policy violations.”)

Later, in 2016, Coinbase closed her account and blocked her from making others. (Coinbase acknowledged to CNBC that its terms of service prohibit the use of its “commerce or retail services connected to adult content.”)

“We’re the ones being punished – not the traffickers, not those that are actually abusing workers,” said Alana Evans, who has been an adult performer since the late 90′s. Evans is currently president of the Adult Performance Artists Guild, or APAG, a federally recognized union within the adult industry that represents all workers from adult film set actors, to content creators.

“They’ve attacked our banking; our ability to operate like the rest of the world,” explained DiAngelo. “You don’t exist if you can’t use the banking system.”

Evans says that once you’ve been in the industry and labeled as an adult performer, it is virtually impossible to get a job outside the industry – even at a fast food restaurant.

“We are stigmatized. We are discriminated against,” said Evans, who is actively looking to foment change in her role as the head of APAG. She says she has met directly with Mastercard and other companies to address the issue, and she is advocating with members of Congress to add occupation to the list of protected title practices, which currently includes race, age, and religion.

Mastercard confirmed the meeting with Evans, saying that the company “welcomes dialogue and different perspectives” about its policies and programs.

For many sex workers, bitcoin is more than a way to reclaim financial independence — it’s an industry standard.

In 2018, the U.S. passed a federal law designed to eliminate online sex trafficking. The Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act and Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, or FOSTA-SESTA, meant that owners of web sites could face criminal charges for content that promoted trafficking.

“It meant any site online, or any venue that does business online, that could possibly receive profits for prostitution in any way could be indicted and do 25 years in prison,” explained DiAngelo, who is currently a researcher and lecturer at the University of California, Davis.

FOSTA-SESTA spelled an end for Backpage – once the bastion of online advertisements for sex workers — and persuaded Craigslist to discontinue its personal ads.

But critics say the net effect of this law was to drive the trade further underground. Workers lost the ability to pre-screen clients, and many in the industry tell CNBC it led to a spike in street work and violence.

It also turned bitcoin into a necessity for many escorts. Advertising is essential to attract new business, and workers using popular escort directories like Slixa and Eros tell CNBC that these platforms encourage payment in cryptocurrencies within the U.S. One industry vet says typical ads cost $480 worth of bitcoin for two weeks.

Eros did not respond to a request for comment, while Slixa shared in a written statement that it “does not advertise or have as advertisers ‘sex workers’ as that term is traditionally defined,” and that it takes multiple forms of payment.

“I think that in some ways crypto offers a way forward,” said Mike Stabile, a spokesman for the Free Speech Coalition, which is an adult video trade group that advocates for the rights of sex workers.

“It means that you can move away from these handful of payment processors, the handful of credit cards that seem to control what content can be sold,” continued Stabile.

Mastercard disputes the assertion that it’s biased against sex workers. “Let us be clear – allegations of bias against adult content creators are demonstrably untrue. Our actions and business practices against trafficking and exploitation clearly show this.”

One hazard of the trade are chargebacks, in which a transaction is reversed when a consumer claims they have been fraudulently charged for a good or service they did not receive. It is a tool designed to protect consumers, but many sex workers say it is a tool that is abused in their industry by clients who dispute a transaction for a product or service they have already received.

Take OnlyFans. There are some customers who will dispute a transaction once they’ve already received custom video clips, or photos. OnlyFans’ official policy on its website says the creator, not the company, foots the bill for a chargeback. (OnlyFans did not respond to requests for comment.)

Many models have taken to forums like Reddit to share their experiences, in which they say these alleged scammers will sometimes put in for a chargeback six months after receiving pictures or videos.

Transactions in cryptocurrencies are final, rendering chargebacks impossible.

A wave of innovation

Online, the adult industry often leads technology shifts, and that’s certainly been the case with crypto.

UK-based escort agency VIP Passion started to accept bitcoin in 2013. Two years later, Backpage made a similar move into bitcoin, litecoin, and dogecoin after Visa and Mastercard refused to process payments for its “adult” section.

Visa said at the time that the company’s rules prohibited the network from “being used for illegal activity” and that Visa had a “long history of working with law enforcement to safeguard the integrity of the payment system.” Mastercard issued a similar statement, saying that the card company has rules prohibiting its cards from “being used for illegal or brand-damaging activities.”

Pornhub – one of the world’s most highly trafficked websites – began accepting a crypto token called verge in 2018. As litecoin creator Charlie Lee noted at the time, the porn industry is often a “leading indicator of technology adoption,” so he was “glad to see them opening up to cryptocurrency.”

When PayPal decided to stop payouts to over a hundred thousand Pornhub performers, the site added tether (a stablecoin pegged to the price of the U.S. dollar) as an alternative option. In Dec. 2020, Pornhub went full crypto in some countries after Mastercard and Visa cut ties with the platform over claims of illegal content running rampant on the porn site.

In a statement to CNBC, Mastercard said its decision was “based on an internal investigation that confirmed violations of our standards prohibiting unlawful content on their site.” Visa did not respond.

Nowadays, it’s par for the course to see adult websites accept cryptocurrency, and some deal in it exclusively.

Chaturbate and FanCentro accept digital tokens, and live-streaming webcam platform Stripchat tells CNBC that 23% of its active models are now paid in a mix of cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, ethereum, and USDC, which is a stablecoin pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar. Customers can also leave tips, and the company says its largest tip yet was $100,000 deposited in tether.

It helps that recent advancements in payment technology have made it easier than ever to transact in cryptocurrency. The Lightning Network, for example, is a payments platform built on bitcoin’s base layer that enables virtually instantaneous transactions.

“An OnlyFans that is Lightning based could easily survive the sort of censorship they faced in August,” explained Boaz Sobrado, a London-based fintech data analyst. “Political pressure and stigma can be applied to card companies, which can then make it very difficult for otherwise legal businesses like OnlyFans to operate.”

“This entire vector is removed if you have a payment system which doesn’t suffer from political pressures. And that’s the case with the Lightning Network, which has inexpensive payments, easy transactions, and is not easily censorable,” continued Sobrado.

Some adult media companies have even turned to blockchain technology to develop their own digital currencies and platforms.

SpankChain is a cam-site built on ethereum’s blockchain that, among other things, tries to make it easier for adult performers to safely get paid online. LiveStars, also built on ethereum, is an adult streaming platform and social network that promises greater privacy and security to users, plus similar payment solutions that intend to make transactions faster and more profitable for the performer – which is significant to workers who are accustomed to paying 40% to 50% commission fees on traditional platforms that run on fiat payment rails.

CumRocket – which Elon Musk appeared to back in two cryptic tweets last June – has its own NFT marketplace and token, which can be used to tip and message content creators.

Volatility and learning curve present problems

Stabile warns there are still barriers to mass crypto adoption among sex workers.

For one, there’s a steep learning curve for both workers and customers. Sex workers have written and circulated guides online on how to use crypto, but a sizable knowledge gap remains.

It is also difficult to get some customers to spend their bitcoin on adult content.

“They generally use it as a store of value,” says Stabile. “It’s a speculative currency.”

Knox says often clients choose not to pay her in crypto.

“That’s the hurdle that we’re at right now. We can take it all day long, but until people start using it and start paying us with it, it’s not going to really take off for adoption,” said Knox.

Sex workers who do accept crypto also have to contend with volatile prices, which can cut into their earnings. For instance, bitcoin is down more than 40% from its November all-time high.

Evans tells CNBC she stuck it out through the multi-year crypto winter that began in late 2017, when prices plunged.

“I literally had a paycheck that was worth one-tenth of what it was, because I held on to it,” explained Knox. “It’s just an up-and-down kind of roller coaster. That’s the beauty and the pain of crypto.”

That volatility can create upside, too.

When Knox began accepting cryptocurrency in 2014, it was mainly for convenience, rather than any sense of crypto as a long-term investment. In her early days, Knox tells CNBC she would get two bitcoin in exchange for an hour-long Skype session. A single bitcoin is now worth around $40,000, and has been as high as $69,000.

“I just kind of left it on the backburner and would collect it whenever people would pay me in it,” said Knox, who tells CNBC she still holds a good portion of her crypto stake. “I collected till about 2017 and then crypto went crazy. It was one of those things where I was like, ‘Oh, wow, this was an accidental great investment for me.’”

Beyond price volatility, trading in crypto often incurs extra fees.

“Buying the crypto to pay for [ads] was always fraught with all these hidden fees that these trading sites would be charging,” said San Francisco-based Maxine Doogan, who has been working as a prostitute for more than thirty years.

Instead of using a traditional exchange like Coinbase, Doogan instead goes through a convoluted process that involves finding an intermediary via a trading site, and then depositing cash into that person’s bank account, trusting that they will then electronically transfer bitcoin into her crypto wallet. Some of these intermediaries will accept gift cards. Others ask sex workers to buy a regular “vanilla” credit card and send them the numbers, in hopes that they’ll follow through on the trade.

DiAngelo says that in the early days of crypto, she would use bitcoin ATMs at liquor stores and gas stations to deposit cash to buy bitcoin. These machines charge commissions above and beyond the cost of the transaction.

Another major problem relates to the rules that govern cryptocurrency exchanges. Many platforms like Coinbase require know-your-customer, or KYC compliance. In practice, that means having to connect an ID and bank account to the platform – a non-starter for many working in the industry.

Because of this, some workers later find they can’t cash out the crypto they have earned for products or services rendered.

While there are tokens designed with privacy and anonymity in mind (zcash and monero, for example), the blockchain technology that underpins cryptocurrencies like bitcoin is transparent by design, leading some in the industry to worry that with the right tools and crypto know-how, friends, family, or the government technically have the ability to track their steps.

But Rae remains convinced that cryptocurrency is the future for the sex work industry.

“Cryptocurrency is our only option. I don’t feel like we’re going to survive under stricter and stricter rules from the banking industry,” said Rae.

“For people like me making millions of dollars, a thirty day notice from OnlyFans would be the end of us. Crypto really feels like it’s kinda it, otherwise we’re going to be controlled forever and who knows the kind of content they’re going to continue to ban. They can turn you off tomorrow.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/05/bitcoin-a-lifeline-for-sex-workers-like-ex-nurse-making-1point3-million.html

It will be crazy to see United States raising interest rates. While a lot of European countries have low or negative rates, soon USA will have their interest rates climbing.

Fed needs to keep raising U.S. rates to prevent overheating: Williams

APRIL 6, 2018

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve needs to keep raising U.S. interest rates gradually to keep the economy, already growing faster than its trend rate, from getting too hot, an influential U.S. central banker said on Friday.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed-williams-idUSKCN1HD2R2

@Hydrogen. On Dune if you are not a fan of the books, it will be hard to be a fan of the movie. Dune is not similar to Starwars where it was created like a tv soap opera with lasers, spaceships and as a marketing tool for commerical merchandising. Dune was a very good movie and it deserves the nomination for best picture, I reckon.

The economic model in the world is arranged in such a way that the development of the economy is financed at the expense of unsecured money

solution to keep markets alive

13 wins and 12 by KO. Tuivasa looks dangerous, but he is 6-3 only in UFC.

The United States’s national debt exceeded $30 trillion for the first time, according to Treasury Department figures released on Tuesday.

The national debt is now about double China’s entire gross domestic product.

The sobering milestone comes after the federal government spent trillions of dollars to stimulate the economy and lessen the economic blow that came with the pandemic.

The country’s debt has increased by a whopping $7 billion since the end of 2019, just before the pandemic took hold.

“The milestone of $30 trillion in debt should be a giant red flag for all of us about America’s future economic health, generational equity, and role in the world,” said Michael Peterson, CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a group that works to raise awareness about the debt.

“Our high and rising debt makes us less prepared for the next pandemic, less secure against future adversaries, less resilient to the changing climate, and less able to build the strong and inclusive economy that we all want for the next generation,” he added.

Most of the trillions of dollars that Congress spent sending out three stimulus checks to people, propping up businesses, and providing jobless benefits during the worst of the pandemic was financed through borrowing rather than being offset through revenues — a fact that raised the national debt to the $30 trillion mark much sooner than expected.

The gross national debt burden, which represents the debt the government owes its creditors, is greater than the U.S. economy. The national debt differs from the federal debt held by the public, which represents only the amount of government bonds held by the public and not the money the government owes itself. That number is lower, at $23.5 trillion.

News that the U.S. has crossed the $30 trillion threshold comes as the Federal Reserve unwinds its ultraloose monetary policies and prepares to raise the federal funds rate for the first time in years to combat soaring inflation.

Increased borrowing costs would make it even more difficult to finance the debt.

“It doesn't mean a short-term crisis, but it does mean we are going to be poorer in the long term,” David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, told CNN. The U.S. owes a lot of its debt to foreign investors, particularly China and Japan.

“That means American taxpayers will be paying for the retirement of the people in China and Japan, who are our creditors,” Kelly said.

During a meeting last week, top central bank officials indicated that the first in a series of interest rate hikes will likely come in March. Investors are pricing in several rate hikes this year, which could bring the federal funds rate to a range of 1-1.25%.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/economy/us-debt-exceeds-30-trillion-for-first-time

Do you think people can do anything to stop inflation in their economy or its inevitable?

Multiple oil transport and storage companies across Europe are dealing with cyber-attacks.

IT systems have been disrupted at Oiltanking in Germany, SEA-Invest in Belgium and Evos in the Netherlands.

In total dozens of terminals with oil storage and transport around the world have been affected, with firms reporting that the attacks occurred over the weekend.

But experts caution against assuming this is a co-ordinated attack.

The BBC understands that all three companies' IT systems went down or were severely disrupted.

Belgian prosecutors say they are investigating the cyber-attack that's affected SEA-Invest terminals including the company's largest in Antwerp, called SEA-Tank.

A spokeswoman for the company said they were hit on Sunday with every port they run in Europe and Africa affected.

The company is working to get a back-up IT system online but says that most liquid transportation is operational.

The spokeswoman said SEA-Invest is aware of the cyber-attacks against other companies but investigations have not determined if there is a link.

A spokesperson for Evos in the Netherlands told the BBC that IT services at terminals in Terneuzen, Ghent and Malta have "caused some delays in execution".

Limited capacity

On Monday Oiltanking Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG, which stores and transports oil, vehicle fuels and other petroleum products, said it had been hacked.

The company was forced to operate at a "limited capacity" and was investigating the incident, it said.

Some reports suggest the attack on Oiltanking is ransomware, where hackers scramble data and make computer systems inoperable until they get paid a ransom.

In May last year a ransomware attack on US oil supplier Colonial Pipeline saw supplies tighten across the US and multiple states declaring an emergency.

An employee of a major barging company in the Netherlands told the BBC that port supply chains were disrupted.

The worker said they first noticed problems on Tuesday when oil deliveries started slowing down. He said "things are moving but much slower than normal".

No conclusions

The disruption comes as tensions remain high between Ukraine and Russia and as concern over rising energy prices grows.

But cyber-security experts caution against jumping to the conclusion that the multiple incidents are the result of a co-ordinated effort to disrupt the European energy sector.

"Some types of malware scoop up emails and contact lists and use them to automatically spam malicious attachments or links, so companies with shared connections can sometimes be hit in quick succession," said Brett Callow, Threat Analyst at cyber-security company Emsisoft.

"This is why you sometimes see sector-based or geographic-based clusters of incidents."

Another possible explanation could be that all the companies use the same software for operations that may have been compromised by hackers.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60250956

An employee of a major barging company in the Netherlands told the BBC that port supply chains were disrupted.

The worker said they first noticed problems on Tuesday when oil deliveries started slowing down. He said "things are moving but much slower than normal".

Since its establishment as the country's national currency, the dollar has undergone many updates and changes, but nothing compares to the proposal being debated today.

The U.S. is gingerly considering whether to adopt a digital version of its currency, one better suited for today's increasingly cashless world, ushering in what could be one of the dollar's most fundamental transformations.

In that scenario, the U.S. would not only mint the coins and print paper bills but also issue digital cash, or a central bank digital currency (CBDC), that would be stored in apps or "digital wallets" on our smartphones.

We could then use them to pay for things, just like we do with Venmo or Apple Pay, and no physical money would change hands.

It's a vision of a cashless future that other countries are already embracing. China, for example, has unveiled the digital yuan on a trial basis. India this week said it would create a digital rupee.

Now the U.S. is weighing whether it wants to get into the game.

Last month, the Federal Reserve released a much-anticipated paper, laying out the advantages and disadvantages of a digital currency.

The Fed says it's a first step, meant to kick-start an important conversation among policymakers and to gather feedback from average people to some of the country's largest financial institutions.

Here's what to know about the digital dollar.

So, how would it actually work?

Policymakers stress these are early days yet, and there is a lot that needs to be hammered out. All in all, the transactions conducted with digital dollars probably wouldn't seem too different from existing private alternatives that allow us to pay for things by bringing our smartphones next to digital readers.

China, for example, allows digital yuan payments in the cities in which the country is piloting its digital currency, allowing citizens to make payments via an app set up by the government.

Why pursue a digital currency?

Reducing or eliminating fees is one clear benefit.

When you make a contactless payment today, it may seem immediate, but according to Chris Giancarlo, the former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a lot happens behind the scenes.

"My mobile device tells his mobile device to inform a whole series of banks, to confirm who I am, how much money is in my bank, that there is enough money to move from my bank to his bank," he says.

And at each step of the way, there are transaction fees. In 2020, they added up to more than $110 billion, which was generally shouldered by businesses.

With a digital dollar, you could in theory eliminate those middlemen. If you wanted to buy a sandwich, for instance, you could transfer money from a digital wallet directly to a cashier.

It wouldn't necessarily entirely eliminate nongovernment players. In China, for example, users who want to use the digital yuan can go to banks to add money to their digital wallets.

But just having digital dollars in circulation could put pressure on credit card companies and payment processors to lower fees to be competitive. That is, if enough people start using the Fed-run version.

In China, adoption of the e-renminbi has been slow given that private providers such as WeChat or Alipay are already pretty popular and entrenched.

Another argument for creating a digital dollar is to open up digital transactions to Americans who don't have bank accounts. According to the Fed, more than 5% of U.S. households are "unbanked."

Providing them with a digital wallet would allow people to participate in our increasingly cashless financial system.

It would also make it easier for the federal government to distribute benefits.. For example, having a digital dollar in place during the pandemic could have allowed the government to transfer relief payments directly into digital wallets.

What are the challenges?

Without question, one of the biggest issues is privacy. Because the Fed would implement and oversee the project, the central bank could accrue a vast amount of data, potentially giving it a lot more visibility into everyone's financial life.

That could be useful to regulators who want to combat money laundering, for example, but it would also raise serious privacy concerns.

That makes it critical to sort out how much information the Fed would have, according to Raghuram Rajan, a professor of finance at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a former governor of the Reserve Bank of India.

"There will be legitimate questions about how much the government knows about each individual, and also, how much it can act to restrain activities by individuals," he says.

Cybersecurity is another critical issue, especially given the uptick in hacks and heists at cryptocurrency exchanges.

To implement a digital dollar, the U.S. government would need to modernize the country's financial infrastructure to stave off attacks.

So what's next?

Fed Chair Jerome Powell and his colleagues are moving ahead cautiously and methodically.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston is also expected to release the results of its research into the technological challenges associated with implementing a CBDC in the U.S.

It would take five to 10 years to introduce a digital currency in the U.S., several experts say, but they argue policymakers can't sit idly by.

There is concern that by moving slowly, the U.S. is letting other countries shape standards for national digital currencies, and the popularity of the dollar could be diminished.

After all, for decades, it has been the world's primary reserve currency, meaning many countries hold their reserves in U.S. dollars.

But Powell has made it clear he's in no hurry. Last year, a reporter asked the central banker whether he was worried the U.S. was falling behind countries like China.

"I think it's more important to do this right than to do it fast," he replied.

https://www.npr.org/2022/02/06/1072406109/digital-dollar-federal-reserve-apple-pay-venmo-cbdc

I don't watch the press conferences after the fight as its usually way too late for me here, however does anyone know if the Erosa vs Peterson fight got a bonus? I watched every fight, and I'd like to think that got fight of the night. Peterson was smashing Erosa, and somehow Erosa managed to ride that out keep his chin, and then go on a wild one with all sorts of attacks. There must have been two or more spinning back fists as well as some super man punches.

Derrick Lewis VS Tai Tuivasa - after his loss to Ciryl Gane and a win against Chris Daukaus he will be pit against Tai Tuivasa I know Tuivasa is an underdog but men he is proven his worth but I really think that Derrick Lewis has more power than him so I would stick to the black beast.

Johnny Walker VS Jamahal Hill - I don't have the knowledge yet about Jamahal Hill but Johnny Walker is a great fighter to look out for, but just like the main event for this event I don't have a pick yet,

Sales of real estate in the metaverse topped $500 million last year and could double this year, according to investors and analytics firms.

Real estate sales on the four major metaverse platforms reached $501 million in 2021, according to MetaMetric Solutions. Sales in January topped $85 million, the metaverse data provider said. It projects that at this pace sales could reach nearly $1 billion in 2022.

The recent surge in sales was sparked by Facebook’s Oct. 28 announcement that it was rebranding as Meta to focus on the metaverse. Real estate sales surged nearly ninefold, to $133 million, in November, according to MetaMetric. Sales growth has faded since then, yet January’s sales total will still be more than 10 times the January 2021 levels.

A report from BrandEssence Market Research found that the metaverse real estate market is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 31% a year from 2022 to 2028.

“There are big risks, but potentially big rewards,” said Janine Yorio, CEO of Republic Realm, a metaverse real estate investor and advisory firm.

‘Big Four’ dominate the space

Republic Realm paid a record $4.3 million for land in the largest metaverse real estate platform, Sandbox. The company is developing 100 islands, called Fantasy Islands, with their own villas and a related market of boats and jet skis. Ninety of the islands sold on the first day for $15,000 each and some are now listed for resale for more than $100,000.

For investors, the big question is how to assign value and risk to an asset whose scarcity is artificial and whose future is a blank slate. Over a dozen platforms are now selling real estate in the metaverse, with new ones sprouting up almost weekly. So far, real estate sales have been concentrated on the “Big Four” — Sandbox, Decentraland, Cryptovoxels and Somnium. There are a total of 268,645 parcels on the four platforms, all of varying sizes.

Sandbox dominates the market, with 62% of the available land on the four platforms and three-quarters of all land sales in 2022, according to a report from Republic Realm. Sandbox’s 166,464 parcels each sold for the ether equivalent of $12,700 in December. The parcels are 96 meters by 96 meters (106 yards by 106 yards).

Decentraland has 90,600 parcels, which are 16 meters by 16 meters, and sold for the ether equivalent of $14,440 apiece.

Location may still matter

A rush of companies, major brands and investors are pouring into the new land craze, hoping to get in on the ground floor of the next digital Manhattan or Monaco. Yorio said land value in the metaverse will be determined by what owners do with a property — like designing a popular attraction, museum or feature —rather than location.

“You can teleport anywhere so location isn’t as important,” she said.

Yet other investors say that just like in the real world, location in the metaverse is everything when it comes to real estate. Prices for parcels near Snoop Dogg’s planned partnership and virtual world in Sandbox are fetching a premium, along with parcels near the Atari development.

Andrew Kiguel, CEO of Toronto-based Tokens.com, recently raised a $16 million fund to invest in metaverse real estate, almost all of which has been allocated to buying land and hiring staff. The company recently spent $2.4 million for land in Decentraland’s fashion district, where the company plans to host fashion events and retail shops.

Kiguel said he is about to announce deals with two North American apparel brands where he is renting space on his property to develop storefronts or experiences. Kiguel said the real opportunity in metaverse land is commercial — renting space and hosting events for companies looking to advertise to a younger digital audience. He said he’s been in talks with accounting firms, investment banks, podcasts and mutual funds to build a presence in the metaverse.

“We’re even talking to companies about putting up digital billboards in virtual conference rooms where people can meet,” he said.

Tokens.com purchased 12 waterfront properties in Somnium that it thinks will increase in value because of its scarcity and visual appeal, Kiguel said.

Still, others say metaverse land is just the latest iteration of the crypto ponzi scheme, luring unwitting investors into projects that may eventually prove worthless. While real land has natural scarcity — hence the old saying “They’re not making any more of it” — virtual land is easily created with code. There is no limit to the number of new metaverse platforms that can launch. Even the big existing platforms can create more land, as Sandbox did when it decided to increase its parcel sizes.

Many point out that previous versions of virtual land grabs, like in “Second Life,” fell far short of their promises.

“Metaverse land sales are generally a pyramid scheme and have been for more than 20 years,” said Edward Castronova, professor of media at Indiana University. “The Metaverse is El Dorado for internet startups. They chase it into the jungle and die.”

While older investors may scoff at metaverse land, Kiguel said, younger consumers and investors are instantly able to see the appeal.

“The problem a lot of people have is that there are generations that have a difficult time attributing value to things that are digital, that you can’t hold and that don’t have weight,” Kiguel said. “The younger generation has no issue with it. Like with NFTs, blockchain technology allows for something to be digital, irreplaceable and scarce. You can hold it, store it, display it and sell it.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/01/metaverse-real-estate-sales-top-500-million-metametric-solutions-says.html

BUENOS AIRES — Taking out small loans. Renegotiating salaries. Buying groceries in bulk.

Inflation transforms the way people spend, save and think. That’s true now for some in the United States, where prices rose last year by 7 percent, the fastest rate in nearly 40 years.

But it’s been the reality in Argentina for decades, where inflation last year topped 50 percent — and is expected to be similarly high in 2022.



The long, stubborn march of rising prices in this South American nation has inspired a range of strategies to limit the damage.

Buy enough toothpaste for the entire year? Store as many cans as the cupboard will allow? Keep the freezer crammed with meat? Buying staples in bulk here can feel like saving money. Or better than saving money, because saving money means it just sits there while its value falls.

Agustina Caparulo says filling her gas tank “almost feels like investing,” because the next time she visits the pump the price will almost certainly be higher.

Beyond the monetary cost of rising prices, analysts here say, there’s also a psychological toll: a sense of becoming uncertain about what goods and services are worth — and a fear of overspending as a result.

“There is an inflationary process brewing in the United States, albeit from low levels,” economist Marina Dal Poggetto said. “In Argentina, we come from numerous years of high inflation, which winds up twisting your mind-set.”

Guillermo Oliveto, who runs the consumption consultancy W, speaks of an “inflationary culture.”

“It provokes a permanent free-for-all feeling,” he said. “Almost everyone loses to inflation, and people are on guard all the time.”

One major tactic here is stockpiling. “To the extent that I can, I try to stash as many goods as possible,” said Ana Vienny, a 63-year-old retiree. At one point, she says, she owned 48 cans of tuna and enough vinegar bottles to cook for months. “Eventually, I had to stop buying because there was simply no more space.”

Nonperishable goods are a popular target. “Whenever I see a discount, I buy,” says Nicolás Mónaco, a 32-year-old manager. “I might have eight toothpaste pots right now,” he says. “And enough shampoo for a year and a half. As long as there is no expiration date, I just pile up.”

Taking out loans can also be helpful, provided the interest rate is lower than expected inflation.

Then there’s paying in installments. Americans are familiar with making monthly payments on homes, cars and appliances. In Argentina, installments are applied to just about everything. Sergio González, a financial analyst, bought a single jar of peanut butter last month for 300 pesos — less than $3. He arranged to pay in installments, interest-free, over the next 12 months. It will work out to a quarter a month.

“Just about anything that you get interest-free, you grab it without hesitation,” he said. “The idea is that you take advantage of inflation as it will dilute future fixed payments.”

With inflation at 1 percent per week — typically more than deposit interest rates — money that sits in the bank loses value by the day. That’s strong incentive to spend what you’ve got as soon as you get it. “It stimulates a culture of consumption because the feeling is that today’s pesos will be worth less tomorrow,” Oliveto says.

Paychecks are typically spent swiftly, or pesos exchanged to foreign currency as quickly as possible. There’s a long tradition here of purchasing U.S. dollars as a hedge.

But in a high-inflation economy, the greatest challenge might be matching income to rising prices. Some workers here renegotiate salaries quarterly — and any increase below the inflation rate is effectively a pay cut.

It’s a struggle for many in a country with a large informal economy.

“A feeling of chaos and unpredictability are at the core of what inflation creates in the mind,” said Enrique de Rosa Alabaster, a psychiatrist who studies behavioral science. “It is a phenomenon that goes far beyond economics … and inevitably turns into something emotional.”

It was not always so here.

The idea behind Todo x 2 Pesos will be familiar to Americans. Everything in the chain store sold for two pesos. It was the Argentine equivalent of Five Below.

In the late 1990s, with inflation under control, the stores proliferated. And not only on the streets of the capital but in popular culture, inspiring jokes, song lyrics, even a television show.

Then consumer prices rose, fewer products could be profitably sold for 2 pesos, and the business model collapsed. Todo x 2 Pesos stores are long extinct.

One of the longest-lasting effects of chronic high inflation is the loss of a sense of value.

“In Argentina, prices do not exist anymore,” Vienny said. That means Argentines frequently pay more for less. When customers find a product at a price they perceive as cheap, they hoard it.

Businesses also adapt to survive. Price disorder can lead to profitable commercial tactics: permanent discounts, in which stores hike prices regularly only to offer markdowns afterward.

A supermarket might offer a 40 percent discount on wine on weekends; a credit card might grant 20 percent off on clothing on Wednesdays. That leaves Argentines marking the days in the calendar by the discounts that will be available.

“Everybody hikes prices a bit because they know they can offer a discount later if they’ve gone too far,” Oliveto said. “What is the actual price today for goods in Argentina? One could argue that no one knows for sure.”

Jorge Centeno is a U.S. citizen who has lived in Argentina for almost four decades. He has learned the tactics. Whatever money he saves, he exchanges for U.S. dollars. He stockpiles as much food as the freezer allows. He exerts his energy searching for the lowest prices.

“I literally live looking for deals and discounts all the time,” he said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/01/27/argentina-inflation-strategy-tactics/

Then there’s paying in installments. Americans are familiar with making monthly payments on homes, cars and appliances. In Argentina, installments are applied to just about everything. Sergio González, a financial analyst, bought a single jar of peanut butter last month for 300 pesos — less than $3. He arranged to pay in installments, interest-free, over the next 12 months. It will work out to a quarter a month.