Skip to main content

MLB Team Washington Nationals Partners With Terra Blockchain Community, Ballpark Plans to Accept UST

On February 9, the American professional baseball team based in Washington, D.C., the Washington Nationals, announced the team has partnered with Terra, the open-source blockchain platform and decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). The Washington Nationals detail that the team is a “leading innovator” and is “consistently introducing new technologies to enhance the fan experience.” Washington Nationals Ink Long-Term Deal With Terra Major League Baseball (MLB) team the Washington Nationals has partnered with the blockchain platform and DAO Terra, according to an announcement published by the team on Wednesday. The deal with Terra follows a slew of sports-related deals with crypto firms, but the MLB team will be the first to partner with an open-source blockchain project. In addition to the partnership, the algorithmic stablecoin UST that’s issued on the Terra blockchain will be “accepted as a payment method at Nationals Park as early as next season.” “The Nationals continue t...
Post a Comment

Steve Hanke warns BTC could 'completely collapse the economy' of El Salvador

Steve Hanke slammed El Salvador’s Bitcoin adoption as legal tender, and questioned how Bitcoin would function in day-to-day transactions.

Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, has warned that El Salvador’s recent adoption of Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender has the potential to “completely collapse the economy.”

Steve Hanke served as a senior economist under President Ronald Reagan administration from 1981 to 1982. Hanke has previously described BTC as a speculative asset “with a fundamental value of zero,” and in April the 78-year-old tweeted “cryptocurrencies are the future of money. Bitcoin is not.”

Speaking with streaming financial news provider Kitco News on June 15, the university professor noted that BTC hodlers from regions such as Russia and China could now target El Salvador to cash out their holdings — essentially draining the country of its U.S. dollars:

“It has the potential to completely collapse the economy because all the dollars in El Salvador could be vacuumed up and there'd be no money in the country. They don't have a domestic currency. ”

During the interview, the economist described the elected representatives in El Salvador who voted in favor of president Nayib Bukele’s Bitcoin law as “in a word, stupid,” and questioned how BTC could function as a legal tender in day to day transactions, in a country where most citizens rely on cash.

“You're not going to pay for your taxi ride with a Bitcoin. It's ridiculous [...] You've got 70 percent of the people in El Salvador don't even have bank accounts,” he said.

On June 11, JPMorgan echoed similar sentiments but in more measured language, with the firm stating in a client note that it was difficult to see any “tangible economic benefits associated with adopting Bitcoin as a second form of legal tender, and it may imperil negotiations with the IMF. ”

The Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) doesn’t share this view however and stated yesterday that El Salvador’s adoption of BTC is innovative and “creates many spaces and opportunities. ”

The multinational bank also revealed that it will be forming a technical advisory group to aid El Salvador in its transition to using Bitcoin as legal tender.

Professor Hanke speculated that “dark forces are clearly behind this” in El Salvador, who want to use Bitcoin to get their hands on U.S. dollars.

Related: El Salvador reportedly weighing paying employees in Bitcoin

The economist also described remittances across borders in Bitcoin as “nonsensical,” as he thinks the asset will need to be converted instantly to dollars to be able to use it.

“If grandma is down in El Salvador is waiting for her remittances and you want to send Bitcoin like that it’s fine, but what does she do? She has to go to the ATM to get dollars because that's the only way you can buy something,” Hanke said. However, businesses in El Salvador will be mandated to accept Bitcoin.

An article in Foreign Policy by trenchant Bitcoin critic David Gerard, author of the book Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain speculated that as El Salvador can’t print U.S. dollars, its adoption of BTC may be part of a move to source U.S. dollar liquidity from its citizens to pay back foreign debts.

https://ift.tt/3zsEIB3
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MLB Team Washington Nationals Partners With Terra Blockchain Community, Ballpark Plans to Accept UST

On February 9, the American professional baseball team based in Washington, D.C., the Washington Nationals, announced the team has partnered with Terra, the open-source blockchain platform and decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). The Washington Nationals detail that the team is a “leading innovator” and is “consistently introducing new technologies to enhance the fan experience.” Washington Nationals Ink Long-Term Deal With Terra Major League Baseball (MLB) team the Washington Nationals has partnered with the blockchain platform and DAO Terra, according to an announcement published by the team on Wednesday. The deal with Terra follows a slew of sports-related deals with crypto firms, but the MLB team will be the first to partner with an open-source blockchain project. In addition to the partnership, the algorithmic stablecoin UST that’s issued on the Terra blockchain will be “accepted as a payment method at Nationals Park as early as next season.” “The Nationals continue t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Year of sponsorships: Celebrities who embraced crypto in 2021

From Matt Damon appearing in a TV spot for Crypto.com to Kim Kardashian shilling EthereumMax, 2021 saw celebrities with higher profiles getting into crypto. Though the crypto space has seemingly moved beyond the endorsements many minor celebrities bestowed on token projects during the 2018 initial coin offering boom, its growing popularity and acceptance now has professional sports players, Hollywood elites and politicians backing major companies dealing with digital assets. In June 2021, Kim Kardashian promoted EthereumMax (EMAX) via an Instagram story shared with  her more than 200 million followers . The token, which was used as payment for online ticket purchases for some pay-per-view events, gained 116,000% in just one week following the celebrity’s activity before falling more than 99% and leaving many investors in the red. Kim Kardashian promoting EthereumMax on Instagram Stories, June 2021. Source: Instagram Though EthereumMax is somewhat of a cautionary tale for cry...
Post a Comment
Read more

Top 3 Rebase Token Markets Shudder — Stats Show TIME, OHM, BTRFLY Lost Billions Since All-Time Highs

While the crypto economy has shed more than 3% in fiat value during the last 24 hours dropping to $2.09 trillion, the top rebase tokens by market capitalization have seen significant losses this week. At the time of writing, the rebase token economy is valued at over $3.2 billion but has lost more than 10% in value during the last 24 hours. The largest rebase token economies such as Wonderland, Olympus, and Redacted Cartel have shed between 36% to 55% over the last week. Top 3 Rebase Token Protocols Shed Billions in Value Over the Last Week, Wonderland Down 87% Since High On the first day of November 2021, Bitcoin.com News took a deep dive into the Olympus DAO and the reserve-backed asset called OHM . Olympus is a decentralized finance (defi) project that is described as a rebase token and since Olympus started, a myriad of Olympus forks have been born. Essentially, rebase token protocols adjust the token supply in a periodic fashion or when the price fluctuates. Olympus was once ...
Post a Comment
Read more