There’s much excitement among bitcoiners right now – but are they about to be disappointed?
A worker from Hope House, an organization that sponsors the use of cryptocurrencies on El Zonte beach, makes a purchase at a small shop that accepts bitcoins, in Tamanique, El Salvador, June 9, 2021.
(AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)
Even though some traditional financial firms parked millions in the bankrupt company – once valued at $30 billion – the impact of FTX’s spectacular crash is limited to crypto investors
Former FTX billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried.
Dan Matt
Not all digital money is cryptocurrency. Digital money can take the form of card or mobile phone payments, central bank digital currencies and virtual currencies such as Zuck Bucks.
Blockchain transactions are carried in blocks. The amount of energy it takes to add a new block varies widely depending on how it’s done.
Yuichiro Chino/Moment via Getty Images
Ethereum, one of the world’s largest blockchains and host of decentralized finance, NFTs and billions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency, is poised to dramatically reduce its energy consumption.
The landmark change places Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies under immense pressure to follow suit.
Crypto trading platforms Celsius and Voyager filed for bankruptcy in July 2022, suspending all withdrawals, swaps and transfers between accounts and leaving users’ assets trapped inside their platforms.
(Shutterstock)
Because cryptocurrency exchange platforms act more like banks, they should be subject to increased oversight to protect clients’ assets.
Some of the of 19,000 private cryptos in use by end of June 2022. Users have increased sharply in Africa after the COVID-19 outbreak. Silas Stein/Picture Alliance via
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Senior Lecturer & Director of the LLM. Research interests - AI and the law; Social relationships of trust; Sustainable futures, Australian National University