The señora doth protest too much, methinks.
#Web3Weekly: April 30 to May 6, 2023
This post is adapted from the latest edition of my newsletter #Web3Weekly. If you would like to receive it in your inbox every Sunday, subscribe here.
Argentina’s central bank just banned payment apps from offering crypto transactions in that country.
Translated to English, the bank’s announcement claims the move will “mitigate the risks that operations with these assets could generate for users.”
Ah, yes. The users! Of course the ban on crypto payments is for their sake.
This move could not possibly, in any way, have anything whatsoever to do with recent inflation in Argentina, on track to hit 126% this year. That means the same amount of stuff you could buy for 100 Argentine pesos today would cost you 226 pesos to buy a year from now.
Surely, in banning crypto payments, the central bank isn’t worried about a certain phenomenon that economists refer to as “competition” for the peso. They’re just worried about the financial health of Argentina’s citizens, you see.
Almost a quarter of that population owns some form of digital money, by the way. That’s one of the highest proportions of any country in the world and about double the global average, according to Reuters.
Better for these folks to own that trusty old standby, the peso. It’s issued by the government, after all! That weird crypto stuff, with nothing backing it, is way too dangerous.
The week’s other notable headlines:
- Coinbase announced it will launch a new international exchange. The company also announced stronger than expected first-quarter earnings, helped in part by interest on its USDC holdings.
- Bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital is going to liquidate its remaining assets after failing to find a buyer for the company.
- The White House proposed a 30% excise tax on crypto miners to offset environmental costs.
- Decrypt reports that Ethereum staking has outpaced withdrawals by roughly $189 million worth of tokens since the network’s recent Shanghai upgrade. That’s a promising sign of investor and developer confidence in the network’s future.
- The Securities and Exchange Commission announced it has issued a $279 million wistleblower reward, easily the biggest such payout in the agency’s history to someone who provided information on a single case. The U.S. regulator didn’t say which case the payment pertained to, however.
- Computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, sometimes referred to as “the Godfather of artificia intelligence,” quite his job at Google. In an interview with the New York Times, he said he left in order to speak more freely about the risks to society of pushing ahead too quickly with widely available AI apps.
- A Pepe the Frog memecoin surpassed $1 billion in market valuation, putting it among the top 50 tokens globally. Groan…
- Police in Old Bridge, New Jersey are investigating the mysterious dumping of several hundred pounds of pasta beside a creek in the local woods.
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Note: #Web3Weekly content is intended for journalistic purposes only, not as investment advice. Always DYOR and consult appropriate financial professionals before making investment decisions.
Best wishes for a healthy and productive week ahead.
