#Web3 Weekly: June 6–12, 2021

Big news for BTC, enterprises’ ransomware headaches continue, Hong Kong plans its own digital currency, and more…

Photo by Ivan Radic via Flickr under Creative Commons 2.0 license

Re-sharing below the latest edition of #Web3 Weekly, my regular newsletter about decentralization. If you’d like to get it in your inbox every Sunday, subscribe here.

The latest headlines about decentralization include a surprise geological twist:

• El Salvador became the first nation to recognize bitcoin as legal tender. The move is intended to boost financial inclusion, as many poor Salvadorans don’t have access to traditional banking services. Under a new law passed by El Salvador’s Congress, bitcoin will be recognized as payment for all goods and services alongside the country’s other official currency, the U.S. dollar. Bitcoin fans hailed the new law as a precedent other countries might follow, although the International Monetary Fund warned against potential risks. Meanwhile, El Salvador’s president said the country’s bitcoin mining will run on 100% renewable power from volcanoes.
• The FBI recovered some of the Colonial Pipeline hackers’ bitcoin. Authorities said they have clawed back a little more than half the $4.4 million ransom recently paid in BTC to get the massive U.S. oil conduit back in operation. The announcement initially raised investor concerns as a sign of potential security vulnerabilities in the bitcoin network itself. However, as details emerged, it seemed more likely the hackers made some basic mistakes in securing one of their wallets.
• Meanwhile, fallout from other high-profile hacks continued. The Department of Justics charged a tech contractor with hacking a Georgia hospital he was supposed to secure. Viedo game maker Electronic Arts had some of its source code stolen in a network breach. And meat supplier JBS paid $11 million in bitcoin to resolve a ransomware attack.
• A new partnership between Coinbase and the fintech startup ForUsAll will enable U.S. investors to allocate up to 5% of their 401(k) retirement accounts in cryptocurrency.
• Aave’s founder said the popular decentralized finance platform will soon allow non-fungible tokens to be used as loan collateral.
• A digital Hong Kong dollar is in the works. The chief executive of the city’s Monetary Authority made the announcement at a recent conference. He said Hong Kong will support use of the digital HKD alongside mainland China’s digital yuan, which is currently being tested in several cities.
• Weibo suspended the accounts of more than two dozen crypto influencers. The social network’s move appears to be part of the Chinese Communist Party’s recent attempt to clamp down on open-source tokens that may compete with the official digital money that China is in the process of rolling out.
• USA Today battled the FBI in court to protect reader privacy. The law enforcement agency submitted, then later withdrew, a subpoena seeking to identify the Internet Protocol addresses of users who read a particular story in early February. (For what it’s worth, I warned the news industry back in 2016 about the potential for this sort of intrusion.)
• Facebook is planning to offer a smart watch. As ever, tech vlogger Marques Brownlee had the proper reaction to this news.

That’s it for now. Thanks for spending some time with the newsletter today! A full revision history of it, including earlier drafts, is available here if you’re interested. If you’d like to get updates like this in your inbox every Sunday, please join our email list here.