Gold, Silver, and Currencies

Dollar stores are among the first to see trouble ahead from inflation in dollar prices. The Financial Times reports: Dollar stores have spread rapidly across the US since the Great Recession, pulling in cash-strapped consumers with their 21st-century twist on the “five and dime” model Woolworth popularised a century earlier. Dollar General now operates almost 17,800 stores and Dollar Tree has more than 15,900, compared with Walmart’s 4,740 larger US outlets. Close to 2,000 new dollar stores are expected to open this year, according to Coresight Research. That represents almost half of … [Read more...]

Japanese cryptocurrency exchange, Liquid, has been robbed by hackers who made away with $97 million worth of assets. Ryan Browne reports for CNBC: Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Liquid said Thursday it has been hit by a cyberattack that saw hackers make off with a reported $97 million worth of digital coins. Liquid said some of its digital currency wallets had been “compromised,” and that hackers were transferring the assets to four different wallets. “We are currently investigating and will provide regular updates,” Liquid tweeted. “In the meantime deposits and withdrawals will be … [Read more...]

Owners of cryptocurrency have been frequent targets of cyber theft. Some of the most infamous cases of crypto-looting were Coincheck in 2018 and Mt. Gox in 2014. Now, a new heist can be added to the list. Hackers have stolen over $600 million in crypto from the Poly Network. Anna Hirtenstein reports for The Wall Street Journal: Hackers stole cryptocurrencies worth more than $600 million from Poly Network, a decentralized finance, or DeFi, platform, in one of the largest crypto heists of recent years. Poly Network, which uses digital assets for lending and other financial transactions, … [Read more...]

The Fed, along with researchers at MIT, is attempting to understand what it would take to create a US-backed digital currency. Gillian Tett reports in the Financial Times: Last year the Boston Fed asked researchers at MIT to embark on a project to build and test “with boldness [and] ingenuity” the computing systems needed to support a US-backed digital currency. That is scheduled to deliver two policy papers next month: one covering the CBDC coding challenges; the second on economic and design choices, such as what putative digital dollars might mean for commercial banks. To … [Read more...]

Famed investor Mohamed El-Erian, who has correctly called some of the most pivotal moments in recent market history, is saying he is very confident that current inflation will not be transitory. Bloomberg reports: What bond-market guru Mohammed El-Erian said Friday was enough to make bond investors listen like they’re in an old E.F. Hutton commercial. “Inflation is not going to be transitory,” the chief economic adviser at Allianz SE said in an interview on Bloomberg TV’s The Open show. “I’ve been pretty certain in my mind about three prior calls. This is the fourth one.” El-Erian … [Read more...]

BNY Mellon follows State Street in backing Pure Digital, a cryptocurrency exchange trading platform. Eva Szalay reports for the Financial Times: Two of the world’s largest custody banks have publicly backed cryptocurrency trading platform Pure Digital, in a move that points to growing demand from traditional asset managers for bitcoin and other digital tokens. Bank of New York Mellon has joined the consortium of six banks behind the launch of London-based Pure Digital, three months after State Street became the first to announce its support for the planned exchange. The step suggested … [Read more...]

Here comes the mainstream economics establishment (late to the party as always) trying to kill crypto before it gains too much acceptance and risks replacing fiat money. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is out with a report trashing crypto. According to the BIS, Bitcoin has no redeeming qualities. We can think of at least one. In contrast to the U.S. dollar, which can be printed and debased at will, there is a fixed supply of Bitcoin (or there will be). The U.S. dollar has lost over 80% of its purchasing power over the last 50 years. That has everything to do with an … [Read more...]