Latam Insights: Bolivia Mulls Chinese Yuan for Trade Settlements, Steve Hanke Proposes 30-Day Solution for Venezuelan Inflation

Welcome to Latam Insights, a compendium of the most relevant crypto and economic development news from Latin America during the last week. In this issue, Bolivia mulls using the Chinese yuan in international trade settlements, inflation reaches 108.8% in Argentina, and…

Terawulf Energizes 50 MW at Nuclear-Powered Bitcoin Mining Facility Nautilus

Bitcoin mining company Terawulf has announced the full deployment of its 50-megawatt (MW) stake in the nuclear-powered Nautilus Cryptomine facility. The behind-the-meter bitcoin mining facility is powered by 100% nuclear power and benefits from a fixed power cost of $0.02 per…

Billionaire Warns of Imminent Bank Runs if Government Fails to Guarantee All SVB Deposits

Billionaire Bill Ackman has warned of “vast and profound” consequences of the U.S. government letting Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) fail without protecting all depositors. “No company will take even a tiny chance of losing a dollar of deposits as there is…

Crypto Exchange Coinbase Launches Ethereum L2 Scaling Network Called Base

The cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has announced the deployment of Base, an Ethereum layer two (L2) scaling network, after developers launched the Base testnet on Thursday. The company said it is incubating Base within Coinbase and that the L2 chain will progressively…

Report: Egyptian Pound Reaches New Low Against US Dollar Despite Flexible Exchange Rate Regime

The exchange rate of the Egyptian pound versus the U.S. dollar fell to a new low on Jan. 11 after it tapped 32.14 per greenback. The currency’s latest significant depreciation came just a few months after it adopted a flexible exchange…

Don’t Forget the Importance of Censorship Resistance

Since people are once again talking about self-custody as one of crypto’s unique strengths, I would like to remind everyone about an equally important fundamental value proposition of crypto that, in the early days, was touted as the killer feature. I’m…

Bank of England Hikes Repo Rate by 75bps — UK’s 30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rate Jumps to 7%

On Nov. 3, 2022, the Bank of England followed the U.S. Federal Reserve by codifying the eighth consecutive benchmark bank rate hike by 75 basis points (bps). The increase brings the United Kingdom’s main lending rate to 3%, after a majority…

The Fed Codifies Fourth Consecutive 75bps Rate Hike — Stocks, Bitcoin, and Metals Rise

The U.S. Federal Reserve introduced another jumbo rate hike on Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2022, by hiking the federal funds rate (FFR) by 75 basis points (bps). The American central bank said on Wednesday that the hike aims to curb inflation and…

Professor Steve Hanke Says US Economy Was Flat Over the Last Year, but Stresses ‘It’s Going to Hit South’

Amid the chaotic economy, plagued with central bank tinkering, supply chain issues, and red-hot inflation, the professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, Steve Hanke believes a “pretty big recession” will take place in 2023. Speaking in an interview on…

Hacker Siphons Close to $300K in OHM Tokens From the Olympus DAO

On Friday, October 21, a malicious entity siphoned 30,437 OHM tokens from the Olympus DAO after finding a loophole in the rebase project’s smart contract. Following the exploit, the blockchain security and data analytics company, Peckshield, detailed the hackers stole close…