Private Equity Moris Beracha Wuani

Facebook is set Tuesday to unveil a bid to bring cryptocurrency payments into the mainstream, reportedly with the endorsement of governments and financial giants. The world's biggest social network is expected to outline details of a virtual currency launching next year that it hopes will avoid the rollercoaster volatility of "blockchain" technologies such as bitcoin. Facebook is setting up a consortium called "Libra" which, according to the Wall Street Journal, has been joined by more than a dozen companies including Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Uber. The companies along with venture capitalists and telecommunications firms will reportedly invest around $10 million each into the consortium. Facebook has been trying to ward off hostile regulatory scrutiny after a series of privacy abuses and the spread of fake news. The consortium will be managed externally and will seek to build trust among consumers by pegging the virtual coin to a basket of c...

  New cryptocurrencies such as Tether may be pegged to the dollar, but they have big flaws By Barry Eichengreen W hile the mania for cryptocurrencies may have peaked, new units continue to be announced, seemingly by the day. Prominent among the new arrivals are so-called “stable coins.” Bearing names such as Tether, Basis, and Sagacoin, their value is rigidly tied to the dollar, the euro, or a basket of national currencies. It’s easy to see the appeal of these units. Viable monies provide a reliable means of payment, unit of account, and store of value. But conventional cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, trade at wildly fluctuating prices, which means that their purchasing power – their command over goods and services – is highly unstable. Hence they are unattractive as units of account. No grocer in their right mind would price the goods on their shelves in bitcoin. No worker would want a long-term employment contract that paid them a fixed number of thos...

By Moris Beracha The entire network for bitcoin mining requires to be running constantly, leading to a large consumption of resources. The Joule magazine cited a research estimating that by the end of 2018, the mining of cryptocurrencies will account for 0.5% of the total world electricity production, which would be equivalent to the electricity consumption of a country the size of the Netherlands. Also, this research suggests that this figure could increase significantly up to 1.8%, which is equivalent to all solar panel energy production at present. Currently, the specialized devices needed to create cryptocurrency consume electricity and in high quantities constantly.   See more at: MorisBeracha.com