Last week in review: New report sheds light on banking energy use vs Bitcoin

Despite a turbulent week for both crypto and the stock market, positive stories continued to pour in, featuring a number of firsts in the world of crypto and some promising developments for the world’s biggest social media platform.

IT engineer and cryptographer Michel Khazzaka offers a new perspective on the Bitcoin energy use debate, Elon Musk outlined his plans for Twitter following his acquisition bid with a focus on implementing crypto payments and the issuer of the USD Coin (USDC) dollar-pegged stablecoin announced its plans to launch a new token backed by the euro.

Meanwhile, in the metaverse, Metabank made headlines as the first bank to have launched in the space, offering decentralised finance alongiside traditional banking services. As always, there is never a dull moment in crypto. Here are our top picks from last week’s headlines.

The first decentralised bank in the Metaverse has been launched

What

The first decentralised bank in the Metaverse, Metabank, has been launched 

Why 

Metabank provides decentralised finance (DeFi) as well as traditional banking services; utilising Web 3.0 and virtual reality to provide financial services in the metaverse that can be used in the real-world

What next 

Metabank is introducing a Governance Token in the coming months and plans to launch in over 20 Metaverses in Q3 of 2022

Read the full story here

Leaked transcript reveals Elon Musk’s Twitter plans for crypto payments

What

In a call with Twitter employees, Elon Musk outlined his plans for the social media platform, including crypto payments and a crackdown on phishing attacks

Why

The call was the first official conversation between Musk and Twitter executives since he made a bid to buy Twitter in April for $43 billion

What next

The Tesla CEO spoke on the need for Twitter to grow to reach more people, estimating the platform is “useful” for 4-5% of the world, but said he would like this figure to be closer to 50%

Read the full story here

New report sheds light on banking energy use vs Bitcoin

What 

IT engineer and cryptographer Michel Khazzaka argues in a new report that the banking sector uses 56 times more energy than Bitcoin. The report, Bitcoin: Cryptopayments Energy Efficiency, is based on almost four years of research and suggests a new calculation for estimating Bitcoin’s proof-of-work energy consumption

Why 

Khazzaka says that most studies criticising proof of work’s energy consumption do so without evaluating its efficiency compared to classic electronic payment systems 

What next 

“When Bitcoin Lightning layer is compared to Instant Payment scheme, Bitcoin gains exponentially in scalability and efficiency, proving to be up to a million times more energy efficient per transaction than Instant Payments,” Khazzaka explains

Read the full story here

USDC creator to launch Euro-backed stablecoin in the US

What

Circle Internet Financial, the issuer of the USD Coin (USDC) dollar-pegged stablecoin will launch a new token backed by the euro

Why

Clear market demand for a digital currency denominated in euros has been cited as a key reason for the move

What next

The Euro Coin (EUROC) will be backed by euro-denominated reserves held by US-regulated financial institutions and is set to launch on the Ethereum blockchain on June 30 as an ERC-20 standard token

Read the full story here

To catch up on other big stories from last week, be sure to check these headlines:

Bank of England raises UK interest rate to 1.25%

MicroStrategy refutes margin call rumours and can “HODL through adversity”

Proposed addition to Brazilian law could make crypto payments legal, protect citizens’s private keys

SEC Chair: Crypto lenders could work with regulators one day

Majority of crypto fund managers surveyed see Bitcoin reaching $100K by year-end