Last Week in Review: The Bitcoin halving and its impact on price, and US debt default looming

The highlights from last week’s headline grabbers. All the important news, numbers and events from the world of crypto in one place. 

News from the block

🦅 A US default and debt ceiling review 

• The US government is currently in a race against time to pass legislation that would enable it to issue more debt and thereby meet its debt repayments in the coming months. 

• Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the US will be unlikely to meet all US government payment obligations by early June without a debt ceiling increase, potentially triggering the first-ever US default. 

• “We have learned from past debt limit impasses that waiting until the last minute to suspend or increase the debt limit can cause serious harm to business and consumer confidence, raise short-term borrowing costs for taxpayers, and negatively impact the credit rating of the United States,” Yellen said. 
  

🫰 PayPal has nearly $1 billion in crypto on balance sheet

• In its quarterly filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Payments giant PayPal disclosed $1 billion of crypto on its books in the form of customer deposits. 

• This is an increase of $339 million in customer crypto assets compared to the end of last year. 

• The numbers are a result of the company making a big push into crypto. 
  

🫘 How soybean farmers in Africa can benefit from digital currencies

• Visa and other multinationals like Microsoft built a prototype designed to provide farmers with quicker and greater access to a global pool of investors.

• By tokenising and automating contracts on Ethereum, which execute when predefined terms are met, financiers and farmers are able to reduce counterparty risk and optimise capital usage. 

• “…We are able to help advance real-world applications of digital currencies — in this case making it possible for a soybean farmer to create and globally auction a tokenized contract on a permissioned version of the Ethereum blockchain, while utilising different forms of money and interoperating between them,” said Catherine Gu, global head, CBDC, Visa. 
  

🌇 The UK needs to embrace changes in payments, says financial services minister

• Speaking at a think tank last Wednesday, Andrew Griffith, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, said the UK is getting closer to having a working digital pound. 

• “We would not commit the time to the consultation if we didn’t think we are getting closer, we are not there today, but we are getting closer to the point that if becomes a when and not and if,” Griffith told an event held by OMFIF think tank.

• “We envisage a digital pound acting in a similar way to a physical pound, it will be a safe, trusted form of money,” Griffith said. Fiat-backed stablecoins will likely precede the launch of a digital pound, the Minister said, and will be regulated by legislation currently being approved in Parliament. 

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TL;DID read

The Bitcoin halving is one year away, what does it mean for the price? 

Every four years, bitcoin rewards paid to miners are cut in half as a way to ensure that an infinite supply of bitcoin doesn’t erode its value further down the line. READ HERE how these events have historically had a major impact on the price. 

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Crunching the numbers

🏦 55 – The number of crypto-friendly banks in Europe, according to research by Coincub. 

🔻 23 – The reported number of crypto-friendly banks in the US, as noted in the same data. 

💰 47,110  – The number of ETH addresses holding more than 100 ETH. 

🤖 $100 million – The reported amount raised by Sam Altman’s Worldcoin crypto project. Altman is also one of the brains behind ChatGPT. 

✍️ $69,000 – The last Bitcoin halving event saw a bull run that ended in a new all-time high for bitcoin. 

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The crypto time capsule

Running bitcoin

— halfin (@halfin) January 11, 2009

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Crypto trivia

Know your payment cryptos from your utility cryptos? READ HERE how a cryptocurrency is defined by its use case.