Last week in review: The Inflation Effect

As the markets saw little movement, the news was anything but still. Renewable energy and Bitcoin are making headlines for all the right reasons, the UK is searching for ways to become a crypto hub of the world, and with inflation on everyone’s lips, we take a deeper look at the effects it has on the crypto space and society at large.

Here are our top picks to come from last week.

The Inflation Effect

Nothing escapes inflation. Not home loans. Not fuel and food prices. Not investments, and definitely not Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Not yet, anyway. Even powerful nation states seem to sway like seaweed in the current of inflation while doing their best with the tools at hand to manage it. But what is this monetary phenomenon and why is the financial system and life in general so vulnerable to its whims?

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UK Treasury and Royal Mint to work on NFT project in bid to boost crypto-investment

What

The UK Treasury is partnering with the Royal Mint to create an NFT as part of a “crypto push” by the UK government

Why

John Glen, economic secretary to the Treasury, has said that the move reflects the UK’s commitment to “unleash the potential of crypto technologies”

What next

The Royal Mint NFT is expected to launch later this year and will be the first of its kind. Time will tell if digitalised collections become a popular medium among coin collectors

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Tesla, Blockstream and Block start work on Bitcoin mining facility that runs on renewable energy

What

The three tech giants have finally started work on a Bitcoin mining facility in Texas that will run 100% on renewable energy, following an announcement of the partnership in June last year

Why

The proof of concept mining facility seeks to prove that Bitcoin can be mined using only renewable energy, thereby proving that mining Bitcoin can actually contribute to the financing and development of renewable energy projects

What next

The project will run an open dashboard that will be updated with real-time metrics, including the financials and the hashrate

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WeChat Pay to support China’s CBDC Pilot Expansion

What

Chinese e-pay platform WeChat Pay is creating a solution to allow its users to make payments using the central bank-issued token CNY

Why

The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) recently expanded the number of cities included in its pilot for the digital CNY to include Guangzhou and other major urban centres

What next

WeChat Pay’s solution will allow users to create digital yuan wallets in their names via the WeChat Pay-run WeBank service – enabling them to make and receive payments in the digital fiat using either the PBoC’s own app or WeChat Pay

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Ethereum’s shift to proof of stake likely delayed, again

What

Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko has intimated that the much-hyped Ethereum merge may likely be delayed to some date after June, the initial date set for the merge

Why

It’s ready in a “we could ship it and the network probably wouldn’t crash” way, not in a “we’d like to smoothly transition X00B$ of economic activity” way, Beiko tweeted, fielding questions on Twitter

What next

When the merge eventually happens, Ethereum will move from a proof of work (PoW) consensus mechanism to proof of stake (PoS), where validators secure the network by staking Ether

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