Currency
In the current high-inflation environment, investors are picking value stocks over bitcoin, according to a new survey.
Based on results from 900 investors surveyed by Bloomberg Markets Live, value stocks were ranked as the best inflation hedge with 35% of the vote. Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, garnered a meager 4% of the tally, the data showed, with gold and inflation-linked bonds also far behind the top pick.
Inflation — which is at its highest in 40 years — is running rampant in the US, touching every corner of the economy. Last month, prices consumer rose 7.9% over the last 12 months, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Gasoline prices, which have risen amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, contributed to most of last month’s increase, the bureau said.
Bloomberg’s survey also found that 73% of respondents said central banks aren’t doing enough to fight inflation. The US Federal Reserve, for its part, began attempting to combat rising prices with an interest-rate hike last week. Even so, investors are still looking for ways to hedge inflation, and to them, value stocks may be the best bet…read more.
* Canadian dollar strengthens 0.2% against the greenback
* Canada adds 336,600 jobs in February
* Price of U.S. oil settles 3.1% higher
* Canadian 10-year yield touches a 3-year high at 2.006%
The Canadian dollar strengthened against its broadly stronger U.S. counterpart on Friday as domestic data showed a blockbuster jobs gain in February, helping to underpin expectations for another Bank of Canada interest rate hike next month.
The Canadian dollar strengthened 0.2% to 1.2740 per greenback, or 78.49 U.S. cents, after trading in a range of 1.2695 to 1.2794.
It was the only G10 currency to gain ground against the U.S. dollar.
“Today’s move is predicated by the employment report which was very robust,” said Amo Sahota, director at Klarity FX in San Francisco. “It keeps the Bank of Canada still very much on a tightening path.”
Canada added 336,600 jobs in February, more than double the 160,000 analysts had forecast, while the unemployment rate dropped below its pre-pandemic level for the first time as businesses reopened from strict Omicron restrictions…read more.
Ukraine said it will soon announce NFTs as part of its crypto fundraising efforts.
The country has already raised more than $50 million in crypto to help its armed forces against Russia.
In announcing the NFTs, Ukraine canceled a planned crypto airdrop.
Ukraine’s vice prime minister announced on Twitter the country would soon release NFTs to help raise funds for its defense against Russia’s invasion.
In a tweet, Mykhailo Fedoro, who is also the country’s minister of digital transformation, said, “we will announce NFTs to support Ukrainian Armed Forces soon.”
The announcement, which came as Fedoro canceled a planned crypto airdrop, is the country’s latest attempt to raise money through digital tokens.
To date, Ukraine has raised more than $50 million worth in cryptocurrencies, according to data from Elliptic. The tens of thousands of donations included a $200,000 CryptoPunk NFT and a $5.8 million gift from Polkadot founder Gavin Wood. Donors have been sending crypto in the form of bitcoin, ether, and polkadot, and even meme tokens like dogecoin and digital pieces of art known as NFTs…read more.
A key investment case for bitcoin is deteriorating as geopolitical uncertainty and rising inflation hammer cryptocurrency prices.
The price of bitcoin fell to a two-week low Tuesday after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Donetsk and Luhansk, two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine, shortly after declaring them as independent.
Bitcoin is often referred to as “digital gold” by its backers. The term refers to the idea that bitcoin can provide a store of value similar to gold — one that’s uncorrelated with other financial markets, like stocks.
Bitcoin bulls also see the cryptocurrency as a “safe haven” asset that can serve as a hedge against global economic uncertainty and increasing prices, which reduce the purchasing power of sovereign currencies like the U.S. dollar.
With inflation at historic highs, you’d expect this would be bitcoin’s time to shine — U.S. consumer prices last month rose the most since February 1982, according to Labor Department figures.
Instead, the cryptocurrency has lost almost half of its value since reaching an all-time high of nearly $69,000 in November. That’s led analysts to question whether its status as a form of “digital gold” still rings true…read more.
A new book may have revealed the identity of the mastermind behind the infamous 2016 hack of a crypto collective called TheDAO.
In her book, “The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze,” journalist Laura Shin believes the alleged hacker — who stole what today would be about $11 billion worth of ether — is 36-year-old programmer Toby Hoenisch.
Hoenisch, who is known for cofounding crypto startup TenX, did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment on this story in a LinkedIn message.
In a phone call with Insider, Shin said she reached out to Hoenisch for interviews before publishing the book but was unsuccessful. Eventually, she emailed him a document detailing her research and discoveries, to which he responded that her “conclusion is factually inaccurate.” She said he never responded to emails asking for further details as to why.
In a Forbes article, Shin said TheDAO, a decentralized venture fund, launched in 2016 and raised $139 million to make it the most successful crowdfund at the time. Within weeks, a hacker exploited weaknesses in TheDAO’s code and siphoned 3.64 million ether, or 5% of all ether at the time, into a new fund called the DarkDAO.
The hack eventually led to ethereum splitting into two in an effort to recoup the stolen funds. That meant the DarkDAO held ethereum classic — not what is today’s ethereum — making its stolen crypto worth about $100 million, instead of about $11 billion based on the current ethereum price, Shin said…read more.
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