Tuesday’s budget is a cautious and responsible response to the cost-of-living pressures facing voters. As noted ahead of budget night, many of the major spending initiatives had already been announced. But, in the only major surprise, there are income tax cuts for all income taxpayers. Even if we need to be patient. The new tax… Read more »
Freshly elected US president Donald Trump has exercised his usual degree of modesty and named his newly launched cryptocurrency or memecoin, $Trump. And like the man himself, the coin’s price is extraordinarily volatile. The price ran up to US$75, fell below $60, went back to $75, fell below $40, then rose back to $60 and… Read more »
Burn Book is that rare thing: a book about tech that can be enjoyed by readers who are not that into tech. It is a witty and engaging account of the rise (and often fall) of internet companies and the often dysfunctional talents behind them, told by an exceptionally well-connected outsider. Kara Swisher is somehow… Read more »
It is not just crypto tokens that have spectacular downfalls. So can crypto personalities. Sam Bankman-Fried founded FTX, one of the world’s largest exchanges for so-called cryptocurrencies, which collapsed last year owing billions of dollars. Now he has gone from being hailed as potentially the world’s first trillionaire to a lengthy term in prison. After… Read more »
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are in dire straits. With the market in a severe downturn, it’s safe to assume the NFT bubble has well and truly burst. It was never clear why these digital collectables traded for such large amounts of money. Now they mostly do not. What’s behind their turn of fate? And is there… Read more »
Not long ago, FTX was one of the world’s largest trading platforms for cryptocurrencies. Founded in 2019, the Bahamas-based crypto exchange had a meteoric rise to prominence, and was valued at more than US$30 billion earlier this year. All that has changed in the past two weeks. First, concerns emerged about links between FTX and… Read more »
Treasurer Jim Chalmers told reporters on Tuesday his first budget was “the beginning of something new and responsible”. The October 2022-23 budget under Labor is certainly a different beast from the one handed down by the Coalition just before the federal election. It is not just the numbers that have changed, the approach is different… Read more »
A year ago, El Salvador became the first country to make Bitcoin legal tender – alongside the US dollar, which the Central American country adopted in 2001 to replace its own currency, the colón. President Nayib Bukele, a cryptocurrency enthusiast, promoted the initiative as one that would deliver multiple economic benefits. Making Bitcoin legal tender,… Read more »
The dream that decentralised finance – or “DeFi” – can free the monetary system from the clutches of governments and banks has helped launch 20,000 cryptocurrencies. But with 2022 proving to be more of a crypto-nightmare – including for the vaunted “stablecoins” that held the most promise as rivals to central bank-issued currencies – questions… Read more »
Comedian Robin Williams once called cocaine “God’s way of telling you you are making too much money”. This role may now have been overtaken by non-fungible tokens, the blockchain-based means to claim unique ownership of easily copied digital assets. The latest NFT mania involves fantastic amounts of money being paid for “Bored Apes”, 10,000 avatars… Read more »
John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) was the greatest economist of the twentieth century. Less well known is that he had a parallel career as a successful investor: fairly successful early in his career, and spectacularly successful later on when he changed his strategy. After the first world war, his income depended more on his investments than… Read more »
As it hits new highs, there is no shortage of bold predictions about Bitcoin reaching US$100,000 or more. Often these are based on not much more than extrapolations by people with vested interests: the price has gone up a lot so it will keep going up. If it gets above its previous high, it must… Read more »
The Bitcoin bulls are racing again. A year ago the cryptocurrency was valued at less than US$12,000. Now it has passed the symbolic milestone of US$60,000, nudging the US$63,255 record it reached in mid-April, before its price fell to as low as US$30,000 in July. Bitcoin’s rally over the past month is largely attributed to… Read more »
Over the weekend, Tesla chief executive Elon Musk suggested his company could sell off its Bitcoin holdings, sending the cryptocurrency plummeting. It followed Musk’s announcement earlier this month that his company would no longer accept Bitcoin in payment for its electric cars, due to the fossil fuels needed to create the digital currency. Bitcoin is… Read more »
Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, recently announced his company had bought US$1.5 billion (almost A$2 billion) of Bitcoin. The announcement led to a flurry of enthusiasm and a quick surge in price for the controversial cryptocurrency. This price bump has been good news for Musk in the short term. At one point, Tesla’s… Read more »
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