Two currency crises two thousand years apart. Modern-day Venezuela and the Roman Empire have more in common than you might think. Both know too well the dangers of soaring inflation and a collapse in investor confidence. But, only one has crypto on its side. Venezuela’s official currency, the bolívar, has suffered from hyperinflation for half a decade due to repeated currency devaluations, minimum wage rises and significant public spending increases. For a sustained period of several centuries, the Roman Empire enjoyed the enormous trade and commercial benefits associated with the world’s first fiat currency, as explored in my book Pugnare: …

Ethereum's native token Ether (ETH) plunged sharply hours after the U.S. Federal Reserve released the minutes of their December meeting, showing that they eye a faster timetable for hiking interest rates in 2022. The minutes showed that the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is in favor of raising short-term rates "sooner or at a faster pace than participants had earlier anticipated." According to the CME Group, trading in the interest-rate futures market showed a two-thirds possibility of the first increase in March. Ether turned lower after the minutes were released, dropping by over 13.50% to as low as $3,300. Its …

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has reportedly confirmed the completion of a crypto law draft that will soon be shared with the Parliament for mainstream implementation in the country. In an effort to counter the falling value of the Turkish lira, President Erdoğan shared plans to implement a new economic model while speaking at a press conference in Istanbul. As reported by local media NTV, Erdoğan said that the cryptocurrency bill is ready, adding: “We will take steps on this issue by sending it to Parliament without delay.” Acknowledging the country’s recent inflationary episode, Erdoğan said that the currency event …

Last month, Cointelegraph interviewed Reserve CEO Nevin Freeman and the payment decentralized application’s community manager Yens Michiels about the company’s mission to provide access to stable currencies. More recently, Cointelegraph spoke to a couple of users based out of Venezuela and Colombia who shared their positive experiences with Reserve. Reserve is a tool to exchange fiat currency like Venezuelan bolivares for U.S. dollars via the Reserve (RSV) stablecoin. From everyday purchases to family remittances, Reserve has said that its use cases are increasingly growing in Latin America. After one year on the market in Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Argentina, there …

The Bank of Russia will only fully adopt a central bank digital currency (CBDC) if the digital ruble meets several conditions within pilot tests, governor Elvira Nabiullina said. Nabiullina spoke of the digital ruble before the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets on Monday, disclosing more details about the CBDC rollout, local news agency Interfax reported. The Bank of Russia will only adopt the CBDC after the bank makes sure that rubles can be easily converted from cash into the digital ruble and non-cash, and only at a one-to-one ratio, she said. “It should be a real full-fledged ruble, no …

Bitcoin (BTC) logged its worst daily performance since September as BTC price slid by 10% to under $59,000 on Tuesday. On the other hand, the U.S. dollar jumped to its best level in sixteen months after spending across the American retail sector grew despite persistent Covid-19 fears and inflation concerns. The BTC price established an intraday low of around $58,600 on Coinbase, only to retreat higher to reclaim $60,000 as its psychological support. Its move downside appeared as U.S. President Joe Biden signed the $550 billion infrastructure bill into law, including new tax-reporting requirements for cryptocurrency users. Some used the …

One under the radar cryptocurrency-powered payment app that's been gaining traction across Latin America is Reserve. The platform acts as a convenient way for people to convert their local currencies, which may be undergoing high inflation levels, to the United States Dollar via the Reserve stablecoin (RSV). The network also features the Reserve Rights token (RSR), which is used for protocol governance. Since its launch in March 2021, the platform says it has seen 367,000 total signups. Meanwhile the number of weekly active users has surpassed 100,000, with most located in Argentina, Venezuela, and Colombia. In the past 30 days, …

Ethereum blockchain's native asset Ether (ETH) touched a new record high on Nov. 8, supported by a rally across the top cryptocurrencies ahead of a key U.S. inflation report this week. ETH price rose by 3.30% in the past 24 hours to $4,770 for the first time in history as Bitcoin (BTC) reclaimed $66,000, demonstrating the strong positive correlation between the two digital assets. Inflationary pressure returns Wall Street economists anticipated the U.S. consumer price index (CPI) to rise to 5.8% in October ahead of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' inflation report on Wednesday. That would log a step up …

The U.S. dollar index (DXY) could continue its slide in Q4, according to a classic technical setup known as a “rising wedge.” The greenback’s bearish prospects may boost Bitcoin’s (BTC) price to new all-time highs as it holds above $62,000. DXY poised for another 1.75% drop Rising wedges are bearish reversal patterns that begin wide at the bottom but contract as the price increases. As a result, the trading range narrows, which makes the rally unconvincing. That typically prompts the price to break below the wedge’s support line and later fall by as much as the maximum distance between the …

Bitcoin (BTC) looks to reclaim $45,000 on Oct. 1 as the United States dollar retreated lower after hitting its one-year high. Bitcoin’s tight inverse correlation with the greenback over the past month suggests that a weakening dollar could push BTC’s price even higher in the coming sessions. Dollar drops following labor market shock In detail, the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY), which measures the dollar’s strength against a basket of six foreign currencies, including the euro and sterling, hit 94.50 Thursday for the first time since Sept. 28, 2020. But it retreated on news of rising U.S. jobless claims against the …

Bitcoin (BTC) and the U.S. dollar fell in tandem while the S&P 500 refreshed its record high at open on Friday as the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation indicator surged to its highest levels in almost three decades. According to data shared by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, the US Core Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCI) rose 0.5% in May, coming in below the estimation of 0.6%. Nevertheless, the expenditure rose 3.4% year-over-year, the highest level since 1991. The Federal Reserve treats core PCI as its benchmark metric to gauge inflation. The U.S. central bank has indicated that it would tolerate …

Bitcoin (BTC) wobbled around $40,000 as investors waited for the United States Federal Reserve to release its new set of economic projections on Wednesday. The market's focus shifted to two important questions: Will United States central bank officials signal their intentions to raise interest rates in 2023 instead of 2024? And how much do they think inflation will rise in the remainder of 2021 and in the next year? Taper tantrum In March, the last Fed projection saw 11 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) officials agreeing to keep interest rates near zero at least until 2023. That suggested a tightening …