Recently, a piece of collage art entitled “Everydays: The First 5000 Days,” by an artist known as Beeple, sold at a Christie’s auction for $69 million. The Wall Street Journal noted that the price was higher than any that has ever been paid for works of Frida Kahlo, Paul Gaugin, or Salvador Dali. But, before the auction, few outside the digital art world had ever heard of Beeple, which may explain why the bidding started at just $100. But the sale does not suggest a sudden re-evaluation of his talents. Instead, it is a stunning statement about the medium of the art itself or, more precisely, the lack of it. In fact, “Everdays: The First 5000 Days” isn’t made out of anything you can touch. It is entirely virtual.
There has been a lot of talk lately about central banks implementing their own digital currencies.
Why?
Back in 2017, the IMF published a creepy paper offering governments suggestions on how to move toward a cashless society even in the face of strong public opposition. It hasn’t been in the news a whole lot lately, but the war on cash undoubtedly continues. In fact, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) may be planning to embrace the idea as another weapon to wield against its people.
In August, the People’s Bank of China said it was close to launching a digital yuan. This could take the first step toward pushing China toward a cashless society.
A recent video ad produced by a digital currency asset company titled “Drop Gold” created some waves on social media last week. The ad encourages investors to drop gold from their portfolios and replace it with digital currencies such as Bitcoin. “In a digital world, gold shouldn’t weigh down your portfolio,” the ad proclaims.
But is Bitcoin really a replacement for gold? While the Drop Gold ad may seem clever and cute, cryptocurrencies aren’t a replacement for gold.
Bitcoin investors are selling cryptocurrency and buying gold, according to a number of investment analysts.
“I do think that Bitcoin pulled a little bit of demand away from gold last year, in 2017,” Jan Van Eck told CNBC’s ETF Edge last week. “Interestingly, we just polled 4,000 bitcoin investors and their number one investment for 2019 is actually gold. So gold lost to bitcoin and now it’s going the other way.”
What’s going on in precious metals markets? Is a recession looming? If so, what does that mean for gold and silver?
In this episode of It’s Your Dime, Mike Maharrey talks to precious metals and investment expert Chris Blasi about these questions and much more.
Bitcoin dropped below $4,000 as a massive selloff in the cryptocurrency market continued over the Thanksgiving weekend.
The price of a bitcoin fell as low as $3,604 during the sell-off. It has lost some 80% of its value from highs reached late last year when the price of bitcoin eclipsed $20,000. Bitcoin has fallen 40% in just two weeks of November. It was the worst price drop since April 2013.
Other cryptocurrencies including ethereum and ripple have seen similar price drops.
Yesterday was another bad Monday on Wall Street. The Dow Jones dropped nearly 400 points and the NASDAQ fell deeper into “correction territory,” dropping another 3%. All five “FAANG” stocks closed in bear territory. These are the tech stocks that have propelled the long bull market. The NASDAQ is down 12.5% this quarter.
Apple’s announcement that it plans to cut production weighed heavily on the markets, along with another sign of trouble in the housing market — a big drop in homebuilder sentiment.
Peter said homebuilder sentiment is the first sign that the confidence bubble has popped.
A Russian lawmaker has suggested his country should develop a gold-backed cryptocurrency for payment of arms exports and other goods as a way to circumvent Western sanctions and limit his country’s dependence on the dollar-based global banking system.
Vladimir Gutenev serves as first deputy head of the economic policy committee at the State Duma – the Russian Parliament’s lower chamber. He suggested Russia should develop a gold-backed cryptocurrency as he called for a suspension of treaties with the US, including the non-proliferation of missile technologies agreement.
Paul Krugman said gold is dead. In fact, “Bitcoin has more utility than gold,” according to the popular lefty economist.
Krugman made the comments at ChainXChange, a blockchain artificial intelligence and innovation conference in Las Vegas.
