RIYADH: Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency in trading internationally, traded higher on Tuesday, rising by 6.28 percent to $46,868.50 at 6:17 p.m. Riyadh time while Ether traded at $3,372.72, up 5.72 percent, according to data from CoinDesk.
Energy usage
As bitcoin prices rise, more miners with less energy-efficient machines are joining the grid, leading to an increased energy usage worldwide.
New estimates suggest that the bitcoin network in 2021 will exceed its energy consumption compared to the last year, consuming 91 TWh of energy. In 2020, it consumed about 67 TWh of electricity.
Wall Street
A cryptocurrency company launched by partners of a major Wall Street trading firm said on Tuesday that it has snagged the support of billionaire investor Steven A. Cohen, as big names from the traditional financial world continue to embrace the industry surrounding crypto.
Cohen, a hedge-fund manager and owner of the New York Mets, has agreed in principle to invest in Radkl, a crypto trading firm, though the deal is not final. The company is being launched by partners of GTS, a firm that trades as much as a billion shares of US stocks on a given day.
Radkl, which is pronounced like “radical,” plans to trade across cryptocurrency coins and exchanges, said Ryan Sheftel, the company’s CEO and a partner at GTS. As the crypto industry expands, Radkl plans to grow quickly with it.
Digital pound
Britain will be piloting a digital version of the pound within a few years to cut the cost of money transfers, NatWest bank chairman Howard Davies said.
Central banks across the world as studying whether to launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC), a digital version of their currency, to stay abreast of rapid technological developments in payments systems.
The Bank of England has yet to decide on whether to push ahead with a sterling CBDC.
“I suspect that within three to five years we will see that operating in the UK on a sort of pilot basis to start with,” Davies told a Bloomberg event.
A CBDC is a logical development, though problematic from a banking point of view, as cash gradually finds its way out of the economy, Davies said.
