The bank described the actions of MicroStrategy as a “digital currency product” and restricted new transfers to its users.

HSBC, one of the world’s largest banking entities, is setting restrictions to its clients from purchasing MicroStrategy (MSTR) shares due to a new policy limiting interaction with digital currencies. The financial giant released a statement to its clients, which appeared to be spread by Twitter users. In the email, users can read:

“We would like to ay to you that HSBC has changed the policy on digital currencies (such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies) and related products or that refer to the performance of virtual currencies.”

HIDC will not participate in the facilitation of products that might sustain relationships to digital currencies or related products. HIDC won’t even take part in any operation regarding the performance of cryptocurrencies.

According to the information, users of the bank’s trading platform HSBC InvestDirect or HIDC would be the affected ones by the measure. HSBC InvestDirect is available to the bank’s clients living in Canada, Jersey, and the United Kingdom.

The email suggests that the Canadian division is the one that has assumed the new policy that limits operations related to crypto products to its users. However, it is unknown if the ban applies to users in all jurisdictions.

HSBC and a Policy against Digital Currencies

A fascinating fact about the new policy is that HSBC has chosen to blacklist MicroStrategy shares, considering that it is not a digital asset or a product that could directly link to the crypto market.

MicroStrategy is a business software developer that appeared on the US Stock Exchange in 1998, and Michael Saylor was the precursor, a public digital currency lover. MicroStrategy is a pioneer in the adoption of Bitcoin.

Since last year, the firm has embarked on an aggressive journey to consolidate its investment strategy regarding cryptocurrency, with the current storage of more than 91,000 bitcoins in its treasury.

The banking giant called the company’s shares a “digital currency” in its statement. The HSBC division has warned its clients that they will not have access to new purchases or transfers of such shares.

Thi announcement seems not to be the first time that the third largest bank in the world by assets under management has highlighted a policy against digital currencies.

MicroStrategy in a Blacklist

Until now, reports suggest that HSBC has taken action to limit the trading of MicroStrategy shares, linking it to a crypto product. However, other publicly traded companies have been investing in Bitcoin, such as Tesla and Square.

Coinbase also made an announcement stating that it will begin direct listing on Nasdaq on April 14. Meanwhile, for MicroStrategy, investing in Bitcoin appears to impact the value of its shares positively.

The firm’s share price peaked in February, about $ 1,200 per share. While the stock has fallen slightly since then, MSTR is currently trading above its average value last year, at $ 700.

By: Jenson Nuñez

Large firms, such as JP Morgan and Ark Invest, expect the price of Bitcoin to reach between USD 130,000 and USD 470,000. The economic crisis and the multi-million-dollar stimulus plans have increased fears within financial markets leading more people to turn to Bitcoin.

Given that Bitcoin’s price has not stopped growing for several months; no one knows exactly where it will arrive. That has increased media attention around the pioneering cryptocurrency, as well as the importance that major global financial institutions attribute to this market. For this reason, there could be a radical increase in the price, which large firms forecast will reach between USD 130,000 and USD 470,000.

The Crypto Community Has Many Reasons to Be Optimistic

At the moment, the crypto community has every reason to be optimistic about the future of Bitcoin. Since March 2020, the first cryptocurrency’s market has been undergoing a structural transformation. Its base has shifted from small retail traders to large institutional investors. The former take advantage of the volatility of the price of Bitcoin to make profits, while the latter view the crypto asset as a long-term investment.

Investors have bought billions of US $ worth of Bitcoin and other crypto assets. This situation has led to a constant increase in its demand and, therefore, in its price. At the same time, investor optimism increases even more, along with demand. This happens in a virtuous circle that the global economic situation also encourages.

The economic contraction due to COVID-19 has joined government multi-million-dollar stimulus plans to lessen the effects of the crisis. These factors have increased fears within financial markets about a possible increase in world inflation. That leads more people to turn to store-of-value assets like Bitcoin to protect the value of their capital. That is exactly the advantage that major firms Ark Invest and JP Morgan see.

Large Firms Predict that Bitcoin’s Price Will Grow Significantly

Even though JP Morgan was initially skeptical of Bitcoin, it now predicts that the price of the cryptocurrency could rise significantly. They estimate that it could reach USD 130,000 in the short term, as long as the current trends driving its demand remain.

Analyst Welt Holger Zschaepitz said that JP Morgan sets a target of USD 130,000 for Bitcoin. However, the long-term risk-adjusted theoretical fair value of Bitcoin would drop to between USD 24,000 and USD 30,000. He adds that they make that prediction based on current volatility indices, which would converge with those of gold.

As for Ark Invest, the company is much more optimistic about the future of Bitcoin. They estimate that the price could even reach USD 470,000. This would be possible if the pioneering cryptocurrency manages to outperform gold as a store-of-value asset, exceeding the market capitalization of gold. Several analysts and crypto influencers believe that this goal is possible in the long term.

The first cryptocurrency has gained so much strength in the world market that even skeptical companies have decided to invest in it. On several occasions, renowned analysts have predicted that Bitcoin’s price could reach unimaginable levels.

By Alexander Salazar

The central bank stated that scalability problems must find a solution and how its cash considerably reduced its use compared to other payment alternatives.

Riksbank, the state entity that controls every monetary policy of the European country, recently released the outcomes of the first phase of a pilot related to its digital currency issuance, which suggests a delay in launching such a program most minor until 2026.

This resolution comes from the Central Bank in a report at the end of March of this year. It highlighted a series of essential aspects found during the investigation, arguing that it was unnecessary to issue the e-krona and delay its development for the next few years.

Riksbank and the Needing of a Program like This

The Riksbank noted that all the main factors related to a CBDC found its solution during the test, noting that there is essential participation of end-users, merchants, and payment applications. But Riksbank stressed that certain critical elements still need a bit more improvement, especially when it comes to scalability.

The report reads:

“There is a”needing of more research to see if it can manage retail payments at the necessary scale and meet the requirements of digital central bank money.”

When it comes to talking about legality, the Central Bank said that the e-krona would count on the state’s support as a guarantor of value and that all this would be much more solid thanks to the creation of payment gateways. The Central Bank itself highlighted how a parallel payment network would make the entire financial picture even more reliable.

Privacy and Other Concerns

About risks like money laundering and the privacy policies regarding operations, the report stated:

“Anonymous “payments only work for a limited extent under current anti-money laundering legislation, and currently, only small amounts can face a transaction anonymously… Anonymous e-kronor may exist, but they would have an area of minimal use”.

Riksbank” also took into consideration more exciting factors that could benefit the current scenario. Riksbank highlighted that fewer people use cash, so applications and mechanisms to make digital payments are gaining more and more popularity.

The Riksbank is detecting several obstacles regarding the marginalization of cash and started this pilot project which turns to be a proposed technical solution for Swedish kronor in electronic form.

The director of the Riksbank project in Stockholm, Mithra Sundberg, also stressed that the intention is not to settle for current technology but that it is necessary to set a detection system for what is under the radar regarding issued digital currencies coming from the central bank.

The director also clarified that the intention is not to set replacements over cash immediately but that new legal concerns would be considered before its use becomes widespread.

By: Jenson Nuñez

An image with the iconography of the folk metal group is available at auction. The work belongs to Gaboni, the illustrator who has accompanied the group in its 33-year history.

The folk metal band Mago de Oz from Spain recently joined the madness that circles non-expendable tokens (NFTs) with the auction of one of their unreleased covers.

The piece illustrated by Gaboni, their official cover designer, was a proposal the band rejected for the cover of the Ira Dei album that Mago de Oz released two years ago. However, now the grouping deemed it to launch it as a collectible token.

“On the cover, we can see God and the Devil betting the souls of mortals on chess,” reads the description of the digital art, whose sale will end on March 15, as detailed on the unique digital.art platform. So far, the highest bid is at € 850, about $ 1,010.

The user that purchases the work will also receive the album in physical format and signed by the band. It is noteworthy that the theme that Mago de Oz addresses in this production is the apocalypse, a good coincidence due to the pandemic that would affect the world a year after the album came out. Later, the Madrid folk metal combo received a gold record for surpassing 20,000 sold copies of Ira Dei.

Gaboni, the illustrator in charge of making the covers of Mago’s albums, has been the creator of the extravagant images that the band uses. The creator of the Spanish group’s iconography has won several awards, including the prize for the best illustrator of the year from the 2012 Malaga International Comic Fair.

NFT is a Star that Guides the Music Industry

NFTs are now everywhere in the music world. Artists like Gorillaz, and Kings of Leon, have joined the collectible token madness. All are trying to capture the interest of more followers willing to pay significant sums of money for a new combination of art and technology.

During such a boom, questions about how rights and ownership of the original creators apply in the NFT ecosystem appear massively. Several worries that the community and artists have regarding non-fungible tokens were under analysis by some specialists at the MIT Bitcoin Expo 2021, one of the world’s most influential conferences for the blockchain environment.

Specialists highlight that multiple issues need solvency in the present so that the market has a prosperous future. One of the problems that requires a solution is how the images linked to these crypto assets get promoted. If they stop operating or stop being online, the works of the NFTs hosted on their servers will no longer be available.

Many users show interest in a system called IPFS, or Interplanetary File System, not to depend on centralized storage, but rather to do so with a p2p method that allows data to be stored and shared in a distributed file system.

By: Jenson Nuñez