Gate.io Podcast | Animoca Russian Ban, Fed Rate Hikes, State of the Metaverse

The crypto community is divided on sanctioning Russia, regardless the Fed said hikes are coming. Followed by a deep dive on the multi-billion dollar vision of big companies jumping into the Metaverse.

In today’s Headlines

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- Cambridge University leads global study of cryptocurrencies alongside IMF and BIS
- eBay could accept cryptos in March 2022
- Gaming Giant Animoca Brands Reveals Ban Against Russian Users
- FC Barcelona Plans to Create Its Own Cryptocurrency
- Sponsor: Coin Capsule (60s segment)
- Deep Dive: Is The Metaverse The Next Billion-Dollar Business?
- Deep Dive: Ukraine war won't deter Fed and Co. from March rate hikes

Introduction

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Welcome back to the Altcoin News Podcasts, I’m Peter. this is the show to get a neutral perspective on some of the latest headlines in DeFi, Metaverse, NFTs, and Big Tech. Brought to you by Gate.io, a centralized exchange with a neutral stance on current events and uphold privacy concerns. Plus, it's got some of the best articles and videos on key things you should know about DeFi.

Before we get in, the information presented in this podcast is to help you stay up-to-date on the latest happening in the crypto space, and nothing presented hereby is financial advice. The news that I cover in this podcast will have the original source at your discretion. Stick by this podcast as I show you how to stay vigilant and learn to do your own research.

But, before jumping on the latest news, make sure to subscribe to this podcast or youtube channel and don’t forget to turn on the notification bell so you’ll not miss any info about the crypto space!

Now, my friends, without further ado.

Cambridge University leads global study of cryptocurrencies alongside IMF and BIS

The University of Cambridge has announced that it is currently working on publishing a report to provide an objective analysis of the impact of cryptocurrencies both economically and environmentally. It will work with many important partners such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), and the World Bank (WB).

Cambridge University is working on a new report
The prestigious University of Cambridge will begin a large-scale study to assess the use and impact of cryptocurrencies in all their facets, according to Cointelegraph.

The Cambridge Centre of Alternative Finance (CCAF), a branch of the University specializing in the study of financial channels and instruments parallel to the traditional system, will conduct this research alongside many of the leading lights of international finance. The project will be called the Cambridge Digital Assets Programme (CDAP).

These partners include the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), known as the "central bank of central banks". Other giants of the banking system will also participate, such as the New York investment bank Goldman Sachs, the payment companies Visa and Mastercard, and the asset management company Invesco.

Other public bodies such as the World Bank (WB), the CDC Group, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), and the London Stock Exchange Group, owner of the London Stock Exchange, will also be involved.

Project focus
Following on from the university's previous report in 2017 under the name "Global Cryptocurrency Benchmarking Study," this new study will also draw on the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI). This is a tool that hypothetically analyzes the energy needed to run the Bitcoin network, which operates with the Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus.

Initially released in 2019, this index has established itself as a benchmark in studies related to the energy impact of Bitcoin mining and hashrate.

Drawing on many strong partnerships, the new report is expected to focus on analyzing the opportunities and risks associated with the growing adoption of cryptocurrencies, including the environmental implications this of the latter as well as the impact of stable coins and central bank digital currencies (CBDs).

According to Bryan Zhang, CCAF's executive director, the analysis stems from a growing demand for robust data on cryptocurrencies:

"The Cambridge Digital Assets Programme we are launching today wants to address the need for clarity [on cryptocurrencies] by providing data-driven insights through collaborative research involving public and private sector stakeholders."

Also with that in mind, CDAP will "provide managers with the objective analysis and empirical evidence they need to navigate the digital asset industry," according to Michel Rauchs, the head of the CCAF's digital assets practice.

eBay could accept cryptos in March 2022

The American e-commerce giant is shifting into high gear for digital assets after months of incessant rumors and hesitation. In May 2021, Reuters had reported that Amazon's main competitor said it was ready to accept crypto-currencies in the future and is exploring the possibility of NFTs.

"We're still looking at the most relevant forms of payment and will continue to evaluate that in the future. We don't have any immediate plans, but it (cryptocurrency) is something we're keeping an eye on," the California-based company told Reuters

Becoming the Next Generation Marketplace
No more procrastination! eBay is going to add more forms of payment on the platform and cryptos could well be one of them. A strategy that is primarily aimed at Generation Z and millennials. Jamie Ianonne said in the columns of TheStreet:

We have just completed our transition to handling payments where we now handle $85 billion in volume on our platform directly. This gives us the opportunity to open up new forms of payment.

He later added:

'We have opened up Google Pay and Apple Pay. We have a partnership with Afterpay in Australia, which is a platform that caters to Generation Z, which is a buy now, pay later platform on the marketplace.

When asked about cryptocurrency integration, he said:

We don't currently accept crypto-currencies. But "on March 10, we're going to go deeper into all these things, payments, advertising, our target categories."

eBay Users Trade NFTs On The Platform
During his interview with TheStreet, the e-commerce giant's boss reported that users are selling and buying non-fungible tokens on the market space without eBay having officially announced the trading of these.

Even so, he told the newspaper that this is possible because:

'We changed our policies last year so you can trade NFTs on the platform and basically, you know, eBay is a place where people have something to sell and people have something to show....

He ends the interview by concluding that his marketplace space will be, "eBay will be the place where people trade goods, whether they are physical or digital."

Gaming Giant Animoca Brands Reveals Ban Against Russian Users

Animoca Brands, one of the biggest and most visible blockchain gaming companies, is cutting its service to Russian customers in response to the invasion of Ukraine, taking a rare industry step to ban Russian involvement.

Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu spoke with Bloomberg in an interview and he explained that the company received legal advice about the newly sanctioned country. Yat Siu compared the newly sanctioned Russia to North Korea and noted that the restrictions could affect specific subsidiaries including the blockchain firm Lympo and Gamee.

In addition to blocking Russian users, Animoca will also stop selling shares to Russian investors. Gamee already announced on Twitter on Feb. 24 that it’s closing its services to Russia while Lympo said it would stop publishing Russian athlete NFTs and halt negotiations with the nation’s athletes to join the Lympo NFT Ecosystem.

Animoca's latest valuation in January was $5.5 billion, following a $360 million funding round. The firm has invested in well-known non-fungible token (NFT) and metaverse projects, like The Sandbox. Siu did not discuss the effect the restrictions on Russian users might have on The Sandbox. The company’s website, Twitter account, and subsidiaries have not issued any official statements about the Russian user restrictions.

However, Yat Siu detailed that the company’s Russian user base was low and would not have a material impact on the company’s results.

Animoca’s move is a rare one for its industry, given that many other companies are still working with Russia. Despite calls by Ukraine Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov for cryptocurrency exchanges to block addresses of Russian users, major crypto exchanges have resisted such an action, seeing it as contrary to the libertarian ethos of an industry that caters to those seeking to shelter assets beyond government reach.

A number of crypto firms like Binance, Kraken, and Coinbase saying the businesses will not blanket ban all Russian users. By contrast, Kuna exchange delisted Russian ruble trading pairs last week and the fifth-largest ethereum mining operation, Flexpool, banned Russian users from mining with the pool. The Ukrainian-born startup Dmarket has also cut “all relationships with Russia and Belarus.”

FC Barcelona Plans to Create Its Own Cryptocurrency

Joan Laporta, President of Spanish soccer giant FC Barcelona, said at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week that the club has rejected offers to be associated with crypto enterprises because it wishes to develop its own cryptocurrency and its own metaverse.

This is in reference to the decision of Barcelona to reject sponsorship bids from Polkadot and Binance. Instead, it opted to partner with the streaming giant, Spotify. According to Laporta, the token is Barca’s way of securing funding and competing with other clubs owned by foreign investors and corporate organizations.

Unlike the majority of major soccer clubs, Barcelona is owned and operated by its fans. Governance of the club is built around 160,000 members rather than shareholders. It was the world's most valuable soccer club in 2021 despite their biggest player — Lionel Messi’s existence, according to Forbes.

While the idea of a fan token isn’t new, Barca may become the first football club to have its own cryptocurrency. Several football clubs such as Juventus, Paris-Saint Germain, Lazio, Galatasaray, Manchester City, and more have launched their fan tokens. Even Barcelona already has a token, BAR, with a market cap of $29 million, making it the third most valued fan token.

However, the total market cap for fan tokens has decreased since last year and currently stands at $354 million. This is about a 15% drop from the $417 million market cap at the end of last year.

It is unclear at this point what Barcelona's crypto would be used for, whether it be a form of fan token akin to those offered by Socios or a means of payment for tickets and merchandise.

FC Barcelona has been one of the first movers in the NFT because Laporta revealed that the club hopes to present their first range of NFTs soon, following plans initially announced in November. He further added that the Club is already working on its own Metaverse. How exactly FC Barcelona intend to be a part of the Metaverse is something that Laporta didn’t stress on. But he did say that NFT will be a big part of the club to help the financial situation.

Sponsor | Coin Capsule

Before I continue with today’s deep dives, I must tell you about today’s sponsor, Coin Capsule, also known as Ternoa blockchain. Ternoa’s main feature is aptly named ‘time capsule,’ to encourage users to make memories without giving away their rights to keep the NFTs private. Check out the link in the de_script_ion to find out more.

DD | Is The Metaverse The Next Billion-Dollar Business?

What Is The Metaverse?
The Metaverse is a digital concept that aims to offer people the chance to interact inside a virtual world, by also giving them the possibility to have dates, do shopping, work, take part in online events and much more. In short, people would live two parallel lives: one being real, one being digital.

It seems like an utopian concept but in reality it’s a situation similar to what Mark Andeersen has already presented in his article “Why Software Is Eating The World” for The Wall Street Journal, in 2011, where he has stated that the next big thing would be tech companies trying to conquer the stock market by fighting for the first place.

In fact, at the end of the 90s, there was a lot of skepticism around what the Internet would have been, many were the people who doubted the infinite possibilities that the web could have offered to the world in the years to come.

Few people could have expected Blockbuster to be replaced by Netflix streaming services. Or that a bookstore vendor such as Amazon would have become the major e-commerce that it is now.

Although at the time few people were investing in software companies and that the stock market was interested in anything but technology, now the situation seems to have changed.

Which Are The Big Tech Investors In The Metaverse?
2021 was the year that saw the Metaverse experience a huge growth in popularity due to both the bull of the crypto market, but also to the tech companies who announced their entry into the digital world.

An example is Meta, formerly Facebook, which has set itself the goal of building its own metaverse where, through the use of AI and the creation of 3D worlds, it will allow people to interact within the virtual space.

Recently, even McDonald’s has registered 11 patents with the aim to develop its own fast food chain in the metaverse and offer to users the possibility to purchase virtual products and work inside the restaurant.

Do We Have The Right Technology To Create a Metaverse?
Technology is the real obstacle to the Metaverse creation. To develop such a project, it’s inevitable that we need to improve the current resources by also implementing new ones.
An example is Meta's Oculus Quest 2 VR that allows you to enjoy the company's Metaverse at 360 °, a device that is very reminiscent of the one present in the Ready Player One movie. Although immersion is unique and offers a lot of activities to do, there are still many problems that make the device hard to use. One of these is the autonomy, the weight of the device and the motion sickness risk due to the low frame rate.

These are the reasons why, currently, there is no possibility to guarantee the total development of a Metaverse that respects the requirements and objectives that stand at its base. Still, this doesn’t stop projects such Decentraland or Axie Infinity from continuing to grow and gain popularity.

Actual Problems Of The Metaverse.
Decentralization is the aspect that should mainly characterize the digital world: also identified with the name of Web3.

Web2, instead, is the Internet that we use everyday. It’s a centralized network, ruled by companies that have access to our personal information and, from a certain point of view, this grants a high level of security. If a company fails to protect its users then it’s going to lose money and credibility, that’s why firms constantly try to improve their services protection.

Thus, with the decentralized Web3, people get more freedom but it’s the community itself that will have to commit to ensure respect for moral and ethical principles within the virtual world.

As a result, it is still possible for some users to behave inappropriately, increasing the risk of cyberbullying, harassment and fraud, turning the Metaverse interaction into a real disaster.
Opportunities In The Metaverse.

If on the one hand the dangers can be many, as many are the benefits of virtual space.

The Metaverse wants to represent for people the beginning of a new life. Therefore, the community must have the opportunity to work and earn money, that’s why the virtual world wants to be the space where people can find new job opportunities, by being a solution for the work automation that keeps replacing a lot of hand labor positions.

Sounds weird, right? But the reality is much closer than you think. In fact, South Korea has recently announced that it’s going to invest $186M to build its own Metaverse, aiming to create 1.5M jobs for its citizens.

Other benefits, especially for the big companies, is the new market where they can advertise and sell their products, by not only creating digital versions of existing ones but also developing new ones, gaining additional profits in an ever-expanding space. A strategy has already been launched by Nike and Adidas.
The Target Audience.
Still, there is another obstacle that the Metaverse tries to overcome: the barrier that separates it from the public.

Accessibility is therefore the major problem that disconnects the public from the technology.
Even if the Metaverse may be a simple concept for the tech enthusiasts, it’s not the same for those who might represent the community of the future.

In fact, it’s a similar situation to what happened with social networks. Facebook was born as a platform for young people, the same as TikTok. But what made them so popular was their ability to make their services easily accessible by any user, regardless of their age or interests.

Metaverse: A New Planet To Colonize.
Therefore the Metaverse presents itself as an ongoing development, where there are many doubts and concerns about its objectives. On the other hand , like the real world, it has advantages and disadvantages, which must be managed by the community that must strive to ensure the proper functioning of the space, while for companies it could be the gateway for a new profitable and prosperous market which already has billion dollar market cap projects.

To conclude, the Metaverse could be considered as a new planet to be colonized, where there are endless possibilities to start one’s life anew.

DD | Ukraine war won't deter Fed and Co. from March rate hikes

While admitting the “implications for the U.S. economy are highly uncertain” from the Ukraine war, Jerome Powell, the chairman of the United States Federal Reserve said on March 2 that he will support an interest rate hike of 25 basis points at this month's meeting of the central bank's monetary policy-making body.

Powell made those remarks to the US House of Representatives' Committee on Financial Services, saying he continues to support tighter credit conditions despite Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Why Powell insists on raising interest rates？
The Federal Reserve is prepared to push ahead with a “series” of interest rate increases from March, siad Powell. He also hinted that he could support raising rates by larger increments later on if inflation fails to moderate sufficiently, along with indications that the Fed eventually will start reducing its bond holdings.

In justifying his thinking, Powell highlighted the broad-based employment gains that have accrued over the past six months in what has been an “extremely tight” labor market that has led to rapidly rising wages. He also called attention to consumer price increases “spreading to a broader range of goods and services” that have driven inflation up to the fastest pace in 40 years.

Data released in February by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed the US consumer price index rose 7.5 per cent in January compared with the first month of 2021, its fastest annual pace since 1982 by surging above its previous 40-year high of 7 per cent on an annual basis recorded in December.
On a monthly basis, CPI rose by 0.6 per cent from the previous month, a steeper increase than predicted by economists, as Americans paid higher prices for a wide range of goods, including food, electricity and shelter. And U.S. inflation is at 40-year highs above 7%, while latest data showed unemployment rolls shrinking to levels last seen in 1970.

Some economists said then the Fed may have to take a more forceful approach to cool down the economy this year, with larger and more frequent interest rate increases rather than doing so gradually. And now, Powell’s latest statement has confirmed their suspicions.

Raising interest rates is the Fed's traditional tool for keeping inflation under control, but it comes with its own price. Higher borrowing costs typically lead to slower economic growth, and the Fed has been reluctant to raise interest rates until it feels the U.S. had achieved "maximum employment."

However, Powell pushed back on the notion that a series of interest rate increases would imperil the economy, even as he floated the idea of eventually raising rates to a level that begins to constrain activity. He said under questioning from House Financial Services Committee members.

“We’re going to avoid adding uncertainty to what is already an extraordinarily challenging and uncertain moment. To the extent that inflation comes in higher or is more persistently high than that, we would be prepared to move more aggressively by raising the federal funds rate by more than 25 basis points at a meeting or meetings.”

What uncertainty has the Ukraine War brought?
At the same time, Powell acknowledged the “tremendous hardship” the Russian invasion of Ukraine is causing. The war in Ukraine has clouded the growth outlook, energy prices have surged with Brent crude climbing to its highest level in eight years, at roughly $111 a barrel.

Economists note that while rising oil prices could fuel faster inflation, sanctions on Russia over the offensive and other spillovers could also slow the economic recovery. Jim Caron, chief fixed income strategist at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, called the latest events "a double-edged sword," given the inflation threat from higher oil prices and the possible hit to economic growth from war.

Therefore, Powell said the central bank will "proceed carefully", he said the Fed wants to get inflation under control, but “the bottom line is that we will proceed but we will proceed carefully as we learn more about the implications of the Ukraine war on the economy.”

Not only the Fed, but other central banks are also responding quickly to the impact of the war in Ukraine. Bank of Canada (BoC) is expected to stick to its guns and deliver a quarter point rate rise - its first since 2018. The Bank of England (BoE) is also forecast to raise rates by a quarter point mid-March.

Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a "special operation," even dovish banks were under pressure from inflation. While the Reserve Bank of Australia kept rates steady as expected on Tuesday, it hinted that uncertainty caused by war could be reason to be patient with tightening.


Listen the whole episode：
1: Animoca Russian Ban, Fed Rate Hikes, State of the Metaverse
2: Animoca Russian Ban, Fed Rate Hikes, State of the Metaverse

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