Now for some geopolitics. Let’s all exhale from upward dog into child’s pose.
- After legalizing cryptocurrency last year, Ukraine has received an influx of Bitcoin donations in the wake of the looming threat of Russian invasion. Much of it has been deployed on military fortifications, raising some red flags on the ease with which war can now be crowdfunded. However, the ability to bypass financial blockades with a confiscation-proof currency provokes optimism for those who’d prefer not to see another Great Purge.
- Coinbase is allowing Mexican immigrants to send remittances across the border without a fee. The waive is only temporary, as they pilot the service, but fees are expected to remain far lower than normal cash out or transfer fees when they start up in April. This is a significant step toward realizing blockchain technology’s potential from a major player in the space and I have nothing snarky to say about it.
- The Republic of the Marshall Islands recently became the first sovereign state to recognize DAOs as legal entities, for which I have plenty of snark saved. (Like how a country considered a lucrative offshore tax haven is a perfect fit for providing legal protection to the latest rebrand of Ponzi schemes, or how passing a law granting DAOs the same privileges as LLCs might imply the alignment of incentives between liability-shirking corporations and these so-called paragons of decentralized autonomy.) But I’m not a snarky person. So I’ll leave it be.
