🏦 Snowden attacks CBDCs

Vitalik dislikes El Salavador’s Bitcoin approach, Stripe is back in the crypto field… Your weekly Biiiiiites brought to you by Milan from Ledger. [View in Browser]( [Gif Ledger Bites]( 15/10/2021 Vitalik dislikes El Salvador’s Bitcoin approach, Stripe is back in the crypto field, China’s Bitcoin hashrate virtually falls to 0… Your weekly Biiiiiites brought to you by Milan from Ledger. Were those Biiiiiites sent to you by a friend ? [Subscribe here]( [Infos I should already know about] [Ripple Labs]( [2nd figure]( [global hash rate shares] Evolution of countries' global hash rate shares from September 2019 Source: SBECI Crypto assets can be managed on your Ledger Live! [Go check now →]( [Infos I should already know about] [Visa plans to help creators learn and NFTs’ potential.]( The payment platform partnered with NFT artist Micah Johnson to help creators better understand how NFTs work. Cuy Sheffield, Visa’s Head of Crypto, is an NFT firm believer: “They have the potential to lower the barrier to entry for digital creators across the world to build their own small businesses.” [Vladimir Putin believes crypto for oil trading to be “premature”.]( While the Russian President officially said “crypto has the right to exist and can be used as a means of payment”, crypto-based oil contracts are still a bit early. Yet, he pursued that “everything evolves” and “has the right to exist”, before concluding that the Russian government closely monitors the crypto market. [A Cameroonian start-up raises $2M to boost crypto in francophone Africa.]( With 200 million people using the CFA franc, Francophone Africa is a crypto-friendly market. Hence, Ejara, a young company founded by Nelly Chatue-Diop enabling Africans to access various investment offers, including fractional shares, commodities, crypto and more. The company’s CEO said: “The built-in transparency and security of the blockchain combined with the popularity of mobile banking in Africa made it clear to me that a blockchain-based mobile investment platform was the key to expanding financial inclusion.” [Welcome back to crypto, Stripe.]( 3 years after removing Bitcoin support, Stripe announced it would hire a team tasked with “building faster, more trustworthy, and higher quality crypto-enabled experiences”... nothing more than the “future of Web3 payments.” The key question being: what is Stripe really planning to build? [Vitalik doesn’t like El Salvador’s Bitcoin approach.]( In a Reddit talk, Ethereum’s creator was very critical of the country’s top-down approach with no attempt to educate the population. He declared that “making Bitcoin mandatory for businesses to accept a specific crypto is contrary to the ideals of freedom (...) This tactic risks a large number of innocent people getting hacked or scammed.” Is Bukele’s Bitcoin approach too brutal? [Edward Snowden believes CBDCs to be “cryptofascist” currencies.]( Responding to a [New York Times article defending a U.S. CBDC]( the former whistleblower, argued such an instrument would enable the Fed to “impose a negative interest rate by gradually shrinking the electronic balances in everyone’s digital currency accounts.” He called CBDCs “a perversion (...) of the founding principles of crypto (...) designed to deny its users the basic ownership of their money and to install the State at the mediating center of every transaction.” Wanna share our Biiiiiites with a friend ? [Send →]( [Insight of the week] Crypto: the death of Central Banks? Are you kidding me? [Janet Yellen] Private stablecoins & DeFi are taking the financial world by storm. Christine Lagarde, Janet Yellen & Central Bankers from all over the world fear a phenomenon that could loosen their grip on the economy. Are Central Banks bound to disappear? Money: a privatization in progress? The crypto revolution is breaking apart a historic relationship: the one between public authority & money. In Africa, the phenomenon of State & money decoupling is visible. Here, [crypto adoption grew 1200%]( between July 2020 and June 2021. “No region uses P2P platforms at a higher rate than African crypto users, they account for 1.2% of all African transaction volume and 2.6% of all volume for Bitcoin specifically” said a report. South American countries facing hyperinflation, mismanaged banking systems and excessive US dollar reliance, are also resorting to crypto. El Salvador [adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender]( to decrease remittances and boost financial inclusion. [Brazil]( is said to join the club soon. The real question is: who is next? It’s a big challenge for States’ control over money. And while crypto adoption keeps climbing, private companies, like Facebook and [Amazon]( want [to help the world]( gain access to financial services faster than public authorities. It’s a new deal for the Central Banks. To stay relevant, most, if not all, Central Banks will launch their own CBDCs. 81 countries (90% of global GDP) [are currently exploring]( them. It’s an irresistible wave set to establish peer-to-peer communications between Central Banks & citizens. Yet, in our future daily lives, CBDCs will only be a small part of the money we use. We’ll receive Central-Bank issued money straight in our wallet, but we’ll have the freedom to convert it into private tokens to plunge into the world of DeFi. We’ll earn crypto in virtual worlds, and then convert them into private coins that we’ll spend in the real world. For Central Banks, the real challenge is that this trend has barely begun to play itself out. They won’t have the choice but to operate in a new environment. [I wanna know more] Do you want to know what Bitcoin & El Salvador’s Love Story really means? [Then watch our latest School of Block episode.]( [And read our Ledger Academy article]( to understand how stablecoins & CBDCs will structure tomorrow’s economy. [Inside Ledger] Seeking reliable & regular Crypto Market News? [Subscribe to “Ledger Market Eye” on Twitter]( to stay constantly updated. Looking for a job at Ledger?[Click here to check our open positions.]( We now have a new show: “Down the Rabbit Hole.” It’s global, cool, and 100% crypto. watch the second episode here… And stay tuned for what’s coming next.]( [Images of the week] Just. won't. stop. [BTC resistance]( Credit: How did you like our newsletter this week? [😍I buy!]( [😐I hodl!]( [😭I sell!]( [unsubscribe]( [Ledger]( Follow us on: [Ledger YouTube]( [Ledger Twitter]( [Ledger Instagram]( [Ledger Facebook]( [Ledger TikTok]( & listen to our podcast [here](. 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