Connect with us

News

The Rise of mBridge: How CBDCs Could Challenge SWIFT and the Dollar’s Dominance

The Rise of mBridge How CBDCs Could Challenge SWIFT and the Dollar's Dominance

The Rise of mBridge: The two countries’ central banks agreed on Tuesday to increase cooperation and facilitate cross-border transactions in local currencies.

Every month, nations take steps to avoid using the dollar in bilateral commerce. Last week, India and Nigeria reached a similar deal.

De-dollarization is a fact, as the Russian president reiterated during his recent official visit to China. Check out our article, “Putin cuts a dollar short.”

Little information has surfaced about how the two Asian countries want to facilitate trade. We do know that Thailand and China are collaborating on the mBridge project (which involves building many CBDC bridges).

Some believe that the international CBDC transaction project has the potential to shatter the SWIFT network’s monopoly. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) collaborates with China, Hong Kong, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates central banks on this project.

China is concerned about its economy’s reliance on Western-controlled payment networks. Remember that Iran and Russia were isolated from the SWIFT network. Two countries are openly hostile to the dollar.

Some may wonder why China is working on the mBridge project when they have already used the CIPS (China’s Cross-border Interbank Payment System).

CPIS has grown at an accelerated rate since its inception in 2015. 2023 it processed over 123 trillion yuan, up from 2 trillion in 2017 to 10 trillion in 2021. It already connects over 1,500 banks across 114 countries.

CIPS, being a yuan payment system, does not (yet) threaten the SWIFT network’s monopoly. SWIFT is a more global communications system that acts as an intermediate for payment systems based on national currencies. It is used by more than 11,000 banks worldwide.

The mBridge project attempts to develop an international payment network in CBDCs that eliminates the requirement for a messaging system such as SWIFT. Banks would communicate directly with their central bank. In China, mBridge is integrated with the e-CNY CBDC system.

Some US officials are concerned that the mBridge network will give Beijing an advantage in leveraging CBDCs to modernize international payments.

The United States is concerned that other currencies would overshadow the dollar, accounting for half of the nearly 32 trillion dollars exchanged internationally annually.

According to Josh Lipsky, head of the GeoEconomics Center at the American think tank Atlantic Council, the fact that mBridge is being developed under the aegis of the BIS raises concerns in Washington. China is rapidly abandoning the dollar.

Two sources with direct knowledge of the project confirm that the initiative’s technological foundation is a Chinese-built blockchain. It specifically employs Ethereum’s Solidity smart contract language.

Its purpose is to compete with the existing system. Payments now occur in two stages: the message and money movement. For example, if I wish to pay someone in China, my bank must have a Chinese bank account (Nostro) and send a fast message requesting payment to the recipient.

After receiving the communication, the Chinese bank transfers the funds to the beneficiary, usually in another bank. A national Chinese transfer is required as a third step in this situation.

Furthermore, if my bank does not have a Nostro account with a Chinese bank, the payment will have to be routed through another bank with a Chinese account, incurring additional fees and requiring a fourth step.

With mBridge, banks will no longer require a bank account in a Chinese bank. Banks would immediately acquire e-CNY (yuan CBDC) on mBridge and transfer it to the Chinese recipient’s bank.

Eliminating messages means banks no longer need to keep foreign accounts stocked with liquidity, lowering the cost of cross-border transactions.

For it to work, mBridge’s exchange rates must be extremely competitive. If not, the savings made on Nostro accounts would be reversed.

However, competitive exchange rates necessitate large volumes. This is one reason why the dollar is so important to the international monetary system.

Since the Bretton Woods agreements, the dollar has been the global standard against which all other currencies are measured. When a Peruvian corporation transfers funds to a Kazakh client, the transaction is not completed using a Sol/Tenge pair. The sol is first changed into dollars, then converted to tenge.

It isn’t easy to see how mBridge and low-volume CBDCs may revolutionize international payments.

In contrast, Bitcoin is a prospective standard with tremendous volumes. According to unchained, they have accounted for the equivalent of $25 billion in the last 24 hours.

Bitcoin has the significant advantage of being both a currency and a payment mechanism—two in one. Furthermore, due to its decentralization, it is a stateless system, which is an important parameter. Who says mBridge won’t be utilized for political reasons as well?

Central banks may struggle to keep control over international payments, but it is unlikely that they can outperform Bitcoin, a technological marvel.

And, with current severe geopolitical tensions escalating into a trade war, the globe requires a global payment system impervious to political whims more than ever. Not CBDCs.

Enhance your Cointribune experience with our ‘Read to Earn’ campaign! Earn points for each story you read, and you’ll earn access to unique goodies. Sign up now to begin collecting advantages.

News

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

google

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

google

Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

google

Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

Continue Reading

News

2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

trump

Washington — Trump Media,  The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.

The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.

The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.

The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.

trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.

Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

trump

Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.

The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.

musk trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.

The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

Continue Reading

News

The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

Supreme Court

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

SEE ALSO:

Could Last-Minute Surprises Derail Kamala Harris’ Campaign? “Nostradamus” Explains the US Poll.

Scientists Awarded MicroRNA The Nobel Prize in Medicine.

US Inflation will Comfort a Fed Focused on Labor Markets.

Continue Reading

Trending