How Kazakhstan's Fuel Riots Have Crypto Miners | The Daily Forkast

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Welcome to The Daily Forkast, January 6th, 2022, presented by Angie Lau. For the latest in blockchain & crypto news. On today's show:

00:00 Coming Up
00:30 Kazakhstan riots hit crypto mining
02:08 Fed rate hike signal hits crypto markets
03:32 Volatility not necessarily a bad thing for markets

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Riots in Kazakhstan over fuel prices have led to the government resigning and the main telecommunications company, Kazakh Telecom, shutting off internet access nationwide on Wednesday. And that hit the nation's mining sector, with data from BTC.com showing that hash rates at mining pools, including Antpool, Poolin and Binance Pool fell by 10%. However, Chinese rig maker Canaan, which has over 10,000 mining machines deployed in Kazakhstan said its operations remain normal. But the founder of local Miner Xive tweeted that no internet means no mining. According to the network tracking service, NetBlocks service was partially restored at one point but blacked out again on Thursday morning.

Over in China, add food delivery to the growing list of ways to spend e-CNY! A Chinese shopping platform which has a market share of about 60% to 70% in Mainland China, is now accepting the digital currency for payments now. Users must first link their sub wallet to Meituan in the e-CNY app. Then they can make an order as any other kind of payment just selecting pay with e-CNY. Around 50 online platforms now accepting digital yuan payments for everything from shopping and transportation to lifestyle and entertainment.

Global markets were sent reeling by a hawkish Fed signaling it may hike rates earlier than anticipated, and crypto was no exception, with most major tokens falling at least 6% into Thursday morning Asia time, and Solana and Terra losing close to 11% within 24 hours. Minutes from the Federal Reserve's December meeting suggests that interest rate increases could be brought forward due to the strength of the economy. One expert told Forkast.News investors were spooked as that means the easy money environment of the past two to three years may be coming to an end. However, it's not all bad news. More than 800 million U.S. dollars was liquidated from crypto markets in just 24 hours. That that rate appeared to be slowing down Thursday afternoon Asia time, according to data from Cryptometer. The expert says he's cautiously optimistic that the worst liquidations are now behind us in the short term, with the crash happening in reaction to macro market action rather than market manipulators or whales trying to push prices down.

So what does a brand new year have in store for the new economy? Will we see crypto acids venture into uncharted territory, or will world events take their toll on digital currencies in the hot seat? Michael Wu, CEO and founder of Amber Group, joins us once again to answer these questions.

Angie Lau: Bitcoin faced a lot of heat in the last month. Some say we could see a sharp decline from these levels, but others, like the El Salvadorian president, are expecting the coin to hit USD100,000 this year. What's your sense?

Michael Wu: I'm perpetually bullish on Bitcoin and the new digital economy over the long run. More specifically to this year, I think one thing for sure is we're going to see some volatility. The price has been stuck around here for some time. It's sort of seeking a new direction. Is it going to break a new high above the USD60,000 mark or it's it's going to dive lower along with macro factors such as the potential tapering the the back to normal, the inflation that we are dealing with. I think volatility is actually not a bad thing for the market at all. As long as risks are properly managed, I do think if we do see some, some volatility in the crypto asset early on this year, that might set up well for another big bull run in the later half of the year.

Angie Lau: If that's the situation as you see it, it could mean that 2022 could be the year of mass market adoption of crypto products. Do you think we're going to see massive mainstream adoption for this year?

Michael Wu: I think crypto is going beyond that, just this niche user base of traders, speculators or engineers. I think with products like which we launched at the end of 2021 are targeting to make crypto, or crypto enabled financial services more inclusive to the mass market users so that without too much knowledge, without being too sophisticated at crypto or finance, they can still enjoy the long term benefits of the asset and of the technology. In the institutional land I think we have seen a lot of ongoing adoption since mid-2020. I don't think that trend will stop or or reverse at all.

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