Hail to the corporation-government overlords
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Hail to the corporation-government overlords
“I think companies are less stable than countries,” a friend said about the new Libra cryptocurrency by a social media giant. “I just don’t believe FB (Facebook) will last long enough.”
That got me thinking. Are countries really stable?
The Chinese often say they have 5,000 years of history. But the current Chinese government began only in 1949. Is it right to measure the age of the country by the age of the land?
The fairest metric is the government’s age. Most are young. Japan claims continuous imperial reign, for example, but its present government, a prime-minister-led democracy, is barely 150 years old.
Yet the world’s oldest company is a 1.4-millennia-old Japanese construction firm. It outlasted its own government, even when it had not nearly the power of the big corporations of today.
Facebook aside, during the week, the parent company of Google unveiled much more ambitious plans than before to carve out what its own self-managed community in Toronto. Its own city.
More and more, companies are taking on the responsibilities once exclusive to countries. This is the rise of the corporation-government. And they may outlast us all.
Bitcoin price: continued rise; dips shortlived
Bitcoin could rise further in the second half of this year, with any price dip likely be short-live, analysis says. The world’s largest cryptocurrency is at $11,092 (C$ 14,559) as of noon Sunday, Eastern Time, up more than 3 per cent for the week. Bitcoin faced a tumultuous seven days, rising to yet another yearly high of nearly $14,000 before falling sharply.
Canada: special rules for exchanges likely
A panel by the big law firm Norton Rose Fulbright said cryptocurrency exchanges take on more roles than traditional ones, and that may prompt Canadian regulators to craft special rules for those platforms, instead of governing them under existing ones.
A Vancouver dark web pot trafficker is accusing local police of procedural mistakes when they seized millions of dollars worth of bitcoins on his computer, potentially getting them back.
World: Satoshi-claimant Wright cries in court
At times choking back tears and combative, Craig Wright, the Australian who says he created Bitcoin, says at a U.S. judicial hearing he cannot provide the information the court had been seeking that would prove he is Satoshi Nakamoto.
LedgerX has obtained U.S. regulatory approval for Bitcoin-backed futures contracts, a mainstream investment instrument. While it is not the first, unlike the New York Stock Exchange-owned Bakkt, LedgerX’s product will be open to everyday investors.
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