Quebec gets act together — for now
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Quebec gets act together — for now
Hydro-Quebec, the province’s utility firm, had wanted to create an auction system for electricity needed to mine digital currencies such as Bitcoin, jacking up prices and keeping miners away. It claimed that beginning in 2017, it received a rush of demands that exceeded available surplus electricity in its grid.
During the week, the province’s energy board rejected Hydro-Quebec's request for an auction and maintained standard rates for the cryptocurrency industry.
Yet I question how much this good news is worth. Quebec has never been known as a province friendly for business, but it has a reputation for something else — bureaucracy so thick you can eat it with a fork.
It wasn’t that long ago that Quebec was hailed as a mining mecca — right before the province tried to shut out miners by jacking up prices. Who’s to say this cycle won’t repeat?
Price action: current levels unsustainable?
The price of Bitcoin hit a 2019 high on Friday, but the gain may not be held for long. Current prices could be less about demand for cryptocurrency and more about problems at the embattled exchange Bitfinex, a large exchange assailed by regulators. Customers who had traditional currency on Bitfinex are now potentially buying Bitcoin to transfer their assets out, boosting prices. Indeed, the price of Bitcoin on Bitfinex is more than $6,000 (C$8,063) as of 10 a.m. Sunday, Mountain Time, although on most exchanges, it still hovers at the $5,700 level.
News: Facebook seeks stablecoin funding
Social media giant Facebook is seeking investments worth $1 billion for its rumored cryptocurrency stablecoin, a product whose value is pegged to traditional currency. The company is currently talking to major payment networks Visa and MasterCard about potential support
Central banks in Canada and Singapore say they have successfully completed a cross-border payment using distributed ledger technology. Using blockchain, the banks saythey can clear international payments much quicker than conventional systems which require middlemen to verify the transactions.
The big U.S. bank JPMorgan and the software giant Microsoft have inked a deal to promote Quorum, the former’s private enterprise version of Ethereum, a blockcain computing platform, through latter’s the Azure cloud platform. Through the partnership, both firms will try to address enterprise, developer and vendor needs for building on blockchain applications
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