On May 27, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared Hong Kong to be no longer autonomous from China. The State Department announcement could enable Congress to end longstanding rights to freer trade and travel between Hong Kong and the U.S. … Continue reading →
The IMF projects a global growth rate of –3.0 percent in 2020, a downgrade of 6.3 percentage points from its January 2020 forecast. On the assumptions that the pandemic fades in the second half of 2020, allowing containment efforts to … Continue reading →
Bitcoin, the number one cryptocurrency by market value is trading at around $9,852.22 – up nearly 160 percent from the March 12th low of $3,867, according to CoinDesk. About 85 percent (25.79 million) of the addresses holding the cryptocurrency are … Continue reading →
According to a study published in The Lancet, about fifty percent of the global production of face masks is in China, which has a production capability of around 20 million face masks per day. MarketWatch reports that the global face … Continue reading →
Bitcoin: Launched: 2009; First developed by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, then transferred to Bitcoin Foundation. Its code is now open source; Transactions are recorded anonymously on a digital public ledger (“blockchain”); Permissionless, entirely deregulated and decentralized; Bitcoin can be used … Continue reading →
Foreign institutional investors were net buyers of Chinese commercial real estate, totaling $2.7 billion in Q1–2019, according to The Wall Street Journal (citing data from Real Capital Analytics). This is a reversal from most of the period between 2013 to … Continue reading →
The AnnA Villa, a luxury property located in Boulogne-Billancourt in the western suburbs of Paris, is the first European property to be sold entirely via blockchain transaction, according to Forbes. Ownership of the property, valued at €6.5 million, was transferred … Continue reading →
According to Bloomberg (citing data from the Bank of Russia), between September 2017 and September 2018, the Russian central bank, which has the world’s fifth largest international reserves, more than halved the share of dollars in its reserves, replacing it … Continue reading →
Eko Atlantic is a planned city of Lagos State, Nigeria. The project, which began in 2009, is being constructed on land reclaimed from the Atlantic Ocean. The 10 million square meters of reclaimed land is protected from rising sea tides … Continue reading →
In India, only “statutory towns” are considered urban and have a municipal administration, according to an Bloomberg opinion piece by Reuben Abraham and Pritika Hingorani. The statutory town definition identifies 26 percent of India as urban. The definition of urban … Continue reading →