Weekly Blockchain News, December 20, 2021

Welcome back in the weekly summary of leading developments in the crypto/blockchain space, presented from Billon's point of view. Check what happened in the last days when it comes to CBDC and other enterprise uses of blockchain. Enjoy the read!

Melania Trump Is Releasing an NFT.  Melania Trump has become the latest celebrity to try to cash in on the craze for non-fungible tokens. The former first lady’s first NFT, called Melania’s Vision, will include watercolor art that “embodies Mrs. Trump’s cobalt blue eyes, providing the collector with an amulet to inspire".. It will be available from Dec. 16 to Dec. 31 for one SOL, a cryptocurrency that runs on the Solana blockchain, currently priced at $187.

Wells Fargo, HSBC to Settle Forex Transactions Using Blockchain. The banking giants will use a blockchain product to settle U.S. dollar, Canadian dollar, pound and euro transactions. The banks’ blockchain-based settlement system uses HSBC proprietary technology built on Baton Systems “blockchain inspired” CORE distributed ledger technology. The announcement comes as other major Wall Street banks, such as Goldman Sachs, are reportedly looking to integrate blockchain technology into their regular processes. JPMorgan is also looking to hire software engineers to focus on “Collateral Blockchain Tokenization,” and is beefing up its Onyx division, which was created to oversee the development of JPM coin, the bank’s wholesale payments token.

Peter Molyneux's Next Game Is A 'Blockchain Business Sim' Featuring NFTs . Legendary game dev and purveyor of out-of-reach gaming ambitions Peter Molyneux announced his company 22 Cans’ next game, Legacy, will utilize the blockchain and have players buying NFTs in a business sim game environment. NFT has proven to be an instant money maker as speculators already paid Molyneux $40M for virtual plots of land!

Meet the fastest-growing fintechs of 2021. European fintech has had a stellar year. From Stockholm to Sofia - check 14 startups that hired the most aggressively over the past 12 months.

Elon Musk says dogecoin is better to buy things with than bitcoin. “Fundamentally, bitcoin is not a good substitute for transactional currency,” Musk told Time Magazine after being named Time’s 2021 Person of the Year. “Even though it was created as a silly joke, dogecoin is better suited for transactions.” Musk added that bitcoin is more suitable as a store of value, which is why its investors want to hold onto it and not sell it or use it for transactions. Dogecoin, on the other hand, is a currency that “encourages people to spend, rather than sort of hoard as a store of value,” he said.

A Man Accidentally Threw Out a Hard Drive Worth $357 Million in Bitcoin. It's a nightmare scenario that might become increasingly common in a world of digital currency. A man threw away an old PC hard drive with 7500 BTC-wallet while doing a quick spring clean of his home in Newport Wales, U.K., in 2013. Fast-forward almost a decade and he's still desperately petitioning to be allowed to go through his local landfill.

Bitcoin could become ‘worthless’, Bank of England warns. The Bank of England has said that bitcoin could be “worthless” and people investing in the digital currency should be prepared to lose everything. In a warning over the potential risks for investors, the central bank questioned whether there was any inherent worth in the most prominent digital currency, The deputy governor, Sir Jon Cunliffe, said the Bank had to be ready for risks linked to the rise of the crypto asset following rapid growth in its popularity. “Their price can vary quite considerably and [bitcoins] could theoretically or practically drop to zero,” he told the BBC.

World leaves behind the U.S. on central bank digital currencies. The world is moving ahead with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). The U.S., it increasingly appears, isn’t. Check the latest interactive map which shows where each country in the world stands in its development of a CBDC.

And that's it for now. See you next week!