US suspends 44 flights by Chinese carriers after Beijing action

The decision will cut some flights by Xiamen, Air China , China Southern Airlines and China Eastern Airlines. — AFP pic

WASHINGTON, Jan 22 — The US government said yesterday it would suspend 44 China-bound flights from the United States by four Chinese carriers in response to the Chinese government’s decision to suspend some US carrier flights over Covid-19 concerns.

The suspensions will begin on January 30 with Xiamen Airlines’ scheduled Los Angeles-to-Xiamen flight and run through March 29, the Transportation Department said.

The decision will cut some flights by Xiamen, Air China , China Southern Airlines and China Eastern Airlines.

Since December 31, Chinese authorities have suspended 20 United Airlines, 10 American Airlines and 14 Delta Air Lines flights, after some passengers tested positive for Covid-19. As recently as Tuesday, the Transportation Department said the Chinese government had announced new US flight cancellations.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said Friday the policy for international passenger flights entering China has “been applied equally to Chinese and foreign airlines in a fair, open and transparent way.”

He called the US move “very unreasonable” and added “We urge the US side to stop disrupting and restricting the normal passenger flights” by Chinese airlines.”

Airlines for America, a trade group representing the three US carriers affected by China’s move along with others, said it supported Washington’s action “to ensure the fair treatment of US airlines in the Chinese market.”

The Transportation Department said France and Germany have taken similar action against China’s Covid-19 actions. It said China’s suspension of the 44 flights “are adverse to the public interest and warrant proportionate remedial action.” It added that China’s “unilateral actions against the named US carriers are inconsistent” with a bilateral agreement.

China has also suspended numerous US flights by Chinese carriers after passengers later tested positive.

The department said it was prepared to revisit its action if China revised its “policies to bring about the necessary improved situation for US carriers.” It warned that if China cancels more flights, “we reserve the right to take additional action.”

China has all but shut its borders to travellers, cutting total international flights to just 200 a week, or 2 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said in September.

The number of US flights being scrapped has surged since December, as infections caused by the highly contagious Omicron variant of the coronavirus soared to record highs in the United States.

Beijing and Washington have sparred over air services since the start of the pandemic. In August, the US Transportation Department limited four flights from Chinese carriers to 40 per cent passenger capacity for four weeks after Beijing imposed identical limits on four United Airlines flights.

Before the recent cancellations, three US airlines and four Chinese carriers were operating about 20 flights a week between the countries, well below the figure of more than 100 per week before the pandemic. — Reuters

CRYPTOCURRENCY PREDICTIONS: TOP CRYPTOCURRENCIES RECOVERING FROM CRASH IN 2022

It is easy enough to determine some prominent cryptocurrencies surviving, if and when 8a crash does occur

Price volatility is a huge concern in the cryptocurrency market. There’s some degree of volatility involved with the stock market too, but the cryptocurrency market, being fairly new, comes with lesser understanding. Out of all the understanding that experts have, a recent trend was noticed by analysts – cryptocurrency crashes that usually occur on weekends. Stephen McKeon, a finance professor and partner at Collab+Currency, a crypto focussed investment fund explained in an interview that liquidy requires study of the supply of buyers and sellers. If there are few buyers compared to sellers or vice versa, transactions that fluctuate will result in a spike or crash. A good place to start is the top 20 most-traded cryptocurrencies. It is easy enough to determine some prominent survivors in this listing, if and when a crash does occur in cryptocurrency markets.

 Bitcoin

Bitcoin price has slumped to US$43,030 from the high of over US$47,700 on the 1st of January 2021. The falling cryptocurrency prices have dampened the celebration mood of retail crypto investors. But the downward price movement in crypto markets is nothing new, hence not surprising for hardcore crypto enthusiasts. Bitcoin is the original cryptocurrency and is fast emerging as a store of value. Its blockchain and codebase also spawned offshoots, such as Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash. Both are angling to become the preferred cryptocurrency for daily transactions.

Ethereum

Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization saw a substantial drop as well. The Ethereum-based cryptocurrency witnessed a plunge of 8.3% over the past 24 hours after a healthy start to the year. However, Ethereum’s world of decentralized applications or Dapps is fast gaining traction and is responsible for a slew of tokens such as Populous, which are built off its platform.

XRP

XRP is an open-source cryptocurrency that uses an open-source distributed ledger called the XRP ledger. It is the native coin of Ripple, which is an enterprise blockchain company that facilitates global transactions. The creators claim that XRP was built for payments and can settle transactions faster than most other cryptocurrencies securely and efficiently.

Cardano

Cardano is a research-based cryptocurrency built by engineers, mathematicians, and cryptography experts. It is open-sourced and decentralized, with consensus achieved using proof-of-stake. It can also facilitate peer-to-peer transactions with the ADA token. Cardano is one of the cryptocurrencies that are recovering from a crash in 2022.

Polygon

This platform looks to address many of the issues facing the Ethereum blockchain while still providing Defi solutions. Namely, the platform looks to create “Ethereum’s internet of blockchains” by connecting Ethereum-compatible blockchain networks and aggregating scalable solutions on Ethereum. It is also one of the cryptocurrencies that are recovering from a crash.

 Litecoin

As one of the first digital currencies, Litecoin is increasingly getting adopted for real-world use, making it one of the fastest-growing digital currencies. The team has continuously been improving the network to increase speed, reduce cost and increase safety, making Litecoin one of the most attractive payment platforms. The latest update is about the increasing acceptance of Litecoin in the real world. More organizations are adopting LTC, with the recent being NetCent, Bitpay, and Verifone. Now Litecoin holders can buy goods and services from these stores. Litecoin Gaming is another recent development the team updated the community about. More is coming from the team.

Chainlink

Chainlink was designed with the motive of making smart contracts more useful. It is a decentralized network of oracles, which are capable of bringing real-world data into any blockchain network. Chainlink is the largest and most popular oracle network. Owing to its capability of integrating real-world data, the demand for Chainlink oracles will grow in the future.

 Polkadot

Polkadot was created based on research identifying the hurdles that blockchain networks will face in the future as crypto is becoming more mainstream and is promoting several innovations in the industry. One of the defining features that DOT possesses is functioning on a network that can connect other blockchain networks.

Dogecoin

The fact that Dogecoin still stands strong after not being taken seriously is a statement in itself. First, Redditors spiked the price to new heights in early 2021 as a way to prevent the speculated short-selling of Dogecoins by many Wall Street hedge funds. And then, Elon Musk called himself the “Dogefather” promoting this cryptocurrency further. While many argue the legitimacy of this coin, Dogecoin continues to have its share of market value.

 Shiba Inu

Launched in August 2020, the rise of Shiba Inu in such a short time is nothing short of uncanny. At one point, Dogecoin stayed as the top meme currency without much competition. However, SHIB, another namecoin that was created out of online jokes that went viral in 2013 came to the play.

Crypto Markets Rebound $130B: Bitcoin Recovers 5%, Shiba Inu Up 37% Since Yesterday’s Low

The crypto market has recovered more than $100 billion in a day with BTC standing at $36,000 and the alts…

After the two consecutive days of price slides, bitcoin has reclaimed some ground and stands around $36,000. The altcoins have reacted even better with notable double-digit price gains from Terra, Avalanche, Shiba Inu, and many others.

Bitcoin Stands at $36K

The past few days didn’t go all that well for the primary cryptocurrency. It was just on Thursday when a sudden price pump drove the asset to a multi-day high at $43,500.

However, this is where it all went south. Bitcoin started to dump in value rapidly and slumped to $38,000 a day later. This became the lowest price point since early August.

While this was a steep correction of its own, the bears only tightened their grip on the market. As a result, BTC dropped by another $4,000 and dipped to around $34,000. This, on the other hand, became the lowest price point since late July.

Since then, though, BTC added around $2,000 and now stands at $36,000. Nevertheless, its market capitalization is still well below $700 billion.

Altcoins With Impressive Recoveries

The altcoins suffered even more than BTC in the past few days with massive price drops. Now, though, most are well in the green on a daily scale.

Ethereum went down by roughly $1,000 in two days, bottoming at $2,300. Now, though, ETH has added more than $200 of value and sits above $2,500. More similar gains come from Ripple and Solana.

On the other hand, Binance Coin, Cardano, Polkadot, Dogecoin, and MATIC have recovered around 10% each. More gains come from Terra (20%), Avalanche (13%), and Shiba Inu (21%) on a daily scale. SHIB is up by approximately 40% since yesterday’s low, though.

Ultimately, the cryptocurrency market capitalization is up by $130 billion since yesterday’s low and is now at nearly $1.7 trillion.

Why Brazil Is the Big Latin American Bet for Global Crypto Exchanges

A cocktail of inflation and devaluation is generating a crypto boom that players such as Binance, Coinbase and Crypto.com do not want to waste.

Amid a crypto boom in Brazil, several global exchanges see the country as Latin America’s main market in 2022.

Binance, Coinbase, Crypto.com and other exchanges’ interest in Brazil has been growing as the region’s largest economy wrestles with significant economic imbalances.

Brazil registered a 10% inflation rate in 2021 and a steady depreciation of the Brazilian real against the U.S. dollar, which pushed the local currency from $0.25 in January 2020 to $0.18 this month.

This article is part of CoinDesk Brasil, a brand-new partnership between CoinDesk and InfoMoney, one of Brazil's leading financial news publications. Follow CoinDesk Brasil on Twitter.

That cocktail of macroeconomic imbalances fed the crypto boom in recent years. In 2020, crypto exchanges began to notice that Brazilian stablecoin traders were quadrupling in number.

Between January and November 2021, locals traded $11.4 billion in stablecoins and almost tripled the total traded in 2020, while bitcoin trading reached $10.8 billion over the same period, according to Receita Federal, the Brazilian tax authority.

Brazilians have incentives to purchase crypto instead of U.S. dollars to hedge against inflation or devaluation. When acquiring foreign currency, Brazilians are forced to pay a tax on financial operations – IOF is its acronym in Portuguese – that ranges between 1.1% and 6.38%. The tax does not apply to stablecoins.

Moreover, the Brazilian Central Bank prohibits locals from saving U.S. dollars in a domestic bank account. To be sure, the monetary authority abolished that prohibition by approving a new exchange rate framework in December 2021, but it hasn’t implemented it yet.

Brazilians also prioritize crypto over other more traditional investments. According to data from the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB), as of August 2021 Brazilians held $50 billion in crypto, compared to $16 billion held in U.S. stocks.

Locals are familiar with digital money, as the country leads the way in digital payments in Latin America. In October 2020, the BCB launched a real-time retail payment system, Pix, which by November 2021 had more than 104 million users – in a country of 214 million – and concentrated more than 70% of total transactions.

In the crypto arena, the BCB plans to carry out the first tests of its CBDC in 2022, while the local senate will discuss three bills seeking to set the rules for the crypto ecosystem in the country.

Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, has a special interest in Brazil. “It is a key strategic market for Binance, for sure. It is the largest market in Latin America in all metrics and with enormous potential; and it is also very important for the company globally,” the company told CoinDesk in an email.

Over the past three years, Binance has focused on hiring Brazilians to strengthen its support team, the company said. Now, the exchange is looking for a general manager to lead its Brazilian business, according to one of eight job openings it has in the country.

In November 2020, Binance started accepting Brazilian reals through a fiat gateway, which boosted the number of active transacting users by 125% in 2021 compared with the previous year, the company told CoinDesk.

In that same month, crypto exchange Coinbase announced the creation of an engineering hub in Brazil, for which it has nine open positions on its careers page. The company appears to have a particular interest in payment services.

Singapore-based crypto exchange Crypto.com is another heavyweight looking to expand into Brazil.

According to Guilherme Sacamone, Crypto.com’s head of growth in Brazil, the company has been operating in the local market for "a few months" and is currently working to integrate its fiat wallet with the government's payment system, Pix. In addition, Crypto.com plans to launch a Visa debit card in Brazil, Sacamone told CoinDesk, without providing an exact launch date

Crypto.com is also looking for a country manager to lead its Brazilian operation, in addition to strengthening its institutional customer base through hiring a director of institutional sales.

“Latin America is an important region for Crypto.com and Brazil, being its largest market, has become a global priority for the company,” Sacamone said.

Brazil is also starting to attract European exchanges. Bit2me, a Spanish crypto exchange that raised EUR 20 million via an initial coin offering in 2021, plans to land during the first quarter of 2022, Bit2Me's CEO, Andrei Manuel, told CoinDesk.

Bit2Me plans to allow users to buy and sell crypto with fiat and provide crypto to crypto trading. It has a team of 20 in Brazil and plans to hire 20 more employees in 2022 to boost its marketing, compliance, product and support teams, the executive added.

But the fervor for the Brazilian market is not limited to exchanges. The global payments company Ripple considers Brazil the key trigger to growth in Latin America. It is currently looking for a business development manager to coordinate "strategic relationships" that include “payment and fintech companies, financial institutions, and digital asset infrastructure players,” among others.

A regional fight

Regional crypto exchanges already operating in Spanish-speaking markets are also eyeing Brazil. But they face the challenge of competing with Brazil’s dominant local player, Mercado Bitcoin.

Founded in 2014, Mercado Bitcoin is the largest crypto exchange in Brazil, with 3.2 million users. It also raised $250 million in a Series B funding round from Softbank in 2021, making it the first Brazilian crypto unicorn.

Mercado Bitcoin's main competitor in Brazil is Bitso, a Mexico-based crypto exchange that raised $250 million in a Series C funding round that made it the first crypto unicorn in Latin America.

José Molina, Bitso’s vice president of marketing, told CoinDesk that the company plans to become the largest exchange in the country in 2022. Although it did not disclose its customer base in Brazil, Bitso told CoinDesk that its Brazilian business unit grew 97% in the last six months.

Bitso currently has more than 30 job openings in Brazil with the aim of “growing rapidly,” Molina said. The company hired Facebook veteran Vaughan Smith in August 2021 to boost its expansion in the country.

Bitso has more users than Mercado Bitcoin – 3.7 million versus 3.2 million – when accounting for Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, which are the markets in which it currently operates.

But the numbers may change in 2022, since Mercado Bitcoin is looking to expand into the Spanish-speaking part of Latin America through acquisitions in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Mexico, 2TM CEO Roberto Dagnoni told CoinDesk in June.

Bitso is not the only Latin American crypto exchange targeting Brazil. In January 2021, Argentina-based crypto exchange Ripio acquired BitcoinTrade, the second-largest crypto exchange in Brazil.

For 2022, it plans to launch its corporate trading desk, Ripio OTC, aimed at institutional investors and high-net-worth traders, Ripio Brazil's country manager, Enrique Teixeira said. In parallel, the company is working on "various payment products" with Visa Brazil, including a crypto card and several projects with local fintech companies.

Crypto Prices Drop After Russia Calls for Ban

The price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies dropped Friday (Jan. 21) following a sell-off in speculative assets amid the news of Russia’s call to ban crypto in that country.

As the Financial Times reports, the price of bitcoin fell as much as 7.4% against the dollar in Asian trading, while ether dropped nearly 9%, wiping away about $140 billion off the market capitalization for some of the market’s largest cryptocurrencies.

The bitcoin selloff picked up steam on Wall Street late Thursday after Netflix warned that it had seen flagging subscriber growth. Shares in the streaming giant dropped about 20% in pre-market Nasdaq trading Friday.

Andrew Sullivan, managing director at Outset Global in Hong Kong, told the Financial Times Asia was seeing “huge volumes going through in a number of markets as investors move to cash” on Friday, as technology shares in the region fell.

The price drop came one day after Russia’s central bank issued a report that compared cryptocurrencies to a pyramid scheme and rallied for their abolition.

The move made Russia — the world’s third largest crypto miner — the latest nation to propose either banning cryptocurrencies or imposing stricter regulations on the digital coins.

In its report, the Bank of Russia said the growth of cryptocurrency was driven primarily by speculative demand and could cause a market bubble that threatened financial stability.

The bank said financial institutions should be forbidden from carrying out operations using crypto and proposed a ban on crypto exchanges. The bank says Russians are active crypto users, buying and selling roughly $5 billion per year.

Also on Thursday (Jan. 20), U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler said cryptocurrency exchanges will be a chief focus of his agency this year.

“I’ve asked staff to look at every way to get these platforms inside the investor protection remit,” Gensler said. “If the trading platforms don’t come into the regulated space, it’d be another year of the public being vulnerable.”