Cryptocurrency
Redefining Money: America’s digital currency dilemma
On Wednesday, Sept. 20, the United States House Financial Services Committee marked up two bills to curb the issuance of a central bank digital currency (CBDC). One of the bills would stop the Federal Reserve from running any test programs on CBDCs without congressional approval, while the other would stop federal banks from using CBDCs for some services and products.
The principal political adversaries to a digital dollar are heavyweights such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who have thrown their hats into the ring to become president a year from November.
In July, DeSantis said that CBDCs would never happen under his administration, citing concerns over consumers losing power over their own money. Kennedy, on the other hand, a known proponent of Bitcoin, is rallying against the digital dollar as it will “vastly magnify the government’s power to suffocate dissent by cutting off access to funds with a keystroke.“
No CBDC in Florida https://t.co/p9pwSTmrlN
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) March 20, 2023
In May, Cointelegraph reported that according to its own research, more than 130 countries were at some stage of research into a CBDC, and only eight had rejected the idea outright. These countries are diverse, from France and Switzerland to Haiti and Bhutan. So, the question must be asked: Why would a country like the United States be so opposed to having its own digital currency?
The idea of a CBDC in itself is nothing too taxing. In essence, digital dollars would be based on blockchain technology rather than having traditional dollars moving around between accounts. That would dramatically decrease transfer times, cut fees, and do away with the “middlemen” — the intermediaries along the way who slow things down and take a cut for themselves.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation found that in 2021, there were still 5.9 million “unbanked’ households in the United States, a massive number by any standard.
A CBDC would mean that the Federal Reserve would effectively oversee all the bank transfers in the country, as there would be no alternative. And having everything under one roof means one mistake or failure would affect everyone rather than be limited to one bank, for instance.
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But perhaps the biggest argument against a CBDC is that, for cryptocurrency purists, having a central institution overseeing a currency is the very thing crypto was designed to avoid. Why now make a U-turn?
Political motivations play a significant role in the discussion in the United States. In March 2022, President Joseph Biden said his administration would “place the highest urgency on research and development efforts into the potential design and deployment options of a United States CBDC.”
This provided fodder for the Republican party to come out against the plan, citing invasion of privacy and claiming it was another form of government control. DeSantis even came out with an Orwellian prediction of the government stopping its citizens from buying fossil fuels or guns if such legislation were in place.
This is not to say that the U.S. hasn’t looked into a CBDC, as it has extensively.
In 2020, the Federal Reserve launched Project Hamilton to study the viability of a CBDC. By 2022, it had developed a system that took elements from the workings of Bitcoin but moved away from its rigid blockchain backbone. The result was a system that can process 1.7 million transactions per second, light years ahead of the Bitcoin blockchain and quicker even than Visa, which can deal with about 65,000 transactions per second.
David Millar, data center coordinator at Santander, told Cointelegraph: “The leaps forward they made during Project Hamilton were truly staggering. When we heard of the progress they were making, we believed that our entire infrastructure would need to be completely revamped within the next five years.”
Nevertheless, the project completed its initial phase in December 2022 and went no further. Once again, voices of dissent from Congress attacked the project, saying it had been carried out solely with academics and the public sector in mind and the average citizen would not benefit. Millar added:
“The time and effort that went into Hamilton and the results they produced; it’s a tragedy that most of it will never see the light of day.”
The issue of privacy is one of the most prominent foes of the digital dollar. The main argument of the dissenters is that if there is to be a digital dollar, it should effectively be like the cash dollar is now, with its benefits of anonymity coupled with the power and speed of a cryptocurrency. Those who favor a digital dollar argue that we already have such a thing, but it’s just not called that yet. Credit card money is digital for all intents and purposes, and are any of us mailing cash to Amazon to pay for things?
The world is moving toward a cashless society, and the U.S. is no exception. In 2022, only 18% of all U.S. payments were made in cash, down from 31% in 2016.
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The U.S. is also a country of strange contradictions. While it surges ahead in many areas, such as technology, its banking system remains rooted in the traditional, with check payments still being the norm. Dragging a whole nation away from that is a tall order.
So, what does the future hold for a potential U.S. CBDC? Well, very little. Project Hamilton closed with no indication of a second phase, and according to Darrell Duffie, a professor of finance at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, while work is continuing, it has slowed to a snail’s pace, and “nobody is charging ahead openly.”
It seems for the foreseeable future, this will be one part of the cryptosphere where the U.S. is not a pioneer.
[PRESS RELEASE – Victoria, Seychelles, December 30th, 2024]
Bitget Wallet, a leading Web3 non-custodial wallet, has exceeded 60 million global users, achieving 300% annual growth in 2024. Through strategic innovation and ecosystem expansion, the platform has seen substantial adoption across key regions, solidifying its position as a major player in the multi-chain wallet ecosystem.
Bitget Wallet saw exceptional growth across key regions, particularly Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. Africa recorded over 1000% growth, led by Nigeria at 1468%. In the Middle East and Europe, the user base climbed by over 400%, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE showing 482% and 326% growth, respectively. France led in Europe with 1091%, followed by the UK and Germany at 687% and 657%.
Bitget Wallet’s growth is driven by innovative features designed to meet user needs. Leveraging the bull market recovery and Meme coin surge, tools like Instant Swap, Smart Money Tracking, MemeX, and GetGas have enhanced the trading experience. Meme coins, DeFi, and AI are the top trading categories. Onchain data shows average annual per capita trading volumes of $3,312 for DeFi tokens, led by East Asia, the Middle East, and the Americas, and $1,337 for Meme coins, with the Middle East, Europe, and East Asia leading activity.
Bitget Wallet has strengthened its integration with major mainnets and Web2 platforms. Data shows that blockchain adoption, with TON, Base, and Solana addresses, is increasing over 40 times year-on-year. The launch of Bitget Wallet Lite attracted over 10 million users in just a month, making it the largest Telegram multi-chain wallet. Supporting this, Bitget Wallet launched a $20 million Telegram Mini-App Support Program and OmniConnect Dev Kit, connecting a billion Telegram users to the multi-chain Web3 ecosystem.
Bitget Wallet introduced Bitget Onchain Layer in early 2024, and recently merged its platform token BWB with BGB tokens, with BGB becoming the sole ecosystem token. The integrated BGB will support multi-chain gas payments, staking, trading, and more DeFi functionalities while expanding into offline payment utilities. This move aims to bridge CeFi and DeFi ecosystems, delivering greater value to token holders.
Looking ahead to 2025, Bitget Wallet aims to deliver seamless onchain financial services, offering fast, secure trading while helping users maximize digital asset returns. The platform will simplify crypto payments for effortless transfers and spending, and streamline asset management with easy fiat-to-crypto conversions. “Our vision is to build a superapp that seamlessly connects Web2 and Web3, enabling a billion users to embrace financial freedom,” said Alvin Kan, COO of Bitget Wallet. “We are committed to leading this transformation and becoming the definitive bridge between the real world and the onchain economy.”
For more information, users can visit the Bitget Wallet blog.
About Bitget Wallet
Bitget Wallet is the home of Web3, uniting endless possibilities in one non-custodial wallet. With over 60 million users, it offers comprehensive on-chain services, including asset management, instant swaps, rewards, staking, trading tools, live market data, a DApp browser, and an NFT marketplace. Designed for everyone from beginners to advanced traders, it supports mnemonic, MPC, and AA wallet options. With connections to over 100 blockchains, 20,000+ DApps, and 500,000+ tokens, Bitget Wallet enables seamless multi-chain trading across hundreds of DEXs and cross-chain bridges, along with a $300 million protection fund for your digital assets. Experience Bitget Wallet Lite to start your Web3 journey.
For more information, users can visit: X | Telegram | Instagram | YouTube | LinkedIn | TikTok | Discord
For media inquiries, users can contact media.web3@bitget.com
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Foundry USA Pool – the largest Bitcoin mining pool by hash rate – recently took action to return an 8.18 BTC transaction fee, which is roughly worth $777,000, that had been accidentally overpaid.
The error occurred on December 19 during the mining of block 875475, which included a transaction with a fee 91,127 times higher than what was needed.
Foundry Refunds Large Overpaid Bitcoin Fee
After recognizing the mistake, Foundry reached out to the sender and refunded the excess fee after assessment. In a statement to The MinerMag, the mining pool assured that this refund did not affect the payouts of its regular customers stating that the payout system disregards the three highest and three lowest transaction fees each day.
Its official tweet read,
“We have received numerous messages from across the industry, and we want to extend our thanks to everyone who reached out on the user’s behalf. Please note that this decision was made after thorough deliberation, and we will continue to handle these instances on a case-by-case basis.”
This incident marks the second such event in recent months, following a similar action by Antpool in November 2023, when it had to refund a $3 million Bitcoin transaction fee after a user error led to the highest-ever fee paid on the Bitcoin network.
As reported earlier, the user mistakenly submitted 83 BTC as a fee on November 23, following which the Bitcoin mining company froze the fee temporarily, and announced its plan to verify the sender’s identity before issuing a refund.
Meanwhile, Foundry’s pool, with a massive hash rate of 273.6 EH/s, remains the largest in the industry, far surpassing Antpool’s 146.7 EH/s, according to data compiled by Hashrate Index. Additionally, Foundry controls almost 38% of the market share among pool operators, while Antpool accounts for 18%, at the time of writing.
Foundry Layoffs
The latest development comes less than a month after Foundry was reported to have laid off 60% of its workforce, as part of its “realignment” strategy.
The layoffs at Foundry mainly affected employees outside of the company’s core operations. Originally employing 250 people, 20 were reassigned to Yuma, while around 160-170 staff were let go. This included the entire ASIC repair and hardware teams, though mining pool operations remained unaffected. Foundry was also believed to have been exploring selling its site operations team, which oversees Bitcoin mining locations.
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The highly-anticipated Santa Claus rally is nowhere to be seen as bitcoin continues to lose value by dropping below $94,000.
The altcoins are also mostly in the red, with XRP dumping by 6% and XLM following suit.
BTC Fails at Recovery
It hasn’t been a particularly hopeful end of 2024 on a micro-scale. The asset began its painful decline on December 17 when its price stood above $108,000. In just a matter of three days, it had lost around $16,000 and dumped to $92,000.
The bulls intercepted the move and helped prevent a further drop below $90,000. In fact, BTC started recovering some ground and spiked toward $100,000 on a couple of occasions, but to no avail. The last such example was on December 26 when BTC touched that line but was quickly rejected once again.
The subsequent decline pushed it south hard, and the asset fell to $95,000 over the weekend. However, the landscape worsened in the past 24 hours and dropped further to $93,000. Despite bouncing off that level, for now, BTC is still over 1% down on the day.
Its market capitalization has plummeted to under $1.860 trillion on CG, and its dominance over the alts stands at 54%.
XRP Keeps Bleeding
Most altcoins are in the red once again today. The trend is led by XRP, which continues its downfall and is close to breaking below $2 now. If it dumps below that level, analysts foresee another massive decline toward $1.
XLM has also dropped hard from the larger-cap alts, losing nearly 5% of value and trading well below $0.35. BNB, SOL, DOGE, ADA, TRX, AVAX, LINK, TON, SUI, and many others are also in the red, albeit in a less painful manner.
The total crypto market cap has lost another $60 billion since yesterday and is down to $3.430 trillion on CG.
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Disclaimer: Information found on CryptoPotato is those of writers quoted. It does not represent the opinions of CryptoPotato on whether to buy, sell, or hold any investments. You are advised to conduct your own research before making any investment decisions. Use provided information at your own risk. See Disclaimer for more information.
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