Sequence

European Central Bank economists publish a paper stating that the continuous rise of Bitcoin will exacerbate social poverty and other consequences

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, a new paper by economists at the European Central Bank titled "The Distributional Consequences of Bitcoin" points out that even in the case of a sustained increase in Bitcoin prices, early adopters will be the only beneficiaries, while latecomers and non-holders will suffer severe consequences, even in the absence of a "bubble burst."The economists argue that Satoshi Nakamoto's original vision of Bitcoin as a global payment system has largely failed, and people's perceptions are shifting towards viewing Bitcoin as a continually appreciating investment asset. Economists Ulrich Bindseil and Jürgen Schaaf believe that Bitcoin "......does not generate any cash flows (like real estate), interest (like bonds), or dividends (like stocks), nor can it be used for production (like commodities). Therefore, "...most established methods for calculating or estimating the fair value of assets fail when applied to Bitcoin."The paper states: "The new Lamborghinis, Rolexes, villas, and stock portfolios of early Bitcoin investors do not stem from an increase in economic production potential; rather, they are funded by the consumption and wealth reduction of those who initially did not hold Bitcoin." "Thus, 'missing out' on Bitcoin is not just about losing the opportunity to accumulate wealth, but it also signifies real poverty compared to a world without Bitcoin. This redistribution of wealth and purchasing power is unlikely to occur without adverse effects on society." These harmful consequences include "......the corresponding poverty of other parts of society, jeopardizing cohesion, stability, and ultimately threatening democracy."

Analysis: Harris cannot bear the consequences of "handing cryptocurrency over to Trump."

ChainCatcher news, according to Coindesk, the independent financial think tank OMFIF stated that U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris cannot afford the consequences of "handing cryptocurrency over to Trump," as the support and donations from cryptocurrency voters could have an impact in key swing states.Trump attracted cryptocurrency supporters at the Bitcoin Nashville conference and promised to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve if elected. Lewis McLellan, editor of the OMFIF Digital Currency Institute, pointed out that Trump has identified a group of disgruntled voters, or potential donors, with his typical opportunistic approach. Purchasing 200,000 Bitcoins annually over five years would give the U.S. a significant share of the total 21 million Bitcoins, and this measure alone could be enough to attract campaign funding donations from those holding large amounts of Bitcoin.Harris has not yet made an official stance on cryptocurrency, but her camp recently engaged with cryptocurrency representatives, showing "new signals of openness." OMFIF commented that Harris must develop her own agenda for crypto assets, or she risks completely conceding to the Republicans. While few would abandon the Democratic Party for supporting the development of the cryptocurrency industry, attracting votes and donations from cryptocurrency supporters away from the Republican camp could have an impact in key swing states.

Metis has completed the second phase of the decentralized sequencer upgrade, introducing new features such as sequencer mining

ChainCatcher news, Layer 2 scaling solution Metis announced that the second phase of its decentralized sequencer upgrade has officially gone live through a hard fork at block height 16500000. This upgrade mainly introduces new features such as multiple transactions within a block, a transaction pool, and sequencer mining.In this upgrade, Metis has increased the number of transactions that a single block can contain from 1 to multiple, and has fixed the transaction confirmation time to 2 seconds. A transaction pool has also been introduced to cache pending transactions. These two improvements will significantly enhance network throughput and reduce block production costs.Additionally, this upgrade introduces a sequencer mining mechanism aimed at better coordinating the incentives of all participants in the network. Sequencer nodes will receive METIS token rewards for sorting, packaging, and submitting transactions to the Ethereum mainnet. Users can stake METIS tokens to receive liquid staking tokens as a receipt, which can be used in other DeFi protocols.Currently, the Metis community has selected Artemis Finance and Enki Protocol as the two liquid staking service providers for the Alpha phase through the CEG mechanism. Users can now participate in staking mining through Artemis, and Enki will also launch on the mainnet soon.In the coming year, sequencer nodes will receive 20% of the mining rewards, and related DeFi products such as DEX liquidity pools and lending pools are expected to provide deeper use cases for METIS staking token holders. Metis will also establish strategic partnerships with several crypto institutions to ensure the full decentralization and high participation of its decentralized sequencer.
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