updraftplus domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/aonyeani76/cryptocurrencypanther/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6131hustle domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/aonyeani76/cryptocurrencypanther/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6131wpforms-lite domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/aonyeani76/cryptocurrencypanther/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6131The UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt is optimistic that inflation would ease.
UK inflation came in for September at 6.7%, higher than expectations set by analysts. Also, inflation in the UK remained unchanged from August.
While inflation remained unaltered, the UK’s headline consumer price index (CPI) met expectations from economists polled by Reuters. The economists predicted a monthly increase of 0.5% and an annual 6.6%. For core CPI, the UK’s figure fell to 6.1% year-on-year (YoY), higher than the 6% expected but lower than the 6.2% in August. Core CPI excludes the prices of food, energy, alcohol, and tobacco.
The UK’s general CPI, which came down to 6.7%, was below expectations, which likely encouraged the Bank of England (BoE) to suspend hiking interest rates. The apex bank has increased interest rates 14 consecutive times since December 2021 to fight rising inflation. The rate moved from 0.1% at the time to the 5.25% in August.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) stated that the prices of food and non-alcoholic drinks in the UK fell by 0.2% in September. This resulted from heavy competition among supermarkets, which eventually tanked the prices of items like eggs, cheese, milk, juices, soft drinks, and mineral water. However, although the prices are lower than in August, they are still more than 12% higher than recorded in the same period last year.
According to the ONS, an increase in diesel and petrol prices is a major reason for the pressure on the UK’s inflation. The price of diesel climbed at one of the fastest rates in the UK in 20 years. According to the RAC, a major automobile breakdown service provider, Diesel prices hit 163p a liter in September. Rising more than 8p, this is the fifth largest monthly rise since 2000. The price of petrol also climbed, rising by 4.5p to 152p a liter, the fourth consecutive monthly climb.
The rise in petrol and diesel prices comes as Saudi Arabia and Russia cut down on oil production to boost prices. This eventually pushed prices to about $100 (£82.89) per barrel. Combined with a fall in the value of the pound, prices increased at the pump. Nonetheless, the RAC believes that petrol is overpriced by nearly 7p a liter.
The UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt is optimistic that inflation would ease. In a recent statement, Hunt said:
“As we have seen across other G7 countries, inflation rarely falls in a straight line, but if we stick to our plan then we still expect it to keep falling this year. Today’s news just shows this is even more important so we can ease the pressure on families and businesses.”
Traders generally believe that the BoE will suspend further interest rate hikes. Also, reports suggest that the market has priced a 77% chance that the apex bank will leave rates unchanged at its November meeting. However, the BoE Governor Andrew Bailey recently warned that calling victory in the fight against inflation may be too soon.
Tolu is a cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiast based in Lagos. He likes to demystify crypto stories to the bare basics so that anyone anywhere can understand without too much background knowledge.
When he’s not neck-deep in crypto stories, Tolu enjoys music, loves to sing and is an avid movie lover.
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Goldman Sachs has endured from losses from trying to cater to the broader market and is now looking to sell its investment advisor.
Leading global investment banking and financial services company Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) is considering selling its investment advisory business. According to a Financial Times report, Goldman is “currently evaluating alternatives” for the company, which operates as a financial manager and investment adviser with assets worth about $29 billion.
Goldman Sachs says it hopes to find a solution that would be mutually beneficial for advisers and clients. The business expanded from United Capital, an investment firm Goldman purchased in 2019 for $750 million.
For the most part, Goldman typically catered to high-net-worth clients for its wealth management operations. Purchasing United Capital four years ago was Goldman’s attempt to reach a wide range of customers, especially those who are not high net-worth clients.
Unfortunately, Goldman has suffered losses as it pushed into broader investment advisory. This has put pressure on CEO David Solomon, who is now seeking to dispose of the investment arm. Notably, Goldman Sachs is looking to do away with its investment business at a time when the market is recording a lot of job switching among registered experts in the advisory field. Many of these persons are now moving to specialized outfits or launching their own businesses. These persons are also seemingly eager to take their clients along.
Solomon is also trying to sell its specialty lender GreenSky. Founded in 2006, the company helps consumers get home improvement loans. GreenSky raised $874 million after going public in 2018 with Goldman Sachs as the lead underwriter. Goldman then acquired the company in 2022 to join its consumer banking business.
As part of its Q2 earnings announcement, Goldman said GreenSky suffered a $504 million write-down, plus $485 million in impairments connected to the company’s real estate investments.
People familiar with the matter have said that investment firm Sixth Street is leading a group of companies looking to take over GreenSky from Goldman. The group includes PIMCO, KKR, and CardWorks. The people also said Apollo Global Management is also trying to buy GreenSky in separate efforts. According to these people, Goldman might consider selling the platform and loan book to different parties. There’s also the possibility that Goldman could keep the loan book and only sell the platform. One of the parties said that the proposals are between $500 million and $1 billion. Other reports say the bids are about half of Goldman’s purchasing price at the time it acquired GreenSky.
The early GreenSky valuation in 2021 was $2.24 billion. However, the valuation eventually fell to $1.7 billion when the transaction was complete. After two rounds of bidding, the people familiar with the matter have said another round is unlikely.
Goldman had tried to buy GreenSky at a $7 per share price or $1.3 billion cash offer. However, GreenSky canceled the process after Goldman refused to raise its bid.
Tolu is a cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiast based in Lagos. He likes to demystify crypto stories to the bare basics so that anyone anywhere can understand without too much background knowledge.
When he’s not neck-deep in crypto stories, Tolu enjoys music, loves to sing and is an avid movie lover.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance has paused Bitcoin withdrawals for the second time in the last 24 hours citing a sudden spike in the Bitcoin network gas fee.
In their latest tweet, Binance said that they have paused “large volumes of pending transactions” and that the team is working to bring back BTC withdrawals asap. Currently, as per on-chain data, there are nearly half a million pending transactions on the Bitcoin network due to high gas costs.
Currently 479,000 unconfirmed transactions on the Bitcoin network.
BRC20 tokens are exploding and with it gas fees and wait times. pic.twitter.com/joVhwiFUrL
— Lark Davis (@TheCryptoLark) May 7, 2023
The recent events brought some selling pressure on Bitcoin, whose price has dropped more than 2% in the last 24 hours and is currently trading at $28,228 with a market cap of $546 billion.
On Sunday, May 7, Binance halted BTC withdrawals for nearly 90 minutes while blaming congestion on the Bitcoin blockchain. As a result, volumes on the Binance exchange have exceeded $6 billion in the past 24 hours, five times the next platform OKX.
Binance assured investors that the funds are SAFU while adding that they are replacing the pending BTC withdrawal transactions with higher fees so that they get picked up by the mining pool. The exchange recently tweeted that its team is working to resume transactions within the next hour.
Binance said that they are also thinking to enable Bitcoin Lightning Network to help in such situations. It noted:
To prevent a similar recurrence in the future, our fees have been adjusted. We will continue to monitor on-chain activity and adjust accordingly if needed. Our team has also been working on enabling BTC Lightning Network withdrawals, which will help in such situations.
Earlier in 2023, Bitcoin developer Casey Rodarmor released a protocol dubbed Ordinals that would help mint non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for the first time. These have boosted the transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain.
As per Hayden Hughes, co-founder of social-trading platform Alpha Impact, Ordinals led to a “massive run up in network fees and congestion”. Interestingly, the use of Bitcoin Taproot, which makes transactions anonymous, surged on Sunday. Crypto journalist Colin Wu explains that “the increase in Taproot adoption means that block sizes are increasing, resulting in an increase in transaction costs”.
According to glassnode, a total of 75.77% of Bitcoin on-chain transactions used Taproot on May 7, a record high, compared to only 1.536% at the beginning of the year. The increase in Taproot adoption means that block sizes are increasing, resulting in an increase in transaction… pic.twitter.com/dFP9KmO80s
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) May 8, 2023
The presented content may include the personal opinion of the author and is subject to market condition. Do your market research before investing in cryptocurrencies. The author or the publication does not hold any responsibility for your personal financial loss.
Binance Exchange, the largest crypto trading platform in the world, announced the temporary suspension of Bitcoin (BTC) withdrawals on its platform. According to the tweet containing the update, the exchange said the reason for the halt is based on the congestion that is being experienced on the Bitcoin network.
Typically, periods of network congestion can cause a lot of discomfort for traders as deposits and withdrawal requests typically take a considerable amount of time before it goes through. The suspension of withdrawals by Binance is considered an avenue to save its users from this stress, until the congestion is cleared.
As revealed, Binance said one of its dedicated team is “currently working on a fix until the network is stabilized and will reopen $BTC withdrawals as soon as possible.
The fact that Binance has made a name for itself as the biggest exchange with the deepest liquidity as confirmed by its proof of reserve asset has helped maintain calm in the community. Binance has maintained its lead in the industry despite the record listing of PEPE and Floki Inu memecoins over the weekend.
With the sustained congestion, however, questions about the health of the Bitcoin protocol have risen up in the industry.
Hours before Binance exchange reported the halt in withdrawals, a Twitter user who doubles as a major node operator @proofofjogi confirmed that Bitcoin is under a DOS attack. According to him, “high transaction fees are the chosen pain point by the attacker, probably to make bitcoin unusable for smaller players.”
Bitcoin is under DoS attack. High transaction fees are the chosen pain point by the attacker, probably to makes bitcoin unusable for smaller players. pic.twitter.com/0J56liNSGf
— iris.to/jogi (@proofofjogi) May 7, 2023
According to Jogi, the mechanism of the attack appears to be Ordinals shitcoining and by his predictions, the whole attack may just be starting off.
Bitcoin is renowned as the most versatile protocol in the blockchain ecosystem. This recognition may soon be cleared off since some smart contracts functionalities are now being built on the network at this time. These smart contracts have a lot of attack vectors that may largely compromise the integrity of the network just as is being experienced at the moment.
In all, Bitcoin price remains unfazed as it is changing hands at $28,941.90, up by 0.71%. At the time of writing, the exchange said it has resumed the Bitcoin withdrawals.
$BTC withdrawals are now resumed on #Binance.
Thank you for your patience and we apologize for any inconvenience.
— Binance (@binance) May 7, 2023
The presented content may include the personal opinion of the author and is subject to market condition. Do your market research before investing in cryptocurrencies. The author or the publication does not hold any responsibility for your personal financial loss.
Bitcoin News: Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange announced that all spot trading on the platform is suspended on a temporary basis. It added that they are aware of an issue impacting the service and it will be resolved as soon as possible.
Changpeng Zhao (CZ), CEO of Binance stated that after an initial analysis, it is indicated that the matching engine encountered a bug on the trailing stop order. He highlighted that the estimated recovery time has come out to be anywhere between 30-120 minutes.
CZ indicated that deposits and withdrawals are paused as a part of SOP and all the funds are safe. However, the state of orders in the matching engine might affect the available funds for withdrawal, he added.
As per CZ, the biggest exchange pausing trading won’t affect crypto prices much. However, when Binance will be up again, their deeper order book will bring the prices back to normal.
Also Read: Binance.US To Get Wells Notice Next? XRP Lawyer Claims This
Binance reported that there Engine 1 is back online. Meanwhile, it still need more time in order to do reconciliations as other engines need to catch up.
Bitcoin, the world’s biggest digital asset price suddenly dropped by $400 straight to lose the $28K level. However, Bitcoin regained the $28K price level quickly. It is trading at an average price of $28,028, at the press time. Read More Bitcoin News Here…
(THIS IS A DEVELOPING STORY)
The presented content may include the personal opinion of the author and is subject to market condition. Do your market research before investing in cryptocurrencies. The author or the publication does not hold any responsibility for your personal financial loss.