betekenis van het woord CURRENCY

Bitcoin flashcrash: Koers zakt in elkaar

Twee dagen geleden schreven we over de parabolische vorm die de koersontwikkeling van Bitcoin inmiddels had aangenomen. Het bleek inderdaad een klassieke indicator van een bubbel. Nadat er op $265,- weer een nieuw record werd neergezet, klapte de koers in elkaar. Een flinke Bitcoin flashcrash was het gevolg. In tijd van een paar uur verloor de Bitcoin ruim 65% van zijn waarde. Dat zal de hype wel even tot bedaren brengen. Een stabiele valuta is het op deze manier natuurlijk niet. Inmiddels is de Bitcoinkoers donderdagochtend alweer opgelopen naar $170,-. Anderhalve maand geleden was een Bitcoin nog rond de $35 waard. Het blijft een fascinerend verschijnsel deze cryptoCURRENCY.

VS: Staten willen goud weer als wettig betaalmiddel invoeren

In more than a dozen states, legislators are pushing for a movement back to a world where gold is considered money. As Bloomberg reports, lawmakers in Arizona are poised to follow Utah, which authorized bullion for CURRENCY in 2011. Similar bills are advancing in Kansas, South Carolina and other states to recognize gold and silver coins as legal tender. "The legislation is about signaling discontent with monetary policy and about what Ben Bernanke is doing," which seems confirmed by the recent shift in Texas to bring its gold back from the New York bank warehouse. The new measures would give "people the option of using money that won’t lose any purchasing power to inflation," one supporter of the bill explained, with another adding, "there is a fear that the government, or Bernanke in particular and the Federal Reserve, is pursuing a policy that will lead to the collapse of the dollar." The U.S. Constitution bars states from coining money and also forbids them from making anything except gold and silver coin tender for paying debts. Advocates say that opens the door for the states to allow bullion as legal tender.

Australië en China zetten dollar buitenspel

A month ago we pointed out that as a result of Australia's unprecedented reliance on China as a target export market, accounting for nearly 30% of all Australian exports (with the flipside being just as true, as Australia now is the fifth-biggest source of Chinese imports), the two countries may as well be joined at the hip.

Over the weekend, Australia appears to have come to the same conclusion, with the Australian reporting that the land down under is set to say goodbye to the world's "reserve CURRENCY" in its trade dealings with the world's biggest marginal economic power, China, and will enable the direct convertibility of the Australian dollar into Chinese yuan, without US Dollar intermediation, in the process "slashing costs for thousands of business" and also confirming speculation that China is fully intent on, little by little, chipping away at the dollar's reserve CURRENCY status until one day it no longer is.

Euro kan terugvallen op pariteit versus de Dollar

Hans- Guenter Redeker, head of global CURRENCY strategy bij Morgan Stanley, is allesbehalve positief voor de Euro. De koers van de Europese eenheidsmunt kan in de komende 30 maanden langzaam maar zeker afzakken richting pariteit met de US Dollar.

Er zijn heel wat factoren die op de koers van de Euro wegen. Er is uiteraard de Euro-crisis, waar de politiek maar geen antwoord op geformuleerd krijgt. Die crisis heeft niet alleen psychologisch een negatief effect, maar ze staat ook een volwaardige economische groei in de weg.

De bitcoin als redding?

Something extreme is happening in Europe. Since Sunday, Bloomberg Businessweek reports a trio of Bitcoin apps have soared up Spain's download charts, coinciding with news that cash-strapped Cyprus was planning to raid domestic savings accounts to pay off a $13 billion bailout tab. “This is an entirely predictable and rational outcome for what’s happening in Cyprus,” says ConvergEx's Nick Colas. "If you want to get a good sense of the stress European savers are feeling, just watch Bitcoin prices."

The value of the virtual CURRENCY has soared almost 30 percent in the last two days. "One hundred percent of that is due to Cyprus," says Colas. "It means the Europeans are getting involved." As German economist Peter Bofinger warned in an interview with Spiegel Online: "European citizens must now fear for their money."