China continues it’s rise to power as BRICS leaves the IMF and WTO.  To date, China has sold off 39% of U.S. treasury bonds.  For the last 10 years China has steadily lowered it’s U.S. treasury holding and at this point China’s holdings is 39% off it’s high.

As of 2024, the United States has the largest economy in the world, with a nominal GDP of over $26 trillion. China is the second-largest economy, with a GDP of around $19 trillion. However, when measured by purchasing power parity (PPP), China surpasses the U.S., reflecting differences in cost of living and inflation rates between countries.

As of 2024, the purchasing power parity (PPP) GDP for the two largest economies is as follows:

• China: Approximately $33 trillion USD (PPP)
• United States: Approximately $27 trillion USD (PPP)

PPP adjusts for price level differences across countries, providing a more accurate comparison of the economic productivity and living standards between countries. This metric shows that China, despite having a lower nominal GDP, has a higher PPP GDP due to the generally lower cost of goods and services in China compared to the United States.

Paxos recently received approval to offer digital payment services from Singapore.  Paxos is a private company that offers Blockchain infrastructure to enterprises.  They were the ones responsible for issueing the PayPal stablecoin.  Paxos also issues Pax Gold, a digital token backed by physical gold.  They believe it’s the safest way to own investment-grade physical gold.  Paxos also have a U.S. Dollar stable coin called USDP, available on Ethereum and Solana.  Paxos is one of those companies doing big things to advance the cryptocurrency space.

The amount of bitcoin ETF on the market are exploding and we are not surprised. It’s been our opinion for some time that Bitcoin is awesome and old money is just holding it back until they have a chance to control it and make some money. As of about a week ago The nerd wallet reports 19 Bitcoin ETF, last month decrypt reported that there was 11 bitcoin ETFs.  We don’t see a sign of bitcoin going back below $50,000.

Nayib Bukele has apparently won his second term as president in a landslide victory.

Nayib Bukele Wins El Salvador’s 2024 Election – Twitter.com

Keeping it simple apparently El Salvador love their Crypto President.  Bukele has been in the for front of the news for cracking down and violence in El Salvador and using Bitcoin as a legal tender.  The eyes of the world are on El Salvador for standing behind the drastic measures taken to ensure safety and security both physically and financially.   Many are  ht

SBLOCK continues to see the SEC regulating the cryptocurrency and exchange industry as a good thing. It adds validity to cryptocurrencies and tokens as a form of exchange. The industry could use more investor protection and market integrity in the wake of the FTC scandal. The price of Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency continue to rise and fall and seems to be on it’s way up for the halving.

There are still CDBC (Central Bank Digital Currencies) expected to be released but no one except the Bahamas has actually created one. The politics of money continues while El Salvadore benefit from using Bitcoin as it’s means of exchange. The utiltiy of the BlockChain proves itself.

At SBLOCK we know that the BlockChain and cryptocurrencies are the future of Financial Technology.

El Salvador, the country that decided to make Bitcoin a legal tender has seen it’s bonds increase by 70% for 2023.  We like to call “The little country that could”.- So they did.  Now investors from over the globe are paying attention.  Such as one of my favorites JP Morgan Chase, where one of there strategist wrote,

“Although we missed a significant share of the rally, we still think there’s value across El Salvador’s curve. There’s room for this credit to keep outperforming.”

It’s another win for Bitcoin.  Coin Telegraph has the full story.

SBLOCK is looking forward to data coming out of the fed now system. A month ago (June 29, 2023), 57 institutions were said to have been certified to utilize the “FedNow” instant payment system. we look toward analyzing the data from the usage of that system.  According to the Federal Governments website, they look forward to onboarding 10,000 U.S. financial Institutions.  We do hope that FedNow welcomes financial institutions from all over the world.

Organizations that have completed certification in the FedNow Service

Participants

• 1st Bank Yuma
• 1st Source Bank
• Adyen
• Alloya Corporate Federal Credit Union
• Atlantic Community Bankers Bank
• Avidia Bank
• Bankers’ Bank of the West
• BNY Mellon
• Bridge Community Bank
• Bryant Bank
• Buffalo Federal Bank
• Catalyst Corporate Federal Credit Union
• Community Bankers’ Bank
• Consumers Cooperative Credit Union
• Corporate America Credit Union
• Corporate One Federal Credit Union
• Eastern Corporate Federal Credit Union
• First Internet Bank of Indiana
• Global Innovations Bank
• HawaiiUSA Federal Credit Union
• JPMorgan Chase
• Malaga Bank
• Mediapolis Savings Bank
• Michigan Schools & Government Credit Union
• Millennium Corporate Credit Union
• Nicolet National Bank
• North American Banking Company
• PCBB
• Peoples Bank
• Pima Federal Credit Union
• Quad City Bank & Trust
• Salem Five Bank
• Star One Credit Union
• The Bankers Bank
• United Bankers’ Bank
• U.S. Bank
• U.S. Century Bank
• U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service
• Veridian Credit Union
• Vizo Financial Corporate Credit Union
• Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.

Service Providers

• ACI Worldwide Corp.
• Alacriti
• Aptys Solutions
• ECS Fin Inc.
• Finastra
• Finzly
• FIS
• Fiserv Solutions, LLC
• FPS GOLD
• Jack Henry
• Juniper Payments, a PSCU Company
• Open Payment Network
• Pidgin, Inc.
• Temenos
• Vertifi Software, LLC

Sblock has officially cease to recommend Trust wallet to their customers. We have noticed discrepancies with transactions on Trust Wallet. Some Transactions simply don’t show up. While the balance in the wallets seem to be accurate, we have notice that both incoming and outgoing transactions simply don’t show up in the history. At this moment we no longer recommend Trust Wallet is a good means of monitoring your cryptocurrency transactions.

Chase will benefit from the acquisition of smaller banks and failing banks like First Repbulic and they have the cash on hand to buy a lot more.  They will gain access to new markets and customers and all those customers will be able to use FedNow, the federal government’s real-time payment system.  This all part of operation chokepoint 2.0.  There is an inherent danger with having too few banks to choose from.  This is how cartels are formed.    SBLOCK is keeping up with the events as they unfold and will provide guidance to our clients and customers.

There is a resolution ‘Expressing support for the Bitcoin economy in Texas‘.  This comes at a time when it seems like a lot more banks are going fail.  This declaration from Ron Desantis that there will be no CBDC in Florida seems all so well timed, as if they all know something we don’t know.