Diamond News Archives

Late last week, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro ordered a hike in the value of the country’s state-sponsored cryptocurrency ‘el petro.’

In an announcement on Thursday, President Nicolas Maduro ordered that the price of one petro be increased from 3,600 sovereign bolivars to 9,000. This move came with a 150 percent wage hike, the sixth such hike of the year as the Venezuelan economy continues its disastrous negative spiral.

“The arrival of Christmas is very exciting, so this corrective measure comes as a gift for large working families,” Maduro said.

There is growing suspicion, however, that the world’s first state-sponsored cryptocurrency still does not exist.

Venezuelan economist Leonardo Buniak explained^[1], “When the president decrees that a petro is worth 9,000 Bs.s, what he is saying is that the petro is not a cryptocurrency but a debt title that is predetermined, [which] cannot be mined. It is impossible to think that it is a cryptocurrency when its value is not given by the interaction between supply and demand.”

El Petro: The Crypto that Never Was

The petro, which was officially rebooted at the beginning of last month, struggled at the starting line^[2] once again, with underwhelming interest, a broken wallet, and very interaction with the blockchain.

And now, a month later, nothing has really changed.

The wallet is still broken, meaning the only way to actually ‘purchase’ the crypto is to go to the headquarters of Sunacrip, the operator of the blockchain, to purchase a physical certificate that will supposedly entitle owners ‘real’ petro when the wallet issues are sorted.

Related: Bitmain Faces $5 Million Lawsuit^[3]

Even if users were able to send and receive petro, however, there are currently no significant exchanges...

(IDEX Online) – The Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) organized a two-day India Jewellery Buyer-Seller Meet on December 4 and 5 in Kolkata for leading jewelers from participating countries such as Bangladesh, Bahrain, Kuwait, Malaysia, Singapore, UAE, UK and USA. <?xml:namespace prefix = "o" ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /?>

The GJEPC said the initiative aimed to offer a gateway to a huge potential market and boost investment and trade opportunities.

The objective of the first-ever trade meet at Kolkata was to invite key business decision-makers and arrange one-on-one meetings with 24 prominent Indian jewelry manufacturers showcasing plain gold crafted jewelry and studded jewelry in an effort to develop new trust and understanding at a cultural, business & professional level and to explore future business opportunities, the GJEPC said in a statement.

Addressing the gathering, Smt Rupa Dutta, Economic Advisor at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, said, “The gems and jewelry sector forms a very important part of our exports basket, it’s over 14-16 percent of our export basket. It is a priority sector for the government of India. A number of measures have been taken by the government which includes improving ease of doing business. We would like to specially emphasize that the government has been specially nurturing the gems and jewelry sector due to its high employability. The Eastern part of India especially Bengal, contributes to the Indian jewelry eco-system, as a large number of jewelry workers who are known for their skill, especially for the handmade jewelry designs are from Bengal."

GJEPC Chairman Pramod Agrawal said, “In the recent past the government has taken major steps to ease...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The dollar fell broadly on Tuesday as U.S. Treasury yields slipped, feeding fears that the Federal Reserve could pause in its rate-hike cycle, while an inversion in part of the yield curve was taken as a red flag for a potential recession.

The dollar, which started the week on a weak footing as a thaw in trade tensions between Washington and Beijing sapped demand for the safe-haven greenback, extended its fall as investors fretted about an inversion of the short end of the U.S. yield curve in bond markets.

The curve between U.S. three-year and five-year Treasury notes and between two-year and five-year notes inverted on Monday - the first parts of the Treasury yield curve to invert since the financial crisis, excluding very short-dated debt.

Analysts expect the two-year, 10-year yield curve - seen as a predictor of a U.S. recession - to follow suit.

While interest rate hikes have sent short-dated yields higher, tepid inflation and slowing economic growth expectations have kept longer-dated yields pinned down.

The dollar was 0.65 percent lower against the Japanese yen, which tends to benefit during geopolitical or financial stress as Japan is the world’s biggest creditor nation. The euro was 0.17 percent higher.

On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said U.S. rates were nearing neutral levels, which markets interpreted as signaling a slowdown in rate hikes.

The yield curve inversion and comments from Fed speakers are causing investors to rethink the potential of a recession or if rate hikes are nearing the top, said Minh Trang, senior...

The rapid decline of U.S. oil prices will test the claim of fracking companies that they can now prosper at $50 a barrel or less, a price level they have found challenging in the past.

For years, the companies behind the U.S. oil and gas boom, including Noble Energy Inc. and Whiting Petroleum Corp., have promised shareholders that they have thousands of prospective wells that they can drill profitably even at $40 a barrel. Some have even said they can generate returns on investment of 30%....