Cryptocurrencies lie at the centre of many of the questions being asked by individuals, companies and market authorities, and therefore by nation states. Their position within the economic environment is becoming more and more important for several related reasons: The large investments made by those people who consider cryptocurrencies safe havens or speculative tools The impressive rise of fund-raising in cryptocurrencies; the famous ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) mentioned in the GEAB no 122 Figure 1 – Number of ICOs and funds collected in millions of dollars from January 2017 to March 2018. Source: Coinspeaker The criticisms made of the cryptocurrency superstar, Bitcoin – on themes such as the mystery surrounding its creation, its volatility, energy consumption and so on... Hence, the approach to cryptocurrencies taken by states gains geopolitical dimensions. What strategy to adopt regarding them? Which regulation(s) to implement? How to maintain sovereignty in the face of globalised technology? The IMF, a key player in global finance, is likely to play a leading role in international coordination with the main objective of keeping control. ‘Chacun sa route, chacun son chemin’ (Each to their own way), is the current song of nation states on cryptocurrencies. An overview of the situation, [...]

The nations are angry, as anticipated in the GEAB since late 2011, and this is a logical consequence of a crisis without historical precedent, a multi-directional crisis of global dimensions [...]

Our website has been upgraded. New subscription packages, new features, new analyses... Check the brand new GEAB.EU website now! . Annual GEAB subscriptions available for only 160 euro/year; . Monthly GEAB subscriptions now [...]

Ukraine continues to create a significant barrier between Europe and Russia, forcing EU member states to abandon the dynamics of community to preserve interests intrinsically linked to the fluidity of [...]

The arrival of the petro-Yuan is of course the end of the dollar as a pillar of the international monetary system and thus the end of the unavoidability of the [...]

News on the economic front is less severe. The recovery is expected to continue in 2018, partly on the basis of these various returns to slight forms of protectionism; a [...]

For several years, in the fight between the national and the European levels of governance, it was asserted that the European level was a bulwark against nationalist ‘populisms’, a bastion [...]

As we have seen at the Davos Forum – and more generally in the recent developments over international relations – two models compete on the transatlantic stage, especially with regards [...]

A trade in goods without obstacles An abandonment of this regulation and an emancipation of the Brussels' tutelage still remain largely probable, because although a trade partnership following Brexit goes [...]

The world's biggest oil importer, China is preparing to launch gold-backed Yuan-denominated oil futures, possibly creating the most important Asian benchmark in the oil sector, allowing oil exporters to switch [...]

The link between debt and money creation is not a mystery. Generally, money is created to meet funding needs that anticipate equivalent wealth creation. Once gold was mined to create [...]

The Fed ended its QE three years ago already and, since then, it had simply maintained its stock by reinvesting the amounts of maturing bonds into new bonds. However, since [...]

The Middle Eastern mega-city project called NEOM that we have told you about in a previous issue is a real reason to hope. As mentioned last time, the Saudis would [...]