Latest news with #BrazilianInstituteofGeographyandStatistics
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Crypto Daybook Americas: Bitcoin, Ether Rise After Court Nixes Trump's Tariffs
By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise) Bitcoin BTC rose and stock index futures surged early Thursday after a U.S. court declared President Donald Trump's broad-based tariffs regime invalid. The positive sentiment was buoyed by AI giant Nvidia's upbeat earnings. On-chain data showed large wallets, those holding over 10,000 BTC, have shifted to selling from buying as the largest cryptocurrency holds close to its record high, with an increase in exchange deposits also pointing to selling pressure. Meanwhile, options market data signaled potential for volatility ahead of Friday's monthly settlement. Ether ETH, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, jumped to $2,780, the highest since Feb. 24, consistent with the bullish signals from the derivatives market. The token has been bid this week, supposedly on SharpLink's $425 million Treasury plan. Notably, U.S.-listed spot ether ETFs saw a net inflow of $84.89 million on Wednesday, extending their streak to eight consecutive days. Canada-listed investment firm Sol Strategies said it filed a preliminary prospectus with local securities regulators to raise up to $1 billion to boost its investment in the Solana ecosystem. Still, SOL was flattish at around $170. In the broader market, TON, PEPE and FLOKI led other coins higher while FARTCOIN, PI and JUP nursed most losses. Open interest in TON perpetual futures surged 33% to $190 million, clocking the highest since Feb. 18. Stablecoin issuer Circle froze wallets connected to the Libra token containing millions of dollars worth of USDC. Metaplanet issued $21M in bonds to finance more bitcoin purchases. In traditional markets, some investment banks said Trump has other tools to sidestep the court ruling on tariffs. Yields on the longer duration Treasury notes ticked higher, suggesting dollar strength. Stay alert! Crypto May 30: The second round of FTX repayments starts. May 31 (TBC): Mezo mainnet launch. June 6, 1-5 p.m.: U.S. SEC Crypto Task Force Roundtable on "DeFi and the American Spirit" Macro May 29, 8 a.m.: The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) releases April unemployment rate data. Unemployment Rate Est. 6.9% vs. Prev. 7% May 29, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) releases Q1 GDP data. GDP Growth Rate QoQ (2nd estimate) Est. -0.3% vs. Prev. 2.4% GDP Price Index QoQ (2nd estimate) Est. 3.7% vs. Prev. 2.3% GDP Sales QoQ (2nd estimate) Est. -2.5% vs. Prev. 3.3% May 29, 2 p.m.: Fed Governor Adriana D. Kugler will deliver a speech at the 5th Annual Federal Reserve Board Macro-Finance Workshop (virtual). Livestream link. May 30, 8 a.m.: The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) releases Q1 GDP data. GDP Growth Rate QoQ Est. 1.4% vs. Prev. 0.2% GDP Growth Rate YoY Est. 3.2% vs. Prev. 3.6% May 30, 8 a.m.: Mexico's National Institute of Statistics and Geography releases April unemployment rate data. Unemployment Rate Est. 2.5% vs. Prev. 2.2% May 30, 8:30 a.m.: Statistics Canada releases Q1 GDP data. GDP Growth Rate Annualized Est. 1.7% vs. Prev. 2.6% GDP Growth Rate QoQ Prev. 0.6% May 30, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) releases April consumer income and expenditure data. Core PCE Price Index MoM Est. 0.1% vs. Prev. 0% Core PCE Price Index YoY Est. 2.5% vs. Prev. 2.6% PCE Price Index MoM Est. 0.1% vs. Prev. 0% PCE Price Index YoY Est. 2.2% vs. Prev. 2.3% Personal Income MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. 0.5% Personal Spending MoM Est. 0.2% vs. Prev. 0.7% May 30, 10 a.m.: The University of Michigan releases (final) May U.S. consumer sentiment data. Michigan Consumer Sentiment Est. 51 vs. Prev. 52.2 Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data) None in the near future. Governance votes & calls Arbitrum DAO is voting on a constitutional AIP to upgrade Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova to ArbOS 40 'Callisto,' bringing them in line with Ethereum's May 7 Pectra upgrade. The proposal schedules activation for June 17, and voting ends on May 29. Sui DAO is voting on moving to recover approximately $220 million in funds stolen from the Cetus Protocol hack via a protocol upgrade. Voting ends June 3. May 29, 8 a.m.: NEAR Protocol to host a House of Stake Ask Me Anything (AMA) session. May 29, 2 p.m.: Wormhole to host an ecosystem call. June 4, 6:30 p.m.: Synthetic to host a community call. June 10, 10 a.m.: to host an analyst call followed by a Q&A session. Unlocks May 31: Optimism (OP) to unlock 1.89% of its circulating supply worth $24.43 million. June 1: Sui (SUI) to unlock 1.32% of its circulating supply worth $160.58 million. June 1: ZetaChain (ZETA) to unlock 5.34% of its circulating supply worth $11.18 million. June 12: Ethena (ENA) to unlock 0.7% of its circulating supply worth $15.83 million. June 12: Aptos (APT) to unlock 1.79% of its circulating supply worth $60.96 million. Token Launches June 1: Staking rewards for staking ERC-20 OM on MANTRA Finance end. June 16: Advised deadline to unstake stMATIC as part of Lido on Polygon's sunsetting process ends. June 26: Coinbase to delist Helium Mobile (MOBILE), Render (RNDR), Ribbon Finance (RBN), & Synapse (SYN) Day 3 of 3: Bitcoin 2025 (Las Vegas) Day 3 of 4: Web Summit Vancouver (Vancouver, British Columbia) May 29: Stablecon (New York) Day 1 of 2: Litecoin Summit 2025 (Las Vegas) Day 1 of 4: Balkans Crypto 2025 (Tirana, Albania) June 2-7: SXSW London June 19-21: BTC Prague 2025 June 25-26: Bitcoin Policy Institute's Bitcoin Policy Summit 2025 (Washington) June 26-27: Istanbul Blockchain Week By Oliver Knight Markets on the Ethereum-based Cork Protocol remain paused after Wednesday's $12 million smart-contract exploit. The attacker manipulated the smart contact's exchange-rate function by issuing fake tokens, stealing 3,761.8 wrapped staked ether (wstETH) in the process. The exploit marked another attack on the decentralized finance (DeFi) industry just days after Sui-based Cetus Protocol lost $223 million to an exploit. TRM Labs estimates that $2.2 billion was stolen in crypto exploits and hacks in 2024. Ether remains unperturbed by the exploit, leading the market today on the back of renewed institutional interest and spot ETF flows. It is up 3.8% in the past 24 hours while bitcoin is down by 0.17%. TRX, XMR, ETH, LTC and BNB led major cryptocurrencies' growth in perpetual futures open interest. Funding rates for majors, except TON, signal bullish sentiment, but nothing extraordinary. On the CME, ETH annualized one-month futures basis topped 10%, while BTC lagged at 8.7%. Signs of caution emerged on Deribit, with front-end BTC skew flipping to puts and ETH's call skew softening. Block flows on Paradigm featured demand for short-dated BTC puts. BTC is up 1.15% from 4 p.m. ET Wednesday at $108,594.41 (24hrs: -0.29%) ETH is up 3.9% at $2,738.04 (24hrs: +3.63%) CoinDesk 20 is up 2.21% at 3,278.84 (24hrs: +0.66%) Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is unchanged at 3.1% BTC funding rate is at 0.0057% (6.3006% annualized) on Binance DXY is up 0.12% at 99.99 Gold is up 0.32% at $3,304.20/oz Silver is up 1.24% at $33.41/oz Nikkei 225 closed +1.88% at 38,432.98 Hang Seng closed +1.35% at 23,573.38 FTSE is unchanged at 8,724.05 Euro Stoxx 50 is unchanged at 5,378.39 DJIA closed on Wednesday -0.58% at 42,098.70 S&P 500 closed -0.56% at 5,888.55 Nasdaq closed -0.51% at 19,100.94 S&P/TSX Composite Index closed unchanged at 26,283.50 S&P 40 Latin America closed -0.76 at 2,599.53 U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is up 6 bps at 4.54% E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 1.53% at 5,993.25 E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 2.03% at 21,814.25 E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.96% at 42,576.00 BTC Dominance: 63.71 (-0.06%) Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02517 (1.12%) Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 910 EH/s Hashprice (spot): $57.0 Total Fees: 8.03 BTC / $868,310 CME Futures Open Interest: 152,995 BTC BTC priced in gold: 32.8 oz BTC vs gold market cap: 9.30% The VIRTUAL token has topped the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement of the January-April crash. The break out above the widely tracked resistance could entice more buyers, yielding a bigger rally. Strategy (MSTR): closed on Wednesday at $364.25 (-2.14%), +2.43% at $373.09 in pre-market Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $254.29 (-4.55%), +3.01% at $261.95 Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$28 (-6.57%) MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $14.86 (-9.61%), +4.04% at $15.46 Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $8.38 (-8.32%), +2.86% at $8.62 Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $10.78 (-4.43%), +2.97% at $11.10 CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $9.11 (-7.61%), +3.62% at $9.44 CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $17.27 (-5.32%) Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $41.32 (-4.77%), +2.95% at $42.54 Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $25.94 (-25.35%), +11.6% at $28.95 Spot BTC ETFs Daily net flow: $432.7 million Cumulative net flows: $45.31 billion Total BTC holdings ~ 1.21 million Spot ETH ETFs Daily net flow: $84.9 million Cumulative net flows: $2.9 billion Total ETH holdings ~ 3.57 million Source: Farside Investors The MOVE index, which measures the volatility in U.S. Treasury notes, has dropped to the lowest level since March. If it drops further, a continued decline is likely to ease financial conditions, greasing the bitcoin bull run. U.S. Trade Court Strikes Down Trump's Global Tariffs (The Wall Street Journal): Judges said economic deficits don't meet the legal threshold for a national emergency, and said unchecked executive authority over levies violates the constitutional separation of powers. Solana Scores Twin Institutional Wins With $1B Raise and First Public Liquid Staking Strategy (CoinDesk): Sol Strategies aims to raise $1 billion to expand Solana ecosystem exposure, while DeFi Development said it is the first public firm to hold Solana-based liquid staking tokens. Bitcoin Whales Seem to Be Calling a Top as BTC Price Consolidates (CoinDesk): Large holders are offloading BTC and sending it to exchanges after a period of accumulation, while smaller investors continue buying. XRP Army Is Truly Global as CME Data Reveals Nearly Half of XRP Futures Trading Occurs in Non-U.S. Hours (CoinDesk): These contracts recorded $86.6 million in volume over six days across 4,032 trades, with 46% of activity logged during overseas sessions. Goldman Urges Investors to Buy Gold and Oil as Long-Term Hedges (Bloomberg): Goldman Sachs said surging U.S. debt and concerns over monetary and fiscal governance have eroded trust in long-term Treasuries, making gold and oil essential hedges against inflation and supply shocks. UK Seeks to Speed Up Implementation of U.S. Trade Deal (Financial Times): The U.K. business secretary will meet the U.S. Trade Representative in Paris next week to discuss implementation timelines for the bilateral trade deal announced on May 8.
Washington Post
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Why the first Latin American pope couldn't win back Latin America
RIO DE JANEIRO — Several months after he assumed leadership of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis made his first trip overseas. It was back home to Latin America, where the Argentine pontiff celebrated mass before a crowd of 3 million people on Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana beach. The message that day seemed clear: Latin America, which was home to about 4 in 10 of the world's Catholics, would be central to his papacy. By selecting Jorge Bergoglio as its first Latin American pope, the church hoped to strengthen Catholicism in a region where it was increasingly losing ground to other Christian denominations. The bet never fully paid off. During Francis's papacy, evangelical Protestantism and secularism continued to remake the continent's religious geography, especially in Brazil, long considered the world's most Catholic nation. The share of Catholics here has shrunk from 65 percent to an estimated 50 percent over the past decade, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. Within the next 10 years, researchers predict, evangelicals are expected to eclipse Catholics. 'He didn't stall the decline,' said José Eustáquio Diniz Alves, a Brazilian demographer. The region remains vitally important for the church: 27 percent of the world's Catholics reside in South America and nearly 14 percent in Central America, according to the latest Vatican statistics. But Francis's inability to reverse long-standing religious trends in Latin America despite his heritage and personal history underscores the challenges faced by Catholicism in a region where more than 90 percent of people once considered themselves Catholic — and which was once viewed as the future of the Church. 'Nobody ended up becoming Catholic because of Pope Francis,' said Rodrigo Toniol, a former president of the Latin American Association of Social Sciences of Religion. 'Nobody continued to be Catholic because of Pope Francis. And no one stopped being Catholic because of Pope Francis.' The polling firm Latinobarómetro found that across Latin America the number of people who identify as Catholic dropped from 70 percent in 2010 to 57 percent in 2020. Now some Catholic leaders appear to be abandoning the notion that the strength of the church should be measured by the number of people in the pews. 'Whoever lives the Gospel from the cross and the Resurrection does not fear the decrease in numbers," the Primada de México Archdiocese said in a statement Sunday. "Because he knows that the essential thing is to remain in Christ.' In retrospect, religious scholars said, believing an entire region's religious trajectory could be changed by a single person, no matter how charismatic or influential, was always a misunderstanding of the complexities of Catholicism in Latin America. Imported from Europe and used as an instrument of colonization, Catholicism here has always felt removed from the church's organizational structure in Rome. 'A lot of prayer, few masses,' goes the popular saying in Brazil. 'A lot of saints, few priests.' That cultural and geographic distance from Rome diminishes the impact of any one pope, Toniol said. 'Here, the pope is as distant as a point of reference as the president of the United States,' he said. 'What the pope says and does, for both good and bad, is seen as the same as the actions of any other global leader.' A 2014 Pew Research survey on Latin American religion found overwhelming popularity for the pope among Catholics. They viewed him as a transformative figure. But former Catholics — who largely told Pew that they had left the church to find a closer connection to God — said they weren't impressed. The only countries where a majority of former Catholics viewed Francis favorably were Uruguay and his native Argentina. Francis was always a divisive figure among a certain sector of Argentines who associated him with the Peronist political movement. And even his most devoted fans were disappointed that he never returned to Argentina for a papal visit. At the Buenos Aires basilica where Bergoglio once presided, 94-year-old Arminda Ester Aragón, a former friend and neighbor of the promising young priest, acknowledged that the church here is not what it once was. But Francis leaves behind a vision of Catholicism that 'reaches out, a church that doesn't just stay in the parish," she said. 'He transmitted the joy of the faith. The hope.' Marina Lauritsen, a 56-year-old teacher and mother of two who also attends Francis's former church, said his legacy is one of openness, citing his outreach to people of other faiths and to the LGBTQ+ community. 'It doesn't mean I'm in favor of that or not, but we have to recognize that they must be included,' she said. The pope's rhetoric, and his history working with the poor and the marginalized, often echoed liberation theology — a Latin American religious movement that rose in the 1960s in response to the region's extraordinary inequality and called for emancipation from all forms of oppression, both social and economic. Previous popes tried to stamp out liberation theology, seen by conservative Catholics as a revolutionary creed. But Francis embraced several of its prominent theologians, including Peru's Gustavo Gutiérrez and Brazil's Leonardo Boff. 'Pope John II and Pope Benedict, they persecuted these communities that are so strong in Latin America,' said Jeferson Batista, an anthropologist at the University of Campinas. 'But Pope Francis, precisely because he was Latino and knew this reality, he made a moral and theological rehabilitation with these leaders.' But Francis remained firm on key aspects of church dogma, including the role of women and the ban on marriage among priests. Such rigid traditionalism, religious scholars said, has helped fan a fever of religious conversion in Latin America, where priests often complain they struggle to compete with nimbler forms of Christianity. It takes years of study to become a priest. To become an evangelical pastor, it just takes a Bible. An emblematic moment came in 2019, at the Amazon synod in Rome. One of its central questions was the plummeting numbers of Catholics and the rapid rise of neo-Pentecostalism. The region was so vast, and the priest shortage so acute, that many communities were going a full year between masses. A group of clergy from the Amazon proposed reform: Extend the priesthood to certain married men and widen the reach of the cloth. It had seemed the church was on the precipice of a major reform, but Francis demurred. 'He didn't get involved in areas where there wasn't consensus to get involved,' Filipe Domingues, an expert on the Vatican at the Gregorian Pontifical University in Rome. 'He thought things needed to mature more.' His lack of urgency disappointed many Brazilian Catholics. In the Amazon, hundreds of river villages are flipping from Catholic to evangelical. Demographers suspect the losses are even more severe among Indigenous communities: Diniz Alves said he expected the latest census to show a majority of Indigenous Brazilians are already evangelical. Diego Mauro, an Argentine historian with a focus on the Catholic Church, argued that Francis did not set out to reverse Catholicism's global decline, but rather to 'coexist with it' — to teach respect for other religions and acceptance for those who find other paths to God. 'Francis had a greater impact outside of the Catholic Church than within it,' Mauro said. For an institution that has endured for 2,000 years, that usually thinks in centuries rather than years, it is still too early to draw any definite conclusions about Francis's impact in Latin America, said Batista, the anthropologist. He noted there are hints of change among church members, if not within the church itself. When Francis arrived, Brazil had six LGBTQ+ Catholic groups. Now there are 23. 'The future of the Catholic Church will be defined by the next pope,' he said. 'Francis laid the groundwork, and if the next pope goes along the same line, a new construction would be possible. But if the Roman Curia thinks he did too much, then we'll take a step back.' Dias reported from Brasilia and Schmidt reported from Bogotá, Colombia. Gabriela María Martinez in Mexico City contributed to this report.
