During the war in Ukraine, Telegram has been essential for communications. As a result, Moscow has infiltrated the encrypted messaging app’s channels to spread disinformation to Ukrainians and flood Russian users with pro-Kremlin content, indicating that when Moscow can’t block a technology, it will work to subvert and overwhelm it.
Though the world is still not on track to tackle the climate crisis, politicians, investors and businesses are waking up to the far-reaching transitions, such as clean energy, that are needed to limit the effects of climate change. That transition is accelerating, with important implications for finance, trade and geopolitics.
On Dec. 12, Sam Bankman-Fried, once described as the J.P. Morgan of the crypto industry, was arrested and charged with defrauding investors, just a month after his $32 billion cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, filed for bankruptcy. FTX’s collapse sent shockwaves through the crypto world, perhaps felt nowhere more acutely than in Africa.
Advocates of cryptocurrencies have long argued that the new technology behind them would break the government monopoly on currency regulation. The collapse of the FTX exchange illustrates why this sort of “disruption” is unlikely in the realm of currency control, which has historically been and will remain the domain of governments.