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Technology If Bitcoin was a boxer it would be a scrappy brawler that refuses to give up. But the last few weeks it has taken a pummelling, with the collapse of industry giant FTX and the arrest of its founder Sam Bankman-Fried in the Caribbean. Bitcoin is used to taking knocks, but this anti-establishment fighter was already on the ropes after its most bruising year yet. If Bitcoin was a boxer it would be lying on its back on the canvas seeing stars. It is down, but is it out? Bitcoin’s rags-to-riches rise Bitcoin has a cracking underdog story that befits a Rocky-style boxing tale.   Starting on the mean lawless streets of internet forums in 2009 it was just a featherweight prospect. Yes there was a spark of promise but only a noisy niche of fans were true believers and it was worth next to nothing – a few pennies at first. Over the years its band of promoters swelled though, helping develop Bitcoin and fight against the establishment. Bitcoin’s value rose to thousands of dollars and it started being recognised and welcomed in certain places. It started to be accepted on specialist websites or in trendy cafes. Slowly, against all the odds, Bitcoin became sought after – like a prize fighter. Thousands of imitators like Ethereum, Dogecoin and Litecoin emerged too, before in 2021 Bitcoin hit the big time, achieving extraordinary fame and fortune.   People were throwing money at it and all other cryptocurrencies and one coin cost nearly $70,000 (£57,200). The establishment too was falling over itself to invest in Bitcoin and crypto projects. ‘Watershed moment’ But then, in November that year, Bitcoin started taking losses and it has kept on getting worse, with continuing knocks and scandals leaving it at its lowest point for years in value, trust and excitement. “This is a terrible time for the crypto space and we may see even worse days to come after the recent FTX scandal. It is a watershed moment for crypto,” says Stefen Deleveaux, president of the Caribbean Blockchain Alliance. FTX’s collapse last month has been the biggest shock to crypto in years. It was the world’s second largest exchange – the entry point for millions of people to get into crypto. It was seen as one of the most trusted platforms, but collapsed into bankruptcy in days after its finances were revealed to be unstable.   FTX’s founder Sam Bankman-Fried is now in custody, accused by the US of building “a house of cards on a foundation of deception, while telling investors that it was one of the safest buildings in crypto”. Mr Bankman-Fried told the BBC he hoped he had not killed crypto. IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGESImage caption,FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s downfall has rocked the crypto world FTX has undoubtedly dealt a knockdown blow. But 2022 has repeatedly pummelled crypto. “We’ve never seen anything like this before in cryptocurrencies,” says Prof Carol Alexander, from the University of Sussex Business School. She predicted last year that crypto would crash in 2022, but admits she has been surprised by the frequency of events. Blow after blow The first major blow came in May with the sudden collapse of two popular digital coins that caused $400bn to be wiped from the value of Bitcoin and the crypto ecosystem. Do Kwon, the founder of the two Terra coins, is now wanted by South Korean authorities, which accuse him of hiding in Serbia. Numerous other smaller scandals have rocked trust in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, like Kim Kardashian being fined $1.26m for promoting an ill-fated crypto coin. Image caption,Terra founder Do Kwon is wanted by police There has also been the collapse of the previously booming Non Fungible Token market with NFTs that formerly fetched millions now struggling to sell. Massive hacks on crypto companies have also knocked confidence, with the largest seeing hackers steal $600m from the Ronin Network. With the value of Bitcoin and all other currencies sinking, large crypto companies like Celsius, Three Arrows Capital and BlockFi have gone bankrupt, leaving investors large and small out of pocket and police investigating what happened. The price of one Bitcoin, often seen as a barometer for how the whole ecosystem is doing, is now hovering at less than $18,000 – a 70% fall from its November 2021 peak. More Stories Crypto firm BlockFi files for bankruptcy The Inquiry Ethereum change cut cryptocurrency power demand S Korea says crypto-fugitive Do Kwon is in Serbia FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrested in Bahamas

Technology Former US President Donald Trump has launched a collection of digital trading cards depicting him in various guises including a superhero, astronaut and Nascar driver. The cards are being offered as a “non-fungible token” (NFT), a way of owning the original digital image. Where Bitcoin was hailed as the digital answer to currency, NFTs are now being touted as the digital answer to collectables, but plenty of sceptics fear they’re a bubble waiting to burst. What is a non-fungible token? In economics, a fungible asset is something with units that can be readily interchanged – like money.   With money, you can swap a £10 note for two £5 notes and it will have the same value. However, if something is non-fungible, this is impossible – it means it has unique properties so it can’t be interchanged with something else.   It could be a house, or a painting such as the Mona Lisa, which is one of a kind. You can take a photo of the painting or buy a print but there will only ever be one original painting. NFTs are “one-of-a-kind” assets in the digital world that can be bought and sold like any other piece of property, but which have no tangible form of their own. The digital tokens can be thought of as certificates of ownership for virtual or physical assets. How do NFTs work? Traditional works of art such as paintings are valuable precisely because they are one of a kind. But digital files can be easily and endlessly duplicated. With NFTs, artwork can be “tokenised” to create a digital certificate of ownership that can be bought and sold. How much are NFTs worth? In theory, anybody can tokenise their work to sell as an NFT but interest has been fuelled by headlines of multi-million-dollar sales. An animated Gif of Nyan Cat – a 2011 meme of a flying pop-tart cat – sold for more than $500,000 (£365,000). A few weeks later, musician Grimes sold some of her digital art for more than $6m.   It is not just art that is tokenised and sold. Twitter’s founder Jack Dorsey has promoted an NFT of the first-ever tweet, with bids hitting $2.5m.   What’s stopping people copying the digital art? Nothing. Millions of people have seen Beeple’s art that sold for $69m and the image has been copied and shared countless times. In many cases, the artist even retains the copyright ownership of their work, so they can continue to produce and sell copies. But the buyer of the NFT owns a “token” that proves they own the “original” work. Some people compare it to buying an autographed print. Is this a bubble? A day before his record-breaking auction, Beeple – whose real name is Mike Winkelmann – told the BBC: “I actually do think there will be a bubble, to be quite honest. “And I think we could be in that bubble right now.” Many are even more sceptical. David Gerard, author of Attack of the 50-foot Blockchain, said he saw NFTs as buying “official collectables”, similar to trading cards. “There are some artists absolutely making bank on this stuff… it’s just that you probably won’t,” he warned. The people actually selling the NFTs are “crypto-grifters”, he said. “The same guys who’ve always been at it, trying to come up with a new form of worthless magic bean that they can sell for money.” Former Christie’s auctioneer Charles Allsopp said the concept of buying NFTs made “no sense”. “The idea of buying something which isn’t there is just strange,” he told the BBC. “I think people who invest in it are slight mugs, but I hope they don’t lose their money.”

Business The website offering digital trading cards showing former US President Donald Trump in guises such as a superhero, astronaut and Nascar driver says the items have already sold out. Mr Trump promoted the “limited-edition cards” late on Thursday, saying one could “make a great Christmas gift”. There were 45,000 of the cards, available for $99 each, according to OpenSea, which tracks such offerings. The announcement drew criticism and mockery, including from Republicans.   “I can’t do this anymore,” Steve Bannon, a right-wing media commentator and former chief strategist for Mr Trump, said about the sale on his podcast. Anyone involved in the project “ought to be fired today,” he added.   Mr Trump, who launched his third bid for the White House last month, had triggered speculation this week after saying he would make a “major announcement”. Some commentators had expected him to potentially name a running mate for his presidential campaign. Instead, the billionaire – who frequently licensed his name even before he entered the White House – posted a promotional video for the cards on his social media platform, Truth Social. The clip featured an animated version of the former president in front of the Trump Tower in New York, who rips open his shirt to reveal a superhero costume emblazoned with the letter T as lasers shoot from his eyes. Later on Truth Social Mr Trump said the non-fungible tokens (NFTs) were “very much like a baseball card, but hopefully much more exciting”. The “one-of-a-kind” assets in the digital world can be bought and sold like any other piece of property, but have no tangible form of their own.   They can be thought of as certificates of ownership for virtual or physical assets. Advocates say NFTs are the digital answer to collectibles, but critics have warned about risks in the market, which emerged from the wider world of cryptocurrency. Activity in the space has dropped this year, alongside a plunge in cryptocurrencies. A report for the US Congress this year noted that NFT sales have been used to collect credit card and other financial information, and been subject to other scams. Move mocked Mr Trump, who has raised millions of dollars since his defeat in the 2020 election, frequently sends out fundraising appeals including one tied to holiday wrapping paper on Friday. Some on social media speculated that sale of NFTs was to help fund the legal battles that he is embroiled in. The funds would not be put towards his presidential campaign, according to the website for the NFTs.   “These Digital Trading Cards are not political and have nothing to do with any political campaign,” it said. “NFT INT LLC is not owned, managed or controlled by Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization, CIC Digital LLC or any of their respective principals or affiliates,” it added. The Trump family has explored NFT sales before. In February, Bloomberg reported that art of Melania Trump – which sold for what was then roughly $180,000 – had been purchased by a wallet tied to the creator of the image. At the time, Ms Trump said the transaction was “facilitated on behalf of a third party buyer”. More Stories Crypto firm BlockFi files for bankruptcy The Inquiry Ethereum change cut cryptocurrency power demand S Korea says crypto-fugitive Do Kwon is in Serbia FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrested in Bahamas

Business here was a time when it seemed as though Singapore would become a global centre for cryptocurrency. Authorities had signalled an early interest in harnessing blockchain technology. That, coupled with the city state’s favourable business environment, attracted digital asset companies and a burgeoning community of investors. In 2021, investment in the industry in Singapore increased tenfold compared to the previous year to $1.48bn (£1.2bn), according to KPMG, making up nearly half the Asia Pacific total for the year. 2022 could not have been more different.   Crypto assets and companies – many with links to Singapore – have imploded, causing reverberations and sparking losses around the world. First a popular token called Terra Luna collapsed, causing its sister token TerraUSD, which was largely stable, to plummet.   A few months later, Singapore-based crypto hedge fund Three Arrows filed for bankruptcy, taking down crypto exchange Voyager Digital with it. In August, crypto lender Hodlnaut became the next in a growing string of casualties. It is thought that the closures of key market players this year has wiped out $1.5 trillion in crypto market capitalisation. Then in November, billions were lost within a matter of days, when US crypto exchange FTX spectacularly collapsed because of a crippling liquidity crunch. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has since been charged by US authorities with “one of the biggest financial frauds in US history”.   For Singapore, the FTX collapse was particularly shocking. Its state investment fund Temasek had invested in the exchange, pumping in $275m over several months. Temasek says it will write down the money, and is conducting an internal review into the investment. The fund is worth more than $295bn and so the FTX investment makes up a small percentage of its public wealth portfolio.   But Singapore’s deputy prime minister, who is also finance minister, told parliament the loss had caused reputational damage. “The fact that other leading global institutional investors like BlackRock and Sequoia Capital also invested in FTX does not mitigate this,” Tail investors were hurt too, and many believe the Singaporean authorities should have done more. Nicole Yap, 26, says she didn’t flinch about investing in the exchange because so many big companies were backing it. She has lost roughly $150,000 (£122,000), but feels the onus should not be on the user entirely. “You need the regulation – the government or the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) – to say, ‘these companies are good, we’ve seen their books,’” Ms Yap says. “Just because there is a lot of scam in crypto, doesn’t mean crypto is a scam. But users don’t have a platform to find out about these things. We only have social media and crypto influencers.” More Stories Crypto firm BlockFi files for bankruptcy The Inquiry Ethereum change cut cryptocurrency power demand S Korea says crypto-fugitive Do Kwon is in Serbia FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrested in Bahamas

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Africa RnB singer Akon says his much-delayed plans for Akon City – an African metropolis on the Senegalese coast – are “100,000% moving”. Although goats are currently grazing on the site, he says that critics will look “super stupid” in the future. In an exclusive interview with the BBC, the Smack That singer also assured supporters waiting for refunds from his Token of Appreciation cryptocurrency campaign that they will receive their money back, even if he has to pay them out of his own pocket. Widely known for his string of noughties chart hits Akon, who was born in the United States but partly raised in Senegal, announced two ambitious projects in 2018 that were supposed to represent the future of African society.   The first was a reported $6bn (£5bn) city with boldly curvaceous skyscrapers. It was to run on the second initiative – a brand new cryptocurrency called Akoin. But several years on both projects have faced difficulties and delays and the site where the city is proposed to be built remains a waste ground. On an overcast day in September 2020 Akon, dressed in a powder blue suit, strode confidently onto a dusty red patch of disused land. There to meet him was a gaggle of journalists from around the world who had assembled for the hitmaker’s latest launch: a supercity packed with stunning architecture. Local people clapped as a veil was pulled back on a plaque marking the future building site. But two years on the question of whether the plans will ever come to fruition divides communities in the region. “We thought we could work on it but at this pace, maybe our children will,” one resident of the area tells the BBC. “We remain hopeful for the project. We hope that our children will stay here to work.” Another resident says they no longer believe in the project before adding “when it comes, if it finds us here, we’ll see how we can contribute”. Akon City was initially compared in the press with Wakanda, the amazing African metropolis featured in the Black Panther movies and comic books. Phase one of the city containing roads, a campus, a mall, residences, hotels, a police station, a school, a waste facility and a solar power plant was supposed to be complete by the end of 2023. But after multiple delays, little on the ground appears to have changed since the launch ceremony. “I’m only here in the presence of goats” local journalist Borso Tall tells me. “It’s completely empty… no sign of building just a long line of green trees and red earth.” But Akon remains adamant that his ambitious plans will still be realised. When we meet in central London, he admits that with hindsight “I would have gotten more things in place before promoting it.” He also blames Covid, which he says meant “everything would be pushed back two years”. However, the world was already in the grip of the pandemic when he held the ceremony promoting Akon City to international media in August 2020. “I plan to retire in that city,” he says confidently. “I don’t like to use the word the king of the city. But that’s what it will turn out to be.” “We’re trying to get the city built as fast as possible,” he says, adding that he has a lease on the land for the next 50 years and that his project has “been co-signed by the current president”.   The Senegalese government’s tourist board SAPCO recently reaffirmed their commitment to the project. “We believe in Akon city and we are all supporting Akon so the Akon city will come to life,” said Me Aliou Sow, CEO of SAPCO. “It will attract tourists and investors in the region and SAPCO is fully committed to the success of this project.” Akon says he has changed both the construction firms and architects he is working with on the project, adding that his new partners understand Africa, the terrain and have “real credibility globally”. His overall goals remain ambitious. “We want the big skyscrapers. My goal is to try to build something that people deem impossible in Africa, right?” Several celebrity finance websites estimate Akon’s net worth to be between $60-80m, leading some to question where the money will come from for a project of this size. His team claim they have an international consortium in place who will fund it with private investment. Akon said that excavation work on the site will finally start before the end of the year, adding that further announcements will be made at a youth centre he has built for residents in a local village. Construction work on Akon City he acknowledges “is yet to be fully calendered”. The initial plans for Akon City, dubbed it “Crypto City” and in August 2020 Akon said the city’s financial infrastructure would be “built off” his own Akoin cryptocurrency. But the cryptocurrency has been plagued by its own delays and struggles. “It wasn’t being managed properly,” he concedes. “I take full responsibility for that.” Before launching his Akoin cryptocurrency, the Akoin website announced a pre-sale opportunity called the Token of Appreciation (TOA) campaign. The campaign was announced over two years before the Akoin cryptocurrency itself was available. It was a fundraiser to cover the costs of launching Akoin later down the line. Money sent for TOAs was framed as a “donation” on the Akoin TOA website page but there was a special incentive to put money in during this period. Contributors were told that for every $1 they put in they would receive up to four Tokens of Appreciation which would later convert to proper Akoin. “I did genuinely believe in the ecosystem that they were looking to build,” says Marcus (not his real name) who lives in the UK. “Every now and again I’d put in a few thousand pounds.” The Token of Appreciation campaign concluded in October 2019. The official Akoin Twitter feed claimed it had raised