โดยส่วนใหญ่สร้างขึ้นบนเครือข่าย Ethereum ซึ่งหลายชิ้นมีราคาสูงอย่างมาก อาทิ Everydays: The First 5000 Days ซึ่งทำยอดขายสูงถึง 69.3 ล้านเหรียญสหรัฐ และทวีตแรกของแจ็ค ดอร์ซีย์ (Jack Dorsey) ผู้ก่อตั้งและซีอีโอทวิตเตอร์ขายไปได้ในราคาสูงถึง 2.9 ล้านเหรียญสหรัฐ แม้ว่าจะเป็นเพียงแค่ข้อความสั้นๆ นักวิจารณ์จึงมองว่า NFTs เป็นเพียงวัตถุเก็งกำไรและไม่มีมูลค่าที่แท้จริง
Christie’s is proud to offer “Everydays – The First 5000 Days” by @beeple as the first purely digital work of art ever offered by a major auction house. Bidding will be open from Feb 25-Mar 11.Learn more here https://t.co/srx95HCE0o | NFT issued in partnership w/ @makersplacecopic.twitter.com/zymq2DSjy7— Christie’s (@ChristiesInc) February 16, 2021
SPACE รายงานว่าสืบเนื่องจากรายงานฉบับหนึ่งที่เผยแพร่โดย Science and Technology Daily ซึ่งได้รับการสนับสนุนจากกระทรวงวิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยีของรัฐบาลจีน ทำให้บนโลกออนไลน์ขณะนี้เต็มไปด้วยข่าวลือว่าจีนอาจได้รับสัญญาณบางอย่างจากมนุษย์ต่างดาว
The Federal Reserve raised its target interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point on Wednesday to stem a disruptive surge in inflation and projected a slowing economy and rising unemployment in the months to come.
The rate hike was the biggest announced by the U.S. central bank since 1994 and was delivered after recent data showed little progress in its battle to control a sharp spike in prices.
U.S. central bank officials flagged a faster path of rate hikes to come as well, more closely aligning monetary policy with a rapid shift this week in financial market views of what it will take to bring price pressures under control.
“Inflation remains elevated, reflecting supply and demand imbalances related to the pandemic, higher energy prices and broader price pressures,” the central bank’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee said in a statement at the end of its latest two-day meeting in Washington. “The committee is strongly committed to returning inflation to its 2% objective.”
The statement continued to cite the Ukraine war and China lockdown policies as sources of additional inflation pressures.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell, speaking to reporters at a press conference after the decision, said policymakers “came to the view” that they needed to do more front loading to get rates to a more neutral range more quickly. “Seventy-five basis points seemed like the right thing to do at this meeting, and that’s what we did.”
Moreover, Powell said an increase of either three-quarter of a point or a half point would “most likely” be the appropriate outcome of the central bank’s next meeting in late July. Still, Powell said he did not expect increases in the size of Wednesday’s 75-basis-point hike to “be common.”
The action raised the short-term federal funds rate to a range of 1.50% to 1.75%, and Fed officials at the median projected it would increase to 3.4% by the end of this year and to 3.8% in 2023 – a substantial shift from projections in March that saw the rate rising to 1.9% this year.
The tightening of monetary policy was accompanied by a downgrade to the Fed’s economic outlook, with the economy now seen slowing to a below-trend 1.7% rate of growth this year, unemployment rising to 3.7% by the end of this year, and continuing to rise to 4.1% through 2024.
While no Fed policymaker projected an outright recession, the range of economic growth forecasts edged toward zero in 2023 and the federal funds rate was seen falling in 2024.
U.S. stocks pared gains immediately following the release of the statement and economic projections in choppy trading. U.S. Treasury yields rose while the U.S. dollar gained against a basket of currencies.
Interest rate futures markets also reflected about an 85% probability that the Fed will match Wednesday’s 75-basis-point increase at its next policy meeting in July. For September’s meeting, however, the greater probability – at more than 50% – was for a 50-basis-point increase.
The new Fed projections are a break with recent central bank efforts to cast tighter monetary policy and inflation control as consistent with steady and low unemployment. The 4.1% jobless rate seen in 2024 is now slightly above the level Fed officials generally see as consistent with full employment.
Since March, when Fed officials projected they could raise rates and control inflation with the unemployment rate remaining around 3.5%, inflation has stubbornly remained at a 40-year high, with no sign of it reaching the peak Fed policymakers hoped would arrive this spring.
Even with the more aggressive interest rate measures taken on Wednesday, policymakers nevertheless see inflation as measured by the personal consumption expenditures price index at 5.2% through this year and slowing only gradually to 2.2% in 2024.
Inflation has become the most pressing economic issue for the Fed and has begun to shape the political landscape as well, with household sentiment worsening amid rising food and gasoline prices.
Kansas City Fed President Esther George was the only policymaker to dissent in Wednesday’s decision in preference for a half-percentage-point hike.
Clashes broke out in several cities in Ecuador on Tuesday, after police detained the leader of the country’s largest indigenous organization, Leonidas Iza after he led blockades on several highways in protest against the government’s economic policies.
Indigenous groups began on Monday what they said will be an ongoing protest to demand President Guillermo Lasso freeze the price of gasoline, declare a moratorium on small farmers’ bank debts and limit oil and mining expansion in the country. Read full story
On Monday night protesters burned a patrol car and attacked police officers, extinguished a pressure pump in an oil field and damaged infrastructure in some flower farms, the government said.
Iza’s arrest on Tuesday prompted further protests, while violence rose in some parts of the country.
Hundreds of indigenous people arrived in Latacunga, south of the capital city Quito, to support Iza on Tuesday afternoon. Other marches were reported in small towns with indigenous populations.
Ecuador’s police said officers had been assaulted and several of them detained by protesters in Latacunga.
Community and student groups were also protesting against Lasso’s economic reforms in Quito in the afternoon, culminating in an attack on a police car.
Lasso has said he will not allow protests to affect economic recovery and will punish any vandalism during protests.
Ecuadorean oil company PetroOriental said it was losing production of some 1,400 barrels per day and had shuttered eight wells in Orellana province after a small group from the Yawepare community occupied its installations, blocked access roads and damaged the tires of military vehicles with spears.
Nicaragua’s Congress renewed on Tuesday a decade-long decree allowing Russian forces to train in the Central American country, a decision criticized by the United States in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The decree allows 230 Russian soldiers to enter Nicaragua between July 1 and Dec. 31 to patrol in Pacific waters with the Nicaraguan Army.
President Daniel Ortega has backed Russian President Vladimir Putin in his attack on Ukraine and the decision was expected.
Since 2012, Nicaragua’s unicameral Congress has biannually approved the entry of foreign military personnel, including Russians, into the country.
Russian state television had celebrated the decision earlier this month.
The United States expressed its concern.
Nicaragua’s Congress also approved the entry of U.S., Mexican, Cuban, Venezuelan and other Central American military personnel, specifying that it is “for humanitarian purposes to carry out joint work with the Nicaraguan Army.”
Happy the elephant will stay at the Bronx Zoo after New York state’s highest court on Tuesday ruled against an animal rights group that said she deserved some of the same rights as humans and should be freed.
In a 5-2 decision, the Albany-based Court of Appeals said the writ of habeas corpus, which allows people to be released from illegal custody, did not apply to Happy despite claims that the 51-year-old elephant shared many of the same cognitive abilities as humans.
“While no one disputes that elephants are intelligent beings deserving of proper care and compassion,” Chief Judge Janet DiFiore wrote, “Happy, as a nonhuman animal, does not have a legally cognizable right to be at liberty under New York law.”
DiFiore also said granting freedom to Happy would have “an enormous destabilizing impact on modern society” and could generate a “flood” of petitions to free animals, perhaps including pets and service animals.
She said it should be up to the legislature to decide whether to grant nonhuman animals the same legal rights as people.
Tuesday’s decision is a defeat for the Nonhuman Rights Project, which began asking New York courts four years ago to release Happy to one of two U.S. elephant sanctuaries.
The Florida-based group had objected to what it considered Happy’s imprisonment in a one-acre (0.4 hectares) enclosure at the zoo, segregated from other elephants.
Neither the Nonhuman Rights Project nor the Bronx Zoo immediately replied to requests for comment.
Two lower courts had previously sided with the zoo, which maintains that Happy is well cared for.
In spirited dissents, the dissenting judges empathized with Happy.
“When the majority answers, ‘No, animals cannot have rights,’ I worry for that animal, but I worry even greater about how that answer denies and denigrates the human capacity for understanding, empathy and compassion,” Judge Rowan Wilson wrote.
SootinClaimon.Com 